Chapter Eight
THE KISS
CAGE
“Something funny?” Kevin, my massage therapist, asked as he kneaded the hell out of my calves.
“Friend? A she?”
“Officially, yes. She is a friend.”
“Unofficially?”
I stared at my phone screen. “Unofficially, I can’t stop thinking about her. I met her right after my dad died. It was just one day, but she made one hell of an impression on me. I saw her at Banks’s birthday party. She lives in the apartment across from his and … I don’t know.” I shook my head.
Cage: How do you like your coffee?
Lake: I like it as tea, honey – no milk.
Cage: See you in the morning. I might even bring the sun with me.
Lake: I fear you’re making fun of me.
Cage: Never.
“What about Kelsey?”
“I broke up with her the night of the party. We weren’t that serious, so there wasn’t any drama or shit like that.
But it was impulsive and I’m not impulsive.
I saw this girl holding quite possibly the ugliest cat in the world, and she was all-over-the-place crazy, yet I found it so damn sexy.
” I laughed just thinking about it. “She doesn’t follow football so she had no idea what I do. ”
For some reason I liked that she didn’t follow football.
“She ran into her apartment and grabbed a permanent marker and a box of generic cereal then asked me to sign the box.”
Kevin laughed. “That had to be a blow to your ego, like she was trying to acknowledge your fame to not offend you.”
“Actually, it had the opposite effect on me. She doesn’t seem like the type who tries to impress anyone, yet she’s one of the most impressive people I’ve ever met.
Crazy, but impressive. Anyway, she was leaving to go on a date and it messed with my head.
I tried to enjoy the party, took Kelsey home, and ended it. ”
“Girls messing with your head two months before training camp probably isn’t the best thing for someone in your shoes.”
Tossing my phone on my bag, I rested my head on the table and closed my eyes. “You’re probably right.”
LAKE
More bang bang bang, but a different rhythm. Not Everson. Why can’t a girl get some decent sleep?
Meow
“Meow yourself. Get the door. Impress me. I don’t let my disability hold me back.” I rolled toward my clock. Mornings were not my thing. My brain refused to work properly until noon.
“Shit!” The half-packed suitcase on the floor gave my memory a quick jolt. “Shit, shit, shit … I’m so late. Why didn’t my alarm go off? Why didn’t you wake me, Trzy?”
I scrambled to the door.
Eye.
Peephole.
Shit shit shit!
I threw open the door. There wasn’t one single second to spare to look at the man of my dreams standing before me in a pair of dark blue jeans and a blue shirt that matched his eyes, but I took the second anyway.
“You did tell me 7:30, right?”
I jumped out of my daze. “Yes, ugh … I overslept. Come in.” I hurried back to my bedroom. No time for a shower.
“Anything I can do?” Cage called.
“Feed Trzy. Bowl is on the floor, food’s in the cabinet by the fridge. And if you wouldn’t mind sifting the shit out of her litter box, it’s in the laundry room. Trash bag is under the sink.”
When I decided to impress a guy, I went all out.
The worst day ever to oversleep? The day I flew to China and NFL hottie offered me a ride.
I threw myself together and it wasn’t pretty.
Then I threw the rest of my stuff in my suitcases.
By the time I made it to the kitchen, Trzy had her nose buried in her food dish and Cage waited by the door with a spark of amusement lighting up his face.
I gave him a weak, very apologetic smile. “I’m aware that I just crossed a line by asking you to scoop cat poop for me, but Mrs. Leonard in 2A just had back surgery; she’ll feed Trzy for me, but I didn’t want her to have to scoop poop, so I thought it best to leave with it clean this morning.”
“It’s fine.”
Double checking for my passport in my purse, I shook my head. “It’s not fine. I don’t know how I manage to oversleep all the time, and you got up extra early to do this for me this morning—”
“I’m up before six every morning. I got in a run, showered, and ate breakfast already.”
I looked up, slinging my purse over my shoulder. “Wow, you must go to bed really early.”
Cage shrugged. “Eleven most nights.”
“Early.” I wheeled my two suitcases to the door.
“Eleven is early?”
“A bit, but what do I know? Ready?”
He took my bags while I said goodbye to Trzy and locked the door.
“Your place—the decorating is really cool. Did you hire someone?”
“Nope.” I beamed as the elevator descended.
“I used to love fashion, decorating, designing … all that artsy stuff. That’s what I started studying in college before the accident.
” I laughed. “Shoes. I loved shoes—sexy, beautiful, ankle-breaking, toe-mangling shoes. I spent every paycheck on shoes. Stupid.”
I shook my head. “It’s crazy how life puts things into perspective.
My mom hauled off all my fancy shoes after the accident.
I couldn’t even look at them. Then one day…
” I gave him a shy glance as we stepped off the elevator “…I met this guy. It was just one day, but he changed my whole world. He was the guy girls would sell their souls to be with, and he flirted with me and then he kissed me. And even though I feared I would never see him again, I walked away with this crazy confidence that I’d totally lost the day of the accident.
I wanted a new leg, one that I could use with high heels and that I could paint the toenails. And shoes … I wanted sexy shoes again.”
Cage opened the door to the front of the building. “Me? That was me?”
I nodded with an enormous grin. “Yep.”
He shook his head with a smile that rivaled mine. “That’s just … so crazy.”
Parked in front of the building was the same truck he had in Omaha.
“Wow. You still have this truck? No ridiculously expensive sports car for Mr. NFL?”
Cage loaded my bags in back. “Not yet.”
He shot me a frown when I didn’t wait for him to open my door.
I shrugged with a grin. As he climbed in, I fastened my seatbelt, adjusted the strap, and tugged it several times.
Then, I reached over and gave his seatbelt a firm tug.
It was instinct. He looked at me with narrowed eyes for a moment. I looked straight ahead.
“Here.” He pulled a cup from the holder between us. “Tea with honey, no milk.”
My mouth said thank you, but my heart said I love you. My brain was removed from the equation.
“Anyway…” he continued, pulling away from the curb “…I can’t trade my truck in until I can no longer imagine my father’s disapproving face.
He was the epitome of practical. I already know I’ll be grounded in the afterlife for the house I purchased, and compared to other players’ homes, it’s quite conservative. ”
“As conservative as Everson’s?”
He chuckled. “You both live in luxury apartments, emphasis on luxury. All I can say is testing prosthetics must pay quite well.” He gave me a quick sideways glance.
I smirked.
“Everson has one more year before he becomes a free agent. I have no doubt we’ll keep him, but he had an offer on his mansion—and it was a mansion—so he sold it and leased the apartment until he knows for sure where he’ll be in another year.”
“It must be hard to put down roots as a professional athlete.”
“Depends. Some players stay with the same team for their entire career.”
“Is that what you hope to do?”
“Sure. If I’m on a good team and getting to play, that’s the dream.”
I nodded. After a few minutes, I reached for the radio. “No docking station for your phone in here. You’re so old-school in this truck. Time to get personal. What’s programmed into your radio?” Flashing him a devilish grin I turned on the radio. “Country?” I grimaced.
He shrugged, keeping his eyes on the road, a small grin teasing his lips.
I pressed the next preset button. “Country.” I shook my head and pushed the next button.
“Country.”
Next button.
“Country.”
Next button. “Oh thank God. Pop-rock.”
“I ran out of country stations in this area.”
I chuckled. “Wow … so you’re a country boy.”
Cage smiled. “Not in the cowboy sense, but yes, I like country music. I take it you don’t?”
“I like some of the crossover artists, but most of it is too twangy for me and some of the lyrics are just too sad—my girl left me, my guy cheated on me, my truck has big tires, and my dog died.”
He coughed a laugh. “Because cock-rock is so much better. Let’s see … I’m pretty sure most of those songs are about sex, drugs, prostitution, and rich people buying shit.”
The tea in my mouth tried to come out of my nose as laughter filled my chest. “Cock-rock? Like … getting your cock rocked?”
“So you’ve heard the term?”
“No.” I giggled some more. “That’s not a real term.” Tapping my finger on the console between us, I shrugged. “But at least the voices are sexy, not twangy.”
“So it’s not what someone says, it’s how they say it?”
“Exactly.” My head bobbed in an exaggerated nod.
“So I could call you a whore, and tell you to bend over while I snort a line off your sweet ass with a hundred dollar bill before I fuck you, and if I said it in the right voice it would sound sexy to you?”
“Pfft … no.” I rolled my eyes. Then, of course, I wondered if the “sweet ass” comment was literal or just a lyrical example.
Okay, it might have sounded sexy to me. I wasn’t going to ask him to actually say that in his sexiest voice, but it sure left me thinking about the songs I liked.
Then I focused on the actual lyrics … yeah, he could have said that to me and made me want to let him do it.
The religious sector was right: music was corrupting young minds, and I was one of them.
A unique and catchy beat could make people dance and celebrate some really terrible shit. Not. Good.