Chapter Six
DYLAN
T he next day, after a morning walk, finger-painting, sensory play, and cookie baking, Grav decided she’d had enough of our quality time and retired to her new room to flip through her books.
I heated up some water in a MacKenzie-Childs check tea kettle I got for no other reason than the fact that I saw it in a Nara Smith video and wanted to feel wholesome and belligerently perfect. I didn’t even like tea—I was a coffee girlie through and through. Three shots, at minimum, before I started my day. But I felt like reinventing myself now that I was in the big city.
As I waited for the water to boil, I leaned a hip against the kitchen island and stared out the floor-to-ceiling windows. The apartment overlooked Central Park, and even though the park was just one small slice of lush, heavenly green in a concrete jungle, it very much felt like living in a tree house.
The water came to a boil, and I rummaged through the cabinets for tea bags, delighted to find some of the Italian staples Row and I grew up on. Caffè d’orzo, amaretti cookies in a colorful vintage tin, and grissini. A private grin tugged at my lips. My brother and I may have been born in the U.S., but we were hopelessly Italian: passionate, opinionated, and deathly protective of our family. I was grabbing my phone from the counter to call him when Kieran’s name flashed on the screen. I swiped to the right.
“Hey, handsome.”
“Hello, gorgeous,” he purred back in his deep, alluring tenor. “Changed your mind about marrying me yet?”
“Nope, but please keep trying. My self-control has always been wanting.” I grabbed a mug and the caffè d’orzo and fixed myself a cup, pinning the phone between my ear and my shoulder. Fuck tea. I was still Dylan Casablancas. “Whatcha doing?”
“Just finished physical therapy and about to hit the shower.” He groaned, and I imagined him naked, draped across the exam table, a tiny towel protecting his modesty. “The therapist twisted my legs like I was made out of playdough,” he complained. “I’m never recovering from this injury. How ’bout you?”
Lazily stirring, listening to the teaspoon clink against the delicate mug, I blew a lock of hair from my face. “Settling in at Row and Cal’s apartment. Manhattan is, um, a lot.” My laugh was self-deprecating.
“Once you get used to the big city, you fall in love with the anonymity of it.”
But Kieran wouldn’t know. Inconspicuousness was something he’d never experience again in this lifetime. He was one of the biggest soccer players in the universe. A striker for Ashburn FC, known for his lethal penalty strikes and merciless dribbling that often had defenders stumbling over their own feet trying to chase him, he was, without a doubt, the fear of every goalkeeper in the Premier League and the one legendary player every kid in Europe and South America had a poster of on their wall.
“I’ll take your word for it.” I clucked my tongue, reaching for the remote on the kitchen island and turning on the TV. I flipped through shows on the streaming service, settling on Grey’s Anatomy. Something about complicated medical conditions and drama always soothed my soul.
An ad appeared before the episode started, and I sighed. I couldn’t believe my multimillionaire brother didn’t pay extra to avoid these. Just as well, as the ad was for a Tom Ford perfume and featured soccer player Marcello Sarratore. He was lying on a golden dune in the middle of the desert, sweat gliding down his sculpted, bronze six-pack. Groomed black curls graced the expanse of his mammoth chest, along with prominent stubble covering those knife-sharp cheekbones. Sarratore looked like a real-life gladiator, all bronze and bigger than life.
I swallowed hard. “Is Marcello Sarratore taken?” I blurted out.
Wow. I really needed some vitamin D. And I’m not talking sunlight.
Kieran yawned. “Dunno. I’ve never met the guy. He plays for Inter Milan.”
“You both play in the Champions League, though,” I challenged. Since Kieran and I became friends a few years ago, I’d made a point to learn about soccer.
“We’ve never crossed paths. He only transferred to Milan two seasons ago, after staying faithful to his shitty hometown team, which was at the bottom of Serie A,” he explained absentmindedly. “Trust me, if we had, I’d have passed the ball right between his legs on my way to their goalkeeper.”
As left defender, Marcello Sarratore had recently won the World Cup with Italy.
“Besides, he’s the only soccer player in the world who is actually openly out.” I heard the snap of a waistband slapping taut skin as he put his clothes on. “So I’m afraid you’re out of luck there.”
“Marcello Sarratore is gay?” I moaned. “Figures. All the good ones are.”
Kieran was deep in the closet. In fact, our friendship had started because last time he came to visit our hometown of Staindrop, he’d pretended to hit on me, telling everyone who was willing to listen that he wanted me as his wife.
He’d been up-front about what he was doing. He’d never led me on. But he’d pursued me relentlessly, wanting me as his beard to get rid of those pesky tabloid columnists and the persistent paparazzi. He’d offered me his kingdom, all the wealth and power he’d achieved. Gravity and I would be his family, he’d said. I could even take a lover on the side. All he wanted was for the entire world to stop asking him when he’d find a girlfriend and settle down.
I never, ever criticized or questioned Kieran’s decision to be in the closet. I wasn’t the one about to be on the receiving end of the blowback if he came out. But I couldn’t help but wonder: If the macho Marcello Sarratore didn’t give two shits, why did he?
Kieran must’ve read my mind, because he explained, “He can get away with it because he’s a six-foot-five left-wing defender, built like a tank, and he screams toxic masculinity. I can’t. I’m nimble and pretty. Sports Illustrated’s words, not mine.”
I could practically envision him rolling his eyes on the other end.
“Don’t worry. I’ll come out eventually. After I retire. I’ll have my moment in the sun.”
I opened my mouth to protest, then closed it. It really wasn’t any of my business. But it hurt to know a dear friend of mine, whom I adored with all my heart, didn’t get to experience love and sex and first dates and sordid texting and uncontrollable butterflies.
Neither do you, you hypocrite.
Kieran was afraid to take a chance, but so was I.
“Enough about that,” Kieran grunted. “Tell me all about your past few days.”
“Hmm. Let’s see. My car died for the millionth time, Grav is mad at me for taking her away from her granny and Marty, and, oh, apparently Rhyland Coltridge and I are in some kind of a fake engagement deal.”
“Impossible,” Kieran said confidently. “I’ve already asked for your hand in fake marriage, and you declined. I’m richer, handsomer, and you actually tolerate me. Why would you say yes to his proposal?”
“First of all, to deflate that continent-size ego of yours…” I snorted, eyes fixed on the TV. “Second, because he needs to impress a traditional cowboy business investor, and I need a helping hand here and some money while I figure out my next steps.” I sipped my drink. “Speaking of, I do recognize a pattern here. Why do I get so many fake marriage proposals, never real ones?”
“What does it matter? You’re not ready for a relationship,” Kieran observed matter-of-factly.
“Would you be? Tucker ruined men for me.”
“You need some closure with him,” Kieran said.
“Ha.” I shook my head. “I’d have to find him first.”
There was a beat of silence on the other end of the line before Kieran said, “I’m not sure how I feel about all this. Rhyland is a man-whore.”
“Sure is. But this is strictly business. You know I don’t catch feelings.”
Whenever I got butterflies in my stomach, I called pest control, the exterminator being the memory of being Tucker Reid’s girlfriend. The cheating, the fighting, the secrets, the letdowns. He reminded me of my late father, a volatile, toxic man who was only good at two things: failing and blaming others for the outcome of his actions.
It was surprisingly easy to turn your back on love when the only love you’d ever experienced was ugly and scarred.
“And the dick?” Kieran asked bluntly. “Will you be catching it?”
“Catching, stroking, licking…” I ran the tip of my finger over the rim of my cup, my head swimming with daydreams. “Why not? We’re both single and emotionally damaged enough not to get attached. No drawbacks.”
“What about Row?” Kieran asked. He and my brother had become fast friends since Row moved to London about three years ago, though they’d started out as sworn enemies.
“Row is not the boss of me.”
“Don’t do anything stupid,” Kieran warned.
But therein lay the problem. I’d spent the past four years trying so hard not to make mistakes, not to do anything foolish after accidentally tangling my destiny with Tucker’s, that I hardly did anything at all. Maybe moving to New York marked the beginning of a new me. Or, more likely, the old me. The me who took chances. The me who was bold and curious and creative and fun. The me who’d learned Latin one summer because it seemed interesting, played every sport at school for the fun of it, and kissed strangers in theme parks just so she could pocket the memory and win a bet.
Well, maybe not that last part.
The doorbell rang, along with the phone app, to signal someone was outside.
“Look, I gotta go.” I pushed off the kitchen island. “Someone’s coming.”
“That someone better not be you,” Kieran tutted. “Last time you came, it ended in an unwanted pregnancy, a runaway groom, and a small-town scandal.”
“You’re being a prude.”
“No. I’m being a bitter old hag,” Kieran corrected primly. “If I’m not getting some, neither should you. We need to start a Hot Sexless People club. We’ll be the founding members. We’ll have bingo nights—”
“We’re abstinent, not eighty.”
“Fuck that, Dyl. You and I both know bingo is a badass activity, and once you sit down for it, it’s the bomb.”
The doorbell rang again. I didn’t remember ordering a stage-five clinger.
“I gotta go.”
“Okay. Remember. No catching feelings.”
I hung up on the ridiculous man, shaking my head as I made my way to the door.
Me. Catching feelings. For Rhyland Coltridge.
Hell would become a ski resort first.