One

Chapter Two

UNFORGETTABLE

Apollo became my new obsession. I needed to get out, find a date, and make friends, but I couldn’t leave my apartment during peak watch-hours, which happened to be from seven to eleven at night. That’s when my neighbor was home with visitors coming and going.

The peephole wasn’t going to watch itself.

With stubborn reluctance, I met a guy on a dating site. Tucker Bailey was a twenty-eight-year-old chiropractor from St. Paul who enjoyed swimming, biking, and traveling.

Check.

Check.

Check.

We were a near-perfect match according to the dating website. However, it was his profile picture that sold me: lean, fit guy wearing a huge smile while crossing the finish line of a marathon … pushing a young man in a wheelchair.

A guy that wouldn’t act all weird about my superhero leg was hard to come by. Committing to my look for the evening was difficult too.

Ponytail.

No ponytail.

Bangs braided and pinned back.

Bangs tucked behind my ear.

I should have taken a night off ‘Apollo watch’ to get a haircut. The downside to my long, stick-straight, black hair, that rejected all efforts by a curling iron, was the split ends that stood out.

The strong magnetic force of the peephole sucked my eye right to it. “Whatcha doing, Apollo? Big party tonight?” I murmured to myself.

Mr. You’re Not My Type had an unusual amount of traffic around his place. Did he know I had a date and wouldn’t be able to spy … I mean, man my neighborhood-watch post?

All normal pre-date jitters, including a last-minute outfit change and a check of my teeth, were forgotten.

Tucker would have to accept my first choice of black jeans and a white V-neck, button-down blouse with my favorite leather ankle boots.

Thad’s robotic leg was benched for the night so I could feel more like a lady and less like a hybrid human.

Meow

“Trzy, I’ll feed you when I get home. We both know it will be before ten.”

She purred, slamming her body against my leg and prancing around it like a seductive pole dancer. I had to give her credit, for the world’s ugliest cat, she dripped with confidence.

“Be good.” I blew her a kiss, grabbed my phone, and opened the door. “Purse … might need my purse.” I rolled my eyes at my forgetfulness as I stepped back inside to grab it.

“AHH!”

“EEK!”

“OH MY GOD!”

I whipped around as the shrill cries from across the hall were heard by half the city.

“WHAT IS THAT?”

“SHIT!”

“MOTHERFUCKER GET IT OUT OF HERE!”

After a quick scan of the room, I grimaced. “Trzy,” I said through gritted teeth.

Two women in short dresses and high heels shuffled like ducks running from hunting dogs out of Apollo’s apartment while the cries for help continued.

I jockeyed my way through the crowd of large bodies.

There must have been a minimum weight limit to be invited to his place.

It was like a bouncer convention, except for the few remaining women that I didn’t notice right away because they were all perched on the counters and the back of the sofa with terror etched into their makeup-caked faces.

“Excuse me. Pardon me. Excuse me.” I spotted my little feline slut hunched back ready to jump on the couch and give the two cornered damsels in distress strokes or heart attacks.

“Come on, Trzy.” I scooped her up. “You weren’t invited to the party. Neither was I,” I mumbled.

“Stick, what in God’s name is that?”

I hugged her closer to me, looking up at Apollo blocking the exit. “Stupid question, Apollo. Clearly, Trzy is a cat.”

“She has no hair.”

“She’s hypoallergenic.”

“You’re allergic to cats?”

“I’m not.”

“She has three legs.”

I shrugged. “Hence the name Trzy, and it’s two more than I have.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Part of her ear is missing.”

“She was in an accident. Apparently she got tangled up in a group of bikers. I think that’s why she won’t go biking with me.”

“You bike?”

“I do.”

“With a cat?”

“Gah! No, Apollo! I just said she won’t go with me.”

“Apollo? Like Creed?” a guy behind me said with a chuckle.

I glanced over my shoulder. The Hulk hid his smirk behind his arm, masking his laugh as a cough.

The testosterone in the room dissolved my panties.

Hulk’s blond man bun held my gaze a few extra seconds, and he smelled like sex felt.

I didn’t even know what that meant, but it crossed my mind as I took a second whiff.

Visiting a gynecologist was on my to-do list. There was a ninety-percent chance that I was in heat.

“Trzy means three?” the Hulk asked with a smirk.

“Yes. That’s what the card said when she was delivered to me. It’s the Polish word for three.

Hulk shook his head. “I don’t even want to know what kind of person gives you that…” he nodded to Trzy “…as a gift. But I can tell you the number three in Polish is pronounced ‘shi’ not “tr-zy”

I squinted one eye. “The note said T-r-z-y. Tr-zy.”

Hulk shook his head. “It’s ‘shi’”

“‘Shi? Like shit without the T?”

“No. Like shit with the T at the beginning. Shi.”

I couldn’t hear him pronounce the T and, in general, it sounded like the noise Trzy made when she was hacking up a fur ball.

I shook my head. “Doesn’t matter. She responds to tr-zy.”

Hulk smiled. “It was a nice one too.”

Wetting my lips, I returned my attention to Apollo. Cocking my head a bit, a grin claimed the corners of my mouth. “He won’t tell me his name. So I’m stroking his ego with the name of a mythical god. I figure it’s the only thing he gets stroked.”

My comment was met with laughter from everyone but the large, tatted black man blocking my escape.

“Don’t take it personal, Stick. I won’t let you stroke other parts of me because you’re still not my type.” He stepped aside.

I glared at his arrogant smirk while I brushed past him.

“Oh sweet Jesus! What the—” A woman gasped.

“What’s with you people, Trzy’s just a—”

While the blonde with a wrinkle of disgust on her face was a sight to behold, she vanished the second I saw the man behind her.

“You,” I whispered.

He—my other “one”—stared at me for a long moment. The star of all my dreams for the past three years stood before me, and I couldn’t see an ounce of recognition in his eyes. Was I really that forgettable?

“Banks, do you know her?” The blonde continued to grimace at Trzy.

“Stick lives across the hall,” Banks answered.

I whipped my head around, giving him the stink eye. “Banks Apollo or Apollo Banks?”

He grinned, holding his lips in a tight seal.

“Everson Banks. Seriously, you don’t know your neighbor? How can you live next to a sports star and not know it?” The blonde sucked in a breath and turned sideways to squeeze past me and Trzy without touching us. “Cage, you coming?”

“In a minute,” Cage answered.

“Monaghan, you know Stick?” Everson asked.

Cage smiled. I died a little because really … I could barely breathe. Maybe I wasn’t so forgettable.

“Yes, I know Lake.”

He remembered my name. He remembered my name! HE REMEMBERED MY NAME!

I bit my tongue so those words didn’t actually vomit from my mouth. The tall, hunky blond with dimples remembered my name. That meant he had to remember the kiss.

His eyes shifted to my lips as I rubbed them together. Yeah, he remembered the kiss.

We both grinned.

“Ya know, you’re not allowed to have pets in these apartments, Stick.”

“Bite me, Everson.” I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Cage, nor could I wipe the ridiculous smile from my face. My cheeks hurt, but I kept smiling.

The door shut, leaving just us two grinning fools in the hallway.

Three years earlier I met Cage Monaghan, college star quarterback for Nebraska, under the worst circumstances.

My brother’s fiancée, Jessica, disappeared and our search for her took us to Omaha, where she had been living under the name Jillian Knight and in a relationship with Cage’s father.

Our lives were at risk because there were some dangerous people who didn’t want her to be found.

It was one day.

We met.

There was a connection.

We didn’t find Jessica that day. Instead, we found the man of my dreams, and he’d just lost his father to cancer.

I’d lost both Ben and my leg a year earlier.

I was a hot mess, literally and figuratively stumbling my way through life.

My need to state the obvious “I have a prosthetic leg” was cringe-worthy.

Cage was Cool Joe. To protect lives, I couldn’t tell him that I lived in San Francisco, so he believed I lived in New York.

We talked much ado about nothing, ate pizza, drank beer, and then I had to leave for New York, which was actually San Francisco. He asked for my number, but I couldn’t give it to him. I wanted to—really, really, really bad. But … lives at risk and all that jazz.

“Give me your phone number,” he called as I walked to the car.

I stopped and closed my eyes for a moment, wanting to just savor the feeling. Then I turned. “I can’t”

Cage deflated. “You can’t or you won’t?”

“Both. No, really just … I can’t”

“So you’re just going to leave me with nothing?”

My mind screamed “screw it.” I walked back and grabbed his face with both of my gloved hands, pulling his cheek toward my lips.

At the last second he turned and his lips pressed to mine.

I wasn’t going to kiss him on the lips. He did it.

He turned into my kiss. Neither of us moved.

It wasn’t a passionate, open-mouthed kiss, but it wasn’t a peck either.

Our lips simply locked, idle like a statue, neither one wanting to end the feeling because it was The. Best. Feeling.

I knew him for a few hours.

One day.

One kiss.

One moment.

One unforgettable memory.

“How…” Cage shook his head “…how long have you lived here?”

“Few months.”

“What brings you to Minnesota from New York?”

“Oh, well …” Just then it occurred to me he didn’t know the whole truth. He didn’t know Jillian Knight became Jessica Jones. He didn’t know New York was a lie. His dad died, Jillian left, and Cage moved on with his life.

Lives were no longer at risk, but the story behind it was too long to explain with an antsy Trzy in my arms and my date waiting for me at the restaurant.

“There’s more to my New York story, but I’m here looking for a change—freedom of sorts.

My family wasn’t too thrilled, but …” I shrugged.

“So … are you still playing football?” I really didn’t know.

After our one day, I stalked him and his college football career online for a solid year before I decided two things: he was a fantasy—a reason to avoid reality—and I hated football.

Cage chuckled, shoving his hands into the back pockets of his jeans. “Uh … yeah.” His brow furrowed. “I take it you don’t follow football.”

My nose wrinkled. “Not so much.” Not at all. Worst game ever.

He nodded. “I’m the Minnesota Kings’ quarterback. Banks is a defensive end.”

Not surprising, but awkward, so very awkward. It was an enormous physical feat to not grimace.

“Oh … wow.” I laughed. “You must think I’m—”

“It’s fine.”

“No, I mean … you’re a sports star. I should, I don’t know—ask for your autograph or something. Maybe we should get a selfie together.”

A brilliant idea. Face-palm. What was wrong with me?

“Wait right here.”

“Lake—”

I hurried into my apartment, depositing Trzy on the sofa before grabbing a marker from my kitchen drawer.

“What to sign, what to sign, what to sign?” I whispered to myself, in frantic search for something to sign.

“Lake?”

“One second!” I grabbed the first thing I spotted on the counter. “Here.” Stepping back into the hallway I handed him the marker.

“Crispy Rice?” He stared at the box of generic cereal I handed him with the marker. “You want me to sign a box of cereal?”

No. I didn’t. But there was no turning back so I owned my moment of insanity.

“Yes. I mean, you’re not on the box yet, but maybe someday.” Because all NFL quarterbacks dreamed of having their picture on the front of a generic brand of crispy rice cereal.

I was stubborn to the point of my own demise. Had I grabbed a tampon box, I would have held my chin up and insisted he sign it.

Cage shook his head, but he signed it.

I held up my camera. “Selfie?”

He bit back his smirk and handed me the cereal and marker then took my camera. I jumped when he snaked his left arm around me.

“You okay?”

I nodded with a gulp.

“Crispy rice on three.” He held up my camera with his right hand.

I gave my best I’m-a-cheeseball smile while holding up the box of cereal.

Dork. Such a dork.

“Thanks.” I slipped the phone into my back pocket then hugged the crispy rice box to my chest. “I’d love to stay and chat or completely embarrass myself some more, but I’m late for a date.”

Cage jabbed his thumb toward Everson’s door. “Yeah, they’re probably wondering what’s taking me so long.”

I nodded.

“It was good to see you again.” He smiled and it was genuine, not the broad-is-bat-shit-crazy smirk he had earlier.

“You too. Maybe I’ll see ya around sometime. Everson and I are pretty close.”

He squinted. “Really?”

“Oh yeah. I think he has a crush on me. It’s sweet.”

I loved the look of humor mixed with confusion on Cage’s face, especially since it brought out his dimples.

“Anyway … I’m off. Wish me luck.” I headed to the elevator.

“You’re taking the cereal on your date?”

I stepped into the elevator and turned back to him.

“Hell yes. The quarterback for Minnesota just signed my box of crispy rice. I’m showing everyone I see tonight.

” The elevator doors began to close. “And the selfie too!” It meant absolutely nothing to me to have an NFL quarterback’s signature, but since it was Cage Monaghan’s, there was a good chance of me humping the box later that night.