I don’t bite #2
But I’m not convinced. I should leave. Walk out the door this minute and never return or even think about him again.
“It’s not a mistake. You’re safe here. I promise.”
The words are soothing, and they carry his promise. I know he means it.
I still remember how he was with me at the parking lot of the boutique. Shielding me from the cameras.
He pushes himself to his feet and stretches out a hand.
“Come on.”
I eye it suspiciously.
“Why?”
“I want to show you something.”
I take his palm, and he pulls me up.
“Is it another magazine cover?”
His laugh echoes in the hallway. “No.”
He walks me to the back of the house. Through a set of glass doors, into a long bright room I did not know existed.
It's a pool.
An indoor pool, lit from above by skylights, the water a clear blue that instantly calls to me.
“What else am I yet to see?” I ask.
I crouch and trail my fingers in the water. It’s warm.
I look up at him.
“Swim with me?”
“I don’t… I don’t have a swimsuit.” The response should be no.
“Your shorts and t-shirt are good enough. I’ll give you another shirt to sleep in, if you want.”
I consider his offer with narrowed eyes.
“Come on.”
He pulls off his shirt and sweats to reveal his briefs, and he’s in the water before I can pick my jaw from the floor.
He swims to the middle and waves me in, but I stay still, eyes on him. He dives below and surfaces at the end, and his palm combs his hair back, leaving it wet and slick, and the movement shows off his biceps stretching.
My eyes trail every single droplet of water running down his chiseled torso, down to his navel, past that well-sculpted V, and into the waistband of his briefs.
Whatever I saw at the gym is completely erased.
“Sweetheart…”
The low drawl of the endearment pulls me back to reality, and my eyes snap to his. They’re locked on mine, with an intensity I can’t ignore.
“Get in the water…” That tone does dangerous things to me.
My face heats instantly.
Suddenly, getting in the water doesn’t seem like such a bright idea anymore.
“Come on.” He flashes me a grin. “I don't bite.”
I look for a sassy comeback but find none, and right there, I know I’ve lost. So, I get in.
We stay at opposite ends, which is by tacit agreement.
He swims closer to the middle and pauses, never taking his eyes off me.
“I know what you’re thinking, Riley. And I’ll never do anything to jeopardize your privacy. I might be an athlete, a famous hockey star, but I can assure you, my life is private, and no one will come looking for you here. I’ll make sure of it.”
He moves closer, but at the same time, maintains his distance. “I don’t have any love for the media, neither do I live for it, and I sure as hell won't sell you out like that fucktard.”
I hear the resentment in his tone, and I realize if this is going to work, I have to fully come clean.
“It’s not just about the media.”
He stills.
“He cheated on me before the cousin. About a year and a half ago. I had no proof, but I had the feeling. I asked him. He sat me down and told me he was so worried about me. That I had been so anxious lately. That I had been creating things in my head. I apologized to him. For two days afterward, I felt insane.”
Easton doesn't say anything.
“He called my parents, told them I was getting affected by always staying indoors, and he wanted to take me on vacation. That weekend, we went to Cabo. Spent a week, and by the end, I’d forgotten how it all started.”
The water laps softly.
“I wasn’t married to him yet, but I could already see my future.
A trophy wife. He’d convinced me to stay home.
Whenever I brought up a conversation about work, about building my life, it always ended with no hope.
He’d sweet talk me out of the idea. But it isn't even him I'm hiding from, you know?
It's the spotlight. Six years of watching a man put on a show for the entire world and come home and be a completely different person with me.
The whole time, I kept thinking, who is the real one?
The one the cameras love or the one I live with?
And the answer never came. I just lived in that doubt for six years.
That is the thing I'm running from. Not just Preston. The uncertainty and the lifetime ticket of being a wallflower in his home, branded with a marital band.”
When I finally stop talking, I realize he’s moved closer. Not in my space, but beside me.
“Riley.”
I turn to him.
“You are not a coward. You ran because some part of you, after six years, still knew how to. That is the part of you he could not get to.”
A small smile stretches my lips as I look at this stranger who believes in me, more than I do, myself. It’s not a happy smile either.
“My father controlled my mother for thirty-two years. He never raised his voice and never raised a hand, and somehow ran every single thing about her life. He was respected. He gave to charity. He was, by any external measure, a good man.”
My smile drops. The story he’s telling hits too close to home.
“She stayed because of me. She told me last year that she had decided when I was nine, that I would not grow up in a house that had been broken on her account.
She did the math, and she stayed, and she paid for it with about twenty years of her own mind.
She's out now. Finally, the divorce is ongoing.”
I don’t know I’m crying until he pulls me into his arms and firmly and protectively wraps them around me.
“When you got in my car, and you told me why you were running, I knew exactly the kind of man you were running from. Because I grew up next to one. And you got out in six years, and so far, you’re doing it without help.”
The tears keep rolling down my cheeks.
“I won't be that man to you, Riley. Not today, not ever.”
Those words, they stay with me, and somehow, hearing the conviction in them, I know I can trust him.
This man who I’ve just met is proving to be my safe space.