Chapter 27
CHAPTER 27
ESME
Between closing on my house, starting to move, and then a ten-day trip to various cities west of here to meet up with some of our scouts and discuss potential contracts with up-and-coming players working their way up in the various leagues, I’d barely stepped foot in my office in over two weeks for more than five minutes at a time. The last time I’d been to the arena, it had been to grab a folder off my desk before popping my head into Jake’s office, sharing a kiss that lasted longer than it should have, then running to the airport to catch my flight the previous Monday morning.
Thanks to all the traveling and chaos in my life, Jake and I had been communicating mostly through texts and infrequent calls whenever we were both free and awake at the same time. Those texts and calls had given me a new insight into Jake, his likes, and his interests. They had also given us both a chance to ask more questions and sort out feelings without having the pressure of being face-to-face or feeling embarrassed.
While it had been nice, I had tired of it well before my plane landed in Nashville on Wednesday morning. I suspected Jake had as well because he’d sounded tired and distant since the weekend despite hanging out with his friends all day Sunday watching a movie marathon. Trent said it was mind-numbing and he and the other Daddies had played cards and relaxed. He’d also mentioned Jake had seemed a bit off.
I’d been worried about him before the weekend, but it had only gotten worse since Trent had told me Jake hadn’t been himself. But even when I’d asked how he was doing, Jake had sworn he was fine. Anxiety was preparing me for Jake telling me he needed more consistency and didn’t want to be in a relationship when he only saw someone once in a while. However, logic kept reminding me Jake had told me he sometimes got in his head and it was hard to get out of it. I could only hope it was the latter because I had already developed strong feelings for him and we’d barely spent actual time together.
I gathered my bags as soon as they were available and headed to my car to chuck them into the back seat. It was a little after noon in Nashville and I’d already put in a full day between waking up early, having a working breakfast meeting in the airport lounge with a colleague out of state, then the flight back to Nashville. Thankfully, I’d slept the entire way from Seattle to Nashville and I was feeling somewhat functional because all I wanted to do was get to the arena and see Jake and find out if he was okay.
Just as I made it to my car, the gray skies opened up and icy rain poured down from above. Winter in Nashville was different than Boston. Had I been in Boston, this rain would have been snow. With freezing droplets of water running down my back, I wasn't sure which I preferred. “This better not be how my entire day is going to go.” I didn’t bother with the trunk and chucked my bags into the back seat of my car before sinking into the driver’s seat and slamming the door shut. “Fuck!” I was completely soaked.
I was still in the process of shaking the water out of my hair and letting the engine run for a minute before putting it in gear when my phone rang. I didn’t bother opening my eyes and pressed a button on my steering wheel. “Hello?”
“Bad time?” Cass’s voice filling my car was familiar and I could hear the smile in her question. She was well acquainted with my gruff tones, especially if I was annoyed.
“The goddamned skies opened up as I was getting into my car. Freezing cold rain. I’m soaked from head to foot.”
A bird chirped in the background. “I always tried to convince you to sign in SoCal or Florida.”
“Let me guess, you’re on a beach with your wife right now?”
Cass giggled, a sure sign she’d been drinking. So this is a social call. “Soaking up all the Vitamin D the sun will give me while drinking my lunch.”
I rolled my shoulders, then my neck, and felt numerous joints and vertebrae pop. Damn travel always fucks up my back . “So what do I owe the pleasure of your call if you’re on vacation?”
“My phone notified me your plane landed. I figured it would be a good time to catch up and see how you’re doing in Nashville. You’ve been suspiciously quiet.”
“I leave for three minutes to get us new drinks and you’re already working?” Ebony’s exasperated sigh had me smiling. The two were relationship goals in my book. They played off one another and completed the other to the point I couldn’t imagine Cass without Ebony or Ebony without Cass.
Cass clucked her tongue and I could imagine the wave of the hand she did when she was playfully annoyed at her wife. “I’m not working. I don’t mix work with mai tais. I was just calling Esme to see how he’s doing in Nashville now that he’s settled down.” She focused back on me. “And you’ve still not told me. So spill.”
“Remember the guy in the bar photos?”
“The one you were obsessing over all summer and wanted to protect enough you gave up your career for? Then he wrote you a ticket and you fucking swooned over knowing his name. How could I forget him?”
“I didn’t give up my career for him.” And I hadn't swooned.
Cass wasn’t buying it. “Mm-hmm. Well, I remember.” I heard her take a sip of her drink. “Oh my god, babe, can we find this bartender and kidnap them?”
With Ebony laughing in the background and declaring kidnapping the line she wouldn’t cross for Cass, I decided it was time to tell Cass Jake and I were working together. Or at least next to each other. And we were figuring shit out. I had wanted to call her and tell her so many times before then, but something had always held me back. The fear of the unknown, the newness, the confusion of seeing myself as a Dom to anyone, much less a Daddy to a little who wanted snuggles and to play with his toys. It was so much bigger than a relationship and it had taken a while to wrap my head around.
After thinking about the possibility of him being done with me, my stomach was in knots and I needed to tell her and make it real. More real than the decorator who’d been in my house working in the den while I’d been gone.
I’d seen pictures every day of the progress from drab green walls, discolored wood flooring, and wood paneling around the fireplace, to the new light gray walls with bright white trim, plush white carpet, and a brand new fireplace accent wall with clean geometric lines. The room looked twice the size it had when she’d started. The last picture I’d received had been from three hours earlier of the box truck with the furniture as it backed into my driveway. By the time I got home, the den would be completely transformed and I’d be left to fill it with everything Jake loved.
Thinking about Jake had a smile on my face as I said, “He works at the arena now.”
“He what? ” Cass’s voice rose so high, I swore my ears were ringing.
“He started there before I did, actually. He’s now a sergeant and got a job as head of security slash police officer at the arena. I’m honestly not sure how it all worked out. I just know it did.”
“And you’re just now telling me this?”
I lifted a shoulder. “I didn’t know how much there was to tell before.”
“If there wasn’t something before, but there is now… does that mean you’re hooking up? Because if the look on your face when you saw those pictures was anything to go by, that man rocked your fucking world.”
I rolled my eyes at her despite the unavoidable smile on my face. “No, it’s not like that. Not really. At least not yet. But we’ve been talking… a lot. And I think it’s moving in the right direction.”
Cass sighed and Ebony’s matching sigh was close enough I knew she was sitting next to her wife, listening in on the conversation.
“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I really like him. He brings out something in me I didn’t know existed.” It was the best I could say without saying he wanted me to be his Daddy.
Ebony’s voice was warm as she spoke. “I can say this honestly, Esme, and please don’t be offended. I didn’t like you the first few years you were Cass’s client. I never understood why Cass refused to give you to another agent.”
My mouth hung open as she spoke. I’d never known she didn’t like me. “What?”
She laughed. “For a few years! Not this entire time. You’re kind of like a fungus and grew on me. It wasn’t until this fall, though, that I finally understood why she likes you so much. You’re a good guy. A little rough around the edges but you have morals and a character I can appreciate. I don’t know the guy you’re talking about right now, but given you gave up the career you worked your entire life for instead of denying it was you, I know he’s special. And I know you wouldn’t be saying what you are if he wasn’t.”
“Thanks… I think.”
Cass scoffed. “Seriously? You’re going to tell him you didn’t like him when he tells us he’s falling in love?”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa! No one said anything about love!”
Ebony’s eye roll was audible in her words. “No. We didn’t have to. It’s in your voice.”
“I don’t know if we’re even a thing at the moment. He’s been off since this weekend. I don’t know if he’s just stressed out or if he’s done and hasn’t wanted to tell me over the phone.” I winced when I shut my mouth. I hadn’t meant to say those thoughts out loud, but they were there now and I couldn’t bite them back.
Cass hummed and I could hear her long nails tapping against her glass as she thought. “You’re never going to know until you talk to him. But you better let him know how much he means to you.”
“I plan to. As soon as I can get to the arena.”
“Then go! Begone with you. Goodbye!” The line went dead and the radio kicked on before I could react. It left me with only one thing to do—go find Jake.
Traffic was barely at a crawl down Demonbreun. I still laughed when I turned on this road. It didn't matter how many times people swore it was Duh-MUN-bree-uhn because when I’d first moved to the city, I’d sworn there was an a in it and had called it Deamonbreun for weeks. I still pronounced it Dee-mun-br-uhn and smiled inwardly every time someone looked at me like I’d lost my mind.
As I continued to crawl down the street, a slow pace even by Nashville standards, I assumed the rain was to blame.
When I got to the corner to turn onto the road to the arena, I saw a police officer directing traffic around water spewing from a fire hydrant. The hydrant was hampering the efforts to clean up the wreck that had caused the break in the first place.
The officer was wearing a sweatshirt and a high-vis vest he’d clearly borrowed from one of the workers but was otherwise not dressed for the weather and soaked to the bone. His sandy blond hair was plastered to his head, his clothes were wet enough they could be wrung out, and he was standing in a puddle of ankle-deep water. The khaki cargo pants clinging to his thick legs was what finally kicked my brain into gear.
Jake .
The man was going to be sicker than a dog dressed like that. There was no telling how long he’d been out in the rain, and it didn’t really matter. He was so unprepared, a minute or an hour would yield much the same results. I couldn’t stop where I was without causing another wreck, so I turned the corner and ducked into the underground lot as soon as I could.
My dashboard swore it was fifty-two degrees, but with the lack of sun, I knew it felt far colder. While I hadn’t packed for monsoon conditions, I’d been in Minnesota at the beginning of my trip and had packed for the cold. As soon as my car was in a spot, I threw it into park, killed the ignition, and ran to the back to grab what I could for Jake. First was a heavy sweatshirt and my all-weather winter coat I'd complained about taking up half my suitcase as I’d packed, but now I was glad I’d done so.
In the pocket behind the passenger seat, I found my umbrella. Looking down at myself, I knew my dress shoes and suit wouldn’t be a match for the weather outside. At any rate, I was still wet from the airport and as soon as I stepped outside, I would be drenched. I could at least lose my suit coat and not be weighed down so much. The coat I usually treated with the utmost care got chucked haphazardly into my back seat and I slammed the door shut. I pulled my sweatshirt on as I jogged toward the street entrance and was zipping my coat up by the time the first of the rain hit my face.
Even with my umbrella, rain was pelting my coat before I made it to the first corner. A gust of wind turned the umbrella inside out halfway down the second block and my feet had begun squishing in my shoes. I gave up on the umbrella a few steps later and spent the rest of the block fighting to get the mangled item tamed enough to close it. At least Jake was finally in my line of sight.
Extra police cars had arrived and it looked like Jake was no longer directing traffic but talking with another officer. I continued my trek as quickly as I could in my dress shoes and finally made it to the corner in time to see Jake shake his head and turn back toward the building.
He’d made it all of three steps before he saw me and his eyes shot open in surprise. “Esme, what are you doing here? I thought you were still in Seattle!” He came over to me and I could see how exhausted he was.
The bruise under his eye had faded a week ago, but had I not known that, I’d have been hard-pressed to believe it thanks to the bluish circles under his eyes. I shrugged the coat off my shoulders and held it out to Jake, and the sweatshirt I’d put on became soaked immediately. “You’re going to get sick!” I called over the sound of the water gushing from the hydrant and the pouring rain.
Jake tried to push the coat back at me, his fingers cold as they pressed against mine. “No reason for both of us to get sick!”
I pursed my lips and stared at him, trying my hardest to show him I was serious. “I will be fine for the next two blocks. You, however, are an ice cube!” My shirt and sweatshirt were waterlogged and heavy and my pants clung uncomfortably to my legs. All I wanted to do was dump out my shoes and get under a warm blanket and I’d been outside all of five minutes. “How long have you been out here?”
Jake shrugged into the coat and I helped him zip it up, then I wrapped my arm around him and started guiding him toward the arena. I could feel him shivering under my arm. “Since the accident happened. I don’t know. Shortly after the rain started. I’d been heading back from lunch and I heard the crash. I came running up here. It couldn’t have been that long, though. Maybe ten or fifteen minutes?”
Like most heavy rains, it was coming in fits and spurts, dumping copious amounts of rain one minute and slowing the next, only to pick up once again a few minutes later. By the time we’d gotten to the arena, it was back to a sprinkle and I was pretty sure I was seeing the end of the system, or at least a break in it, heading our way.
Jake’s entire body shuddered when we made it into the lobby off the street entrance and were hit by a blast of hot air from the heater above the door.
My only focus was getting him dry. “Do you have dry clothes here?”
“I keep a clean set of gym clothes in my bag in my office.” His teeth chattered slightly as he spoke.
I wrinkled my nose. There was no way those would be warm enough. “Let’s go downstairs. I’ve got warm clothes in my car. I’m sure there are plenty of towels in the players’ gym for you to dry off while I go get them.”
I hadn’t finished talking and was already leading us to the elevator. It opened and we came face-to-face with Easton and Brax. Their eyes widened at the sight of us and they stepped back onto the elevator. “What do you need?” Easton asked me as soon as I punched the button for the lower level.
“Towels. Lots of them. He’s been outside directing traffic around a car wreck. He’s frozen to the bone.”
Easton looked me up and down. “You don’t look much better yourself, Cap.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’ve only been outside a few minutes, and most of that time I was wearing my coat.”
The doors opened and Brax stepped off first. “Come on. I heard the dryer ding a few minutes ago. I bet there are warm towels somewhere down here.” He took one side of Jake and Easton took the other and they began leading him toward the gym.
“I’ll be right there. I’m going to go get clothes for us out of my car.”
Easton waved his hand but didn’t turn toward me. I took three steps before my feet squished and slipped under me. I stopped, toed off my shoes, and jogged out of the doors and to my car, jumping with each step as my feet made contact with the cold cement. I didn’t dare stand still long enough for the cold to really permeate through my body. All I wanted to do was get back to Jake.