Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CAITLIN
“What a fucking game!” Sophie dashes across the floor outside the locker room and throws herself at Tyler, who laughs and catches her on the fly, dipping her down and kissing her like they’re the only people on earth and not standing in a hallway crowded with players, press, and sundry family members.
“Hey, Sal,” he murmurs, pressing their foreheads together, eyes only for her.
“Kiss me, Wildcat,” Cam says, coming up behind Maddy and wrapping his arms around her. “It feels like I haven’t seen you in days.”
Maddy laughs and turns to face him, laying a hand on his cheek. “You literally saw me four hours ago, right before the game.”
Cam grins, kissing her nose. “That’s too fucking long,” he says, bending to kiss her lips.
I turn away to give them all a minute, my eyes searching the hallway for my other friends.
Sarah is chatting with a couple offensive linemen I vaguely recognize from a party at Tyler’s once upon a time.
Maya is deep in conversation with a player’s wife who I think is a parent of one of the kids in the fifth-grade class Maya teaches.
And Emmy…is nowhere to be found. With Sophie and Maddy otherwise occupied and everyone out here talking to someone else, I am suddenly, awkwardly, alone.
I should probably leave. The hallway outside an NFL locker room is not the place for me.
Crowds make me itchy. Small talk makes me die a little inside. Sports are stupid.
I try to resist the urge to fidget, but I have no idea what to do with my hands.
This was a dumb idea.
I’m looking around trying to figure out how the hell to get out of here when a hand holding a paper to-go cup appears in front of me, and my body jolts at the deep rasp rumbling in my ear.
“Thanks for waiting, Princess.”
Drew’s body moves in behind mine, hot breath fluttering over the skin behind my ear, and I can’t suppress the shiver that rolls through me.
I know he notices because he chuckles low, the light hand he lays on my hip sending warmth cascading through me, counteracting the shiver.
I’m a flood of feeling, a superfluity of sensation, and I have yet to even look him in the eye.
Ignoring the cup being handed my way, I spin around, and looking him full in the face doesn’t help my situation.
Because Drew is closer to me than I expect, the golden ring around his brown eyes making them glow.
His hair is still damp from his post-game shower, perfectly tousled and falling over his forehead in waves I have the sudden, intense urge to run my fingers through.
He smells like sandalwood and spice, and he’s wearing jeans and a soft looking navy-blue hoodie.
The whole look is so cozy hot that for a minute I wonder what it would be like to burrow into him and never let go.
I lose control of what my eyes are doing as they drift down to the lips I once felt devouring mine and I linger there, remembering what it was like to kiss him, thinking about how much I would really like to do it again, before I realize I’ve been fixated on his lips for an unreasonable amount of time and jerk my eyes back up to his.
He’s looking at me with a raised eyebrow like he knows exactly where my mind went, and how do I always manage to lose the upper hand around this man?
It’s a mystery I haven’t been able to solve.
Without a word, Drew reaches into his pocket and pulls out a mini-Snickers, flipping it to me and handing me the cup at the same time. Whatever is inside sloshes around as I take it automatically, and my ears perk up because I know that sound.
“Is there pebble ice in here?” I ask, giving the cup a little shake and looking from it to him.
Drew grins, raking a hand through his hair. “You know it. And Sprite.”
“Why?”
When he reaches out and tucks a piece of hair behind my ear, grazing his fingers lightly over my jaw, I feel the touch right down to my toes. “One of these days, I’m going to do something for you and you aren’t going to need to ask me why I did it because you’ll know.”
“Know what?” My voice comes out a little breathy, my heart beating wildly in my chest from the way his hand trails down my throat and rests there, thumb skating over my jaw.
I wish mightily that my college or law school days had included a slutty phase where I learned how to handle men like this because I’m suddenly acutely aware that I’m way out of my depth.
“Know that I like doing things for you, for absolutely no reason at all.” His eyes turn serious.
Just the slightest bit intense. “That I think I need to do things for you, and when you let me, it feels like I’ve won the most important prize.
” Then he shrugs, the spell broken, his lips tipping up in a smile.
“Also, I happen to know the stadium concession stands use crescent ice, and that won’t do for a chewable-ice afficionado such as yourself. ”
“How do you know I like chewable ice?” I ask, mostly to try to ignore the fullness filling my chest at the way he noticed what I like and committed it to memory. Is this what it feels like to be seen?
He takes the mini-Snickers from my hand and unwraps it himself, handing it back to me.
I put it in my mouth without thinking, and when his eyes dip to my lips and back up again, that warmth in my chest turns into a minor inferno.
“You have a pebble ice machine in your kitchen and another one in your office. Not, like, the kitchen of the office where everyone can use it but in your own personal office where it’s only yours.
It was a reasonable guess. We have that ice in the training room, and I figured you would be jonesing.
” He beams at me. “Can’t have my girl drinking her Sprite with inferior ice.
Anyway, aren’t you going to congratulate me on scoring the game-winning touchdown?
” he asks with a smirk. “That was a thirty-yard reception.”
I shrug, putting a hand on my hip and trying to recover from the my girl I feel like I should hate but don’t. “Did you win? I wasn’t paying attention. I don’t even like football; I was here for the snacks.”
“Liar,” he murmurs, bending in close so he’s practically whispering in my ear, and that fucking shiver races through me all over again.
“I felt the way you couldn’t take your eyes off me.
Saw the way you blushed when I winked.” He kisses my cheek and eases back, winking at me again, and goddammit, I feel the heat rush back to my cheeks because apparently I don’t just blush now, my cheeks are stained permanently red, and from his chuckle, I know he sees it too.
“What you were, Princess, was interested. I like that I can interest you.”
I take a sip of the drink in my hand and bite back the urge to let out a happy hum at how amazing Sprite tastes when there is pebble ice involved.
Then I narrow my eyes at him, trying to regain some of the ground I’ve lost by practically melting into a puddle at this man’s feet.
“Maybe you’re just really nice to look at. Especially in football pants.”
Drew flashes me another grin and goddamn it all to hell. Ground not regained. “I’m hot as fuck Catie, but that’s not why you’re interested.”
“Care to enlighten me?” I ask dryly.
Drew lays one hand back on my neck, the other trailing down my arm, hand lightly circling my wrist. The hold is possessive, the message clear.
Mine.
I like that so much more than I should.
“You’re interested because I see you, Catie. I see every part of you—the ones you show me and the ones you don’t. I think that it’s been a long time since someone has. Maybe no one ever has. But I do. And I think you’ve been waiting to be seen.”
I swallow hard, lost in the deep brown of Drew’s eyes, butterflies swarming my stomach as his words settle between us.
And for the second time tonight, the air between us turns thick, shimmering with an unnamable something that is as exciting as it is scary.
The chaos around us ceases to exist and it’s just me and Drew and the anticipation of whatever’s to come.
“Ho-ly fuck, the sparks are fucking flying.” Tyler bounds up to us, breaking the spell as he swings an arm around Drew and grins at me. “Hey, Cait. So glad you finally made it to a game to see me play. It’s been forever.”
“Fuck off.” Drew elbows Tyler in the ribs. “She came to see me play, not you.”
Tyler scoffs. “She’s my literal actual cousin, dude. She may be your…” Tyler looks back and forth between me and Drew, clearly trying to put a title on something that isn’t anything yet.
“Nothing. I’m his nothing.” I watch as Drew laughs, clearly not put off in the slightest by my sharp tone. I don’t know why that does it for me, but hot damn does it ever. It does it for me so much I forget to mind that if Tyler is over here, that means everyone else will be over here soon too.
My family has a homing beacon for shit like this.
“For now,” Drew says, quirking an eyebrow at me.
“Oh my god, I’m obsessed with this,” Tyler says dramatically, blue eyes dancing with fun. “The playboy athlete and the badass, all-business lawyer. It’s the rom-com of my dreams.”
“What’s the rom-com of your dreams?” Sophie asks, tucking herself in next to him and sliding an arm around his waist, tossing me a grin.
Tyler gestures between me and Drew. “These two. It’s the best opposites attract story of all time. Like The Cutting Edge, but instead of an uptight figure skater, she’s a workaholic lawyer and problem solver extraordinaire.”
Tyler’s assessment of me cuts deep, and I suppress a wince, trying not to let anyone know just how hard his words hit. Drew reaches out a hand and takes mine, squeezing gently.
I see you, the gesture says.
Fuck, he was right. It does feel good to be seen.
“God, I love that movie.” Sophie grins as Tyler wraps an arm around her, kissing the side of her head, and the happiness on her face makes me happy too.