Chapter Eight
Alexei
I’ve just boarded a plane to California, but all I can think about is the woman and baby I’m leaving behind.
It took quite a bit of convincing to get Ryleigh to stay at my place while I’m away this weekend.
I almost thought I’d have to threaten to tie her to a chair, but in the end, she finally agreed.
It should be strange, I’ve known her only a handful of days, and yet I trust her completely in my personal space.
My agent, Slate, thinks I’m insane, but he hasn’t met Ryleigh. She’s the furthest thing from a gold digger you could find. I’ve had to fight with her every step of the way to get her to let me help.
Even the smallest things are difficult with her.
She’s insisted on cooking for me as a way to earn her keep, which has been fine with me.
I hate cooking, but I need to eat so often, it’s a necessary evil.
Ryleigh seems to enjoy it. She’s made herself at home in my kitchen, and loves coming up with new dishes for me to try.
The homemade fettucine alfredo she made last night was almost as good as sex.
Scratch that.
It was amazing, but yeah, nothing is as good as sex. Living with a gorgeous woman I’ve seen naked twice has fucked with my brain. Now I have sex on the brain like a horny teenager. Fantastic.
I’m way overdue for some action, but there’s no way I can hook up with some random woman while Ryleigh and Ella are staying with me.
My mind keeps remembering those tight-ass shorts she had on at the club and those gorgeous tits. Damn, the sight has haunted my dreams. I’ve dreamt about her every night. Touching her. Kissing her. Making her arch against me in pleasure.
Unfortunately, she hasn’t shown the least bit of interest. Actually, that’s not entirely true.
That night in the kitchen before her phone interrupted us, she stood a little too close, her pretty blue eyes locked on mine, and for a second, I got the feeling that she wanted me to kiss her—or that she wanted to kiss me.
But there was no way I was going to make things awkward and freak her out. For all I knew, she’d panic and hightail it out of there. The thought of her and Ella out there somewhere fending for themselves wasn’t a chance I was willing to take, especially not in the middle of winter in Chicago.
So instead, I busied myself with cleaning the kitchen.
Ryleigh left to lay Ella down, and when she came back and washed bottles beside me at the kitchen sink, all the tension from earlier was gone.
We shared another glass of wine and talked about our favorite movies before parting ways to head off to bed—in separate bedrooms. It didn’t stop me from jacking off that night while thinking of her, but at least I didn’t do something stupid like make a move on her.
She gets hit on all day every day at her job, and I’m not about to be like one of those Neanderthals and expect her to share her body with me just because I’m helping her.
If and when she decides to share that delicious body of hers with me, it will be because she’s as desperate as I am to explore what could happen between us, not because she feels like she has to share my bed for a warm place to stay.
“You ready for the big game, Ivan?” my friend Doug asks, clapping one hand on my shoulder as he passes me in the aisle to take the row behind me. The plane is big enough that each player has his own row, which is helpful when you stuff sixty-five football players onto a plane together.
“Born ready, baby,” I quip.
The truth is, the game is the furthest thing from my mind, and I hope I can get through it without letting my team down.
I pull out my phone to text Ryleigh one last time before we need to switch over to airplane mode.
Hey, Ry—you guys okay? We’re about to take off.
A second later, my phone pings, and my mouth twitches in a smile.
We’ll be fine, Alexei. Go win that game. For me and Ella.
I chuckle and tap out a reply.
You going to watch me on TV?
I watch as the last of the players and staff board the plane and wait for her to reply.
Oh! I never thought of that. Yeah, totally! What time’s the game? What’s your number again so I know who to look for on the field?
This makes me laugh harder. I’ve never dated a woman who wasn’t obsessed with football, obsessed with what I did for a living or the idea of being a player’s girlfriend or wife. A WAG. Ryleigh literally has zero interest, and I find that refreshing.
I fill her in on the time and tell her which channel she’ll find the game on, as well as the number on my jersey.
See you Sunday night.
Her reply comes almost instantly.
Looking forward to it.
Two nights. Two nights away from Ryleigh and little Ella, and it feels like a damn eternity.
I have no idea what’s happening to my life.
All I know is that somewhere between the first snap of Sunday’s game and the final whistle, my brain checked out of football and into something else entirely. Someone else. Someone with blue eyes who keeps texting me photos of a baby in a tiny Hawks onesie.
My team squeaked out a win, but only barely, and Coach Royce is not pleased with my performance.
I could see it in the vein throbbing at his temple during the post-game talk, the way he kept looking at me like he wanted to say something specific and was choosing not to.
He’ll deal with it. We won. That’s what matters.
On the flight back to Chicago, I lean my head against the seat and close my eyes. Pretending to sleep. Avoiding questions. The standard post-bad-game protocol—earbuds in, eyes shut, don’t engage.
But I’m not thinking about the game. I’m thinking about the last forty-eight hours, during which I became someone I barely recognize.
I texted Ryleigh twenty-three times. I counted.
Twenty-three texts over two days, and most of them weren’t even about Ella—they were just me finding reasons to talk to her.
How’s your night. What are you watching.
Did she take the bottle okay. What are you watching now.
Hey, random question, do you like Thai food.
Twenty-three texts. Like a teenager with his first crush, except I’m a grown man who tackles people for a living.
It got worse. She couldn’t figure out how to arm the alarm system Sunday night, and I almost had a full-blown panic attack on a hotel bed in another city.
Almost booked a flight back. Nobody can even get up to the apartment without the elevator code and the front desk and Frank at the gate, but my brain didn’t care about logic.
My brain was screaming go home, make sure they’re safe.
I’m losing it.
While I was halfway across the country being useless, Ryleigh actually accomplished things.
She spent the weekend trying to track down Andi—called shelters, contacted her old workplace, even filed a missing person’s report with the police.
She hasn’t gotten anywhere yet, but she’s doing something productive, which is more than I can say for myself.
I bet she wasn’t checking her phone every four minutes and wondering why I hadn’t responded to a text she sent eleven seconds ago.
When my ears pop from the descent, I open my eyes. Almost home.
Forty minutes later, I pull into the garage, badge through security—Frank gives me a nod—and take the elevator up. I press the button three times, which accomplishes nothing but makes me feel like we’re moving faster.
The apartment is quiet when I step inside. Dim. The city glows through the windows, and there’s a single lamp on in the living room, casting everything in warm amber light.
Ryleigh is on the couch.
Legs tucked under a white throw blanket, glass of white wine in her hand, TV on mute.
Her hair is loose around her shoulders—she usually wears it up, so seeing it down feels like I’m seeing something private.
She’s in one of my T-shirts and a pair of leggings, bare feet poking out from under the blanket, and she looks so soft and warm and settled in my home that my chest aches.
“Hi,” I say from the doorway.
She looks up, and that smile—the wide, unguarded one, the one I’ve been thinking about for two days straight—breaks across her face. “Hey. You’re back.”
“I’m back.”
“Ella’s been down since eight. She was an angel today, for the record. Yesterday, however, she screamed for forty-five minutes because she got overtired. I didn’t even know being overtired was a thing. But apparently it is.”
I laugh, dropping my bag by the door. “She’s particular.”
“She’s a tyrant.” But Ryleigh’s grinning, and when she starts to get up, I wave her off.
“Don’t move. You look comfortable.”
I cross the room and drop onto the other end of the couch. And then—before I can talk myself out of it, before the rational part of my brain can file an objection—I lift her bare feet and set them in my lap.
I need to touch her. After two days of nothing but a screen and a voice through a speaker, I need something real.
She doesn’t pull away. Doesn’t tense. She watches me over the rim of her wine glass, and when I press my thumb into the arch of her foot, her eyelids drop to half-mast.
“That feels really nice,” she murmurs.
I keep going. Slow circles. Firm pressure.
My thumbs working the ball of her foot, the arch, the tension she carries there from standing all day.
She lets out a long exhale and sinks deeper into the cushions, and I think I could do this for hours.
Just this. Just her feet in my lap and the quiet and the city lights.
“Did you watch the game?” I ask, keeping my voice easy.
Her eyes open. Focus on mine. “Every minute.”
“Yeah?”
“You were incredible, Alexei.”
I shake my head. “I played like—”
“No,” she cuts me off, sitting up a little. “You were confident. Physical. Like you owned the field.” A pause. Her gaze drops, then comes back up. “It was, um.”
“It was what?”
Pink creeps up her cheeks. She takes a sip of wine—a stalling tactic. “It was hot,” she says quietly.
My hands go still on her foot.