4 #2
“She has a nagging injury in her left knee that she constantly hides and downplays in front of the coach. She flat-out refuses to get it treated properly because she believes that admitting any kind of physical weakness is equivalent to disappearing from the professional scene. And as for me… well, the coach has saddled me with the task of having to work with her one-on-one in mandatory private sessions every day.”
“And you, as a proper emotionally controlled woman with a college degree, a savior complex, and years of experience dodging love at first sight, have decided you’re going to be the heroine who saves her from herself,” Dani asserts, arching one eyebrow to impossible heights.
“I’m not trying to save anyone!” I protest immediately, sitting up straight in my chair and feeling a flush of heat rise within me.
“Of course not, I almost forgot,” he says, dripping with hilarious sarcasm. “You’re just trying by any means necessary to prevent a drop-dead gorgeous soccer player from destroying her promising career out of pure pride. All very professional and impartial of you, yes, ma’am.”
Dani rests both elbows on the wooden table and clasps his hands just below his chin, watching me with an intensity that makes me nervous.
“Come on, Clara… Is the girl in question really hot or what?”
I shoot him a murderous glare that could wipe out an entire army, but he just smiles broadly.
“All right, that deathly silence of yours also answers my question, my dear friend.”
“Dani, you’re crossing the line…”
“Clara…” he mimics, perfectly imitating my warning tone.
I take a deep breath, nervously twirling the stem of my glass between my fingers.
Inevitably, a vivid image of Alicia pops into my mind: I remember her with her hair still damp from her shower at the gym, wearing that workout T-shirt that clings to her skin, highlighting every muscle, and with that absurd yet magnetic way she invades my personal space; with insolence etched on her perfect features and that fixed, dark, brazen gaze that seems to strip me bare without even touching me.
Damn, she’s a force to be reckoned with, I think to myself.
“She’s really an unbearable woman,” I finally declare aloud.
“What you’re telling me still doesn’t answer my question about whether you’re attracted to her.”
“She’s incredibly unbearable, haughty, and brazen,” I insist, trying to convince myself.
Dani lets out a brief, warm, mischievous laugh that echoes throughout the living room.
“You can’t pull the wool over my eyes, Clara.
What frustrates you and drives you up the wall isn’t that the girl is unbearable.
What’s eating you up inside is that you’re obligated to maintain that blessed medical professionalism instead of ridding her of her unbearable nature with some good, hard kisses and wild bites. ”
I’m so shocked that I come within a millimeter of choking on my sip of wine. I cough immediately.
“Please, tell me you didn’t just blurt out something that outrageous in my own home!”
“I just said it out loud, and besides, I know perfectly well that I’m absolutely right. I can see it in the look on your face, Clara. There’s definitely some intense chemistry between the two of you, a sexual tension you could cut with a knife… and it terrifies you like nothing else in this world.”
I jump up from my chair, more out of a physical need to move and escape his truths than anything else. I can feel my heart pounding against my ribs a thousand miles an hour.
“You’re not even remotely right,” I mutter, turning my back on him and heading for the kitchen.
“Oh, I certainly am,” he says, rising from the table as well to follow me closely to the counter. “That response of yours would be much more convincing if you weren’t clutching that knife and slicing the bread as if the baker had personally offended you.”
I stare at the knife I’m clutching in my right hand, realize how tightly I’m gripping it, and set it aside on the cutting board with the utmost care, as if it were burning.
“Absolutely nothing is going to happen between that player and me—I assure you,” I declare in a firm voice.
“But I never said anything had to happen. It’s just a simple observation from an outside observer.”
“You’re implying it with that little smirk of yours.”
“No, I’m not implying anything. What I’m clearly telling you is that you’ve spent a lot of years hiding behind your work schedule as if the mere act of having feelings for a woman were an unforgivable professional lapse. And that forward seems to have found the first major crack in your icy armor.”
The kitchen is plunged into a thick silence for a few moments. All you can hear is the constant patter of rain lashing against the windows outside and the rhythmic sound of our breathing.
“I don’t need this kind of express psychological therapy on a Tuesday night, Dani.”
He softens his mocking expression, takes a step toward me, and places an affectionate hand on my shoulder.