Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
MATT
I expected to feel a warm, curvaceous body against mine as I awakened, but instead, the spot beside me in the bed was empty. Blindly, I reached out and patted around. The sheet was cold, indicating that Chelsey had been gone for some time.
I opened my eyes and blinked as they adjusted to the dimness of the hotel room. As my vision cleared, I looked around, searching for any indication that Chelsey might still be here.
Lifting myself up on one elbow, I scanned the floor, but her clothes had disappeared.
Jesse snored softly on the other bed, lying spread-eagled on his front.
Fortunately, he wasn’t naked, just in his underwear.
He was on top of the bedspread, so he must have just undressed and collapsed as soon as he got back.
Had he seen Chelsey?
Threads of anxiety knitted together in my gut. Jesse’s clothes were dumped at the foot of the bed, giving me more reason to believe he’d gone straight to sleep, but he could be surprisingly observant at times. What if he’d noticed Chelsey in my bed before he’d fallen asleep?
He wouldn’t say anything, would he? Not with her job on the line—not to mention the team’s future. Our relationship might not be explicitly against the rules, but it wasn’t the best look either.
Another possibility occurred to me and my chest squeezed. What if Chelsey hadn’t knocked on my door at all and the whole thing had been an incredibly vivid dream?
I dropped my head back onto the pillow and buried my face in it.
Ah, there it was. A faint, sweet, fruity scent. Like her hair. She’d lain here beside me, all right; she’d just left at some point during the night.
I breathed in the scent and then turned my pillow over.
If Jesse hadn’t seen her, then I didn’t want to give him any reason to start asking questions.
I got up and padded to the bathroom, where I shut and locked the door behind myself.
There wasn’t anywhere easy for me to dispose of the condom outside of our room, so I wrapped it in toilet paper so at least he wouldn’t be able to see it and sprayed my deodorant to cover any post-sex musk.
That done, I turned on the shower and waited for the water to warm up.
There were strange things going on in my chest. It felt too tight and a little light at the same time.
It hurt that Chelsey had snuck out of the room without waking me, but I also understood it.
She needed to protect her professional reputation.
I just hoped that was the only reason she’d been sneaky, and that she hadn’t woken with regrets.
If she’d changed her mind, it would devastate me.
I showered, dried, and by the time I emerged into the bedroom with a towel wrapped around my hips, Jesse was sitting upright in bed, blinking blearily.
“Why are you awake?” he asked, rubbing his eyes. His golden-blond hair stood up at funny angles and he was clearly tired, but he didn’t seem hungover, which was a pleasant surprise.
“It’s not that early.” I checked the time on my phone. “We’re actually due to leave in ninety minutes.”
“Ugh.” He swung his legs off the side of the bed, stood in one fluid motion, and stretched. “I need coffee.”
“You and me both.”
While I got dressed, he gathered a pile of things and disappeared into the bathroom.
He was out by the time I was ready. His eyes were as bright as ever and I wanted to cuff him over the back of the head.
No matter how big of a night he’d had, it never seemed to bother him the next morning. If only I had his metabolism.
Together, we took the stairs down to the hotel restaurant and helped ourselves to food from the buffet. I stacked my plate high and carted it over to a table along with a glass of water, then returned and used the coffee machine to fix myself a much-needed caffeine boost.
I took a sip and savored the rich, bitter taste. So good. I swallowed another couple of mouthfuls until I was beginning to feel more human and then set it down and got to work on my mountain of omelet.
As I ate, I looked around, curious whether Chelsey had made it downstairs yet. She wasn’t sitting with Kim and Patrick from the documentary crew, nor was she anywhere else that I could see.
“Who are you looking for?” Jesse asked around a mouthful of food.
Busted.
“No one,” I said, not convincingly at all.
He smiled sympathetically. “Still no luck with a certain blonde?”
“Drop it.” I knew he was teasing, but it was dangerous to make comments like that. The wrong person might overhear him.
He arched an eyebrow. “You wouldn’t be this cranky if you’d come out with us last night. We met the nicest group of women. It might have been just what you needed to take the edge off your mood.”
I didn’t ask questions. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what they’d gotten up to. There was every chance we’d see a photo of his naked ass plastered across social media one of these days. Discretion wasn’t something he was capable of.
We finished breakfast without Chelsey showing her face, and I couldn’t sit beside her on the bus either.
I got there before her, and unfortunately, Nick claimed the spot beside me.
Without any reason to tell him to get lost—at least not one I could share—I had to bite my tongue and settle for staring down the aisle at the back of her head.
On the plane, she sat with the documentary crew, and it was only when we landed and were driven back to the stadium, where our cars were, that I was finally able to get anywhere near her.
I caught up to her as she was crossing the parking lot toward her SUV. It was cold outside and she wore a jacket. I wished I’d thought to put one on too, but I’d been preoccupied with catching her.
“Can we talk?” I asked.
She glanced around, no doubt noting that not everyone from the team had left yet. “Only if you’re willing to say it right here. If I invite you into my car with me, people will notice.”
“That’s fine.” No matter what I wanted, I was not going to push her into anything she wasn’t ready for. I lowered my bag to the ground, not sure how long we would be standing there for.
She popped the lock on her trunk and stuck her own bag inside, then turned to face me. “I’m guessing you want to discuss last night?”
I nodded. “Look, there’s absolutely no pressure. We don’t have to label anything between us or even repeat it if you don’t want to, but I’d like to know where we stand so there aren’t any miscommunications.”
She sighed. “Yeah, okay. That makes sense. Give me a minute.”
She clasped her hands in front of her and looked down at them, just breathing for a few seconds, remaining silent, perhaps gathering her thoughts. Maybe when she looked at me, she became as distracted as I did when I stared at her.
When she raised her eyes, there was a flash of steeliness in the blue. “Like I said last night, I want to be open to seeing where this might go, but I’m worried about two things: First, getting hurt again. Second, my job.”
I put my hands in my pockets because otherwise I might try to take hers, and this was exactly the wrong time for that.
“I understand.” I might not like it, but I thought anyone would see that her concerns were valid.
“A relationship between us isn’t actually forbidden in the code of conduct, though. ”
She looked off to the side. “Maybe not, but it’s discouraged, and I don’t want to make a reputation for myself as being the publicist who sleeps with her clients. You guys don’t need the potential negative publicity either.”
Technically, the team was her client, not individual players, but I wasn’t going to nitpick when I understood where she was coming from on both counts. Still, I couldn’t let her talk herself out of pursuing something with me either.
“Doing something once isn’t enough to get a reputation for it,” I pointed out.
She scoffed and turned that cerulean gaze back on me. “In some circumstances, it is.”
“So, where does that leave us?” Because, at the end of the day, that was all I wanted to know.
She pursed her lips. “Can we see each other quietly? You know, like just keep it to ourselves until we’re sure it’s serious?”
It was all I could do not to flinch. I already knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that any relationship between us would be 100 percent serious from my point of view.
But if waiting and dating secretly was what she needed, then that was what we’d do.
I’d already promised her anything, and after all, wasn’t this what I deserved for letting her down in the past?
“I can do that,” I told her.
A smile lit her beautiful face. “Really?”
I sighed. “Chelsey, sweetheart, I don’t think you’re getting this. I would literally do anything for you.”
Her teeth scraped over her lower lip. “Thank you.”
“No problem.”
Inhaling slowly, I crossed my fingers that I wouldn’t fuck this up.