Chapter 18
CHAPTER 18
GABE
I fumble the condom into the tissue, my hands unexpectedly shaking a little.
Now what am I supposed to say? Or do?
I haven’t had a one-night stand since I first got into the game and the number of attractive women that were virtually hurling themselves at me went to my head.
So I’m a little out of practice.
But is what Natalie and I just did a one-time thing?
Does she want me to ask her to dinner? Is that what her joke was hinting at?
Come to think of it that might not be so bad. Turns out the verbal sparring might be as much of a turn-on as those sounds she was just making.
And we’re not going to be here in the same place for long, so it’s not like seeing her would interfere with my game. She might even leave town first, if I’m not fit enough to play until later in the new year .
Yeah, seeing her again might be better than not so bad . It might be actual fun.
“So, uh…” I say to her back as she adjusts her clothes.
Christ, just the sight of her ass in those jeans is getting another hard-on going already.
“It’s okay,” she says, turning just far enough for me to catch a glimpse of the side of her face. Her cheek glistens in the stage lights, but her jaw is set firm.
“What’s okay?” I try to shove the condom into my front pocket, but it’s too tight and would likely cause an unpleasant accident.
“Don’t feel you have to try to be polite or nice to me or anything,” she says, walking toward the stage without looking at me. “It’s fine.”
Does she think it would take an effort for me to be nice to her?
She’s made it clear she isn’t fond of my personality, but does she really think I’m a total asshole jerk too?
For some reason I’m filled with the need to convince her I’m a nice guy. “I don’t go around doing things like that, you know?”
She leans forward onto the stage, stretching for her bag which is about six inches out of her grasp.
“Like I said, it’s fine.” Her voice is strained, maybe from the edge of the stage cutting into her middle. She’s reaching so much that her feet leave the floor.
I twist the tissue tight around the condom and shove it into my back pocket as I move toward her.
“I can get that for you.” I arrive at her side just as she replants her feet and straightens, her upper arm brushing against my chest.
A ripple of residual desire skitters across my skin as she hops away from me like I’m on fire .
Great. Maybe it’s not that she thinks I wanted a quick one and done. Maybe that’s all she wanted.
I reach for her bag and hand it to her. “There you go.”
She takes it from me, gripping it at the sides, the farthest point from my hand.
“Thanks,” she says without making eye contact.
She steps away and immediately starts digging in it. “I have to lock up, so you go first and I’ll follow you out.”
Wow, she really wants me out of here.
Now I know what it must feel like to be one of the women the guys brag about in the locker room—the ones they bang and leave without ever getting their number.
Call it competitive spirit, call it not wanting to lose, call it pride, call it whatever the hell you like, but I’m getting her fucking number.
I pull my phone from my back pocket—the one without the condom—and open a new contact.
“Here.” I hold it out to her. “Give me your number, then I’ll text you mine, so you have it to let me know when you next need me.”
Her eyes shoot up and meet mine, a flash of panic in them before she looks away, pulling her keys from her bag then yanking it up onto her shoulder.
Shit, yeah, that might have sounded bad.
“I mean, need me to help with the play. Not need me to…” Before I know what I’m doing I’ve tipped my head toward the seat she was just on, and my ill-judged, badly timed, and generally all-around painfully bad joke makes me look like a total skeezeball.
“Not that I wouldn’t want to do that again.” Not making it better. “I mean…I meant with the play.” Fuck, now I’m sweating. “Let me know when you need help wi th the play .”
She stares at my phone but doesn’t take it.
It’s as uncomfortable as offering someone a high-five and they leave you hanging.
Fuck it, I’m not giving in.
Just as the amount of time we stand frozen in these positions is about to enter the excruciating stage, she takes a small step toward it.
“Sure,” she mutters, and taps at the phone, entering her number without actually taking it from me.
Then she turns her back and trots up the steps to the stage to grab her coat, which is hanging by its hood from a piece of scaffolding.
Hold on, if she had to go onto the stage anyway to get her coat, why was she struggling to stretch to reach her bag?
Is her brain as addled as mine?
Is she so distracted by the incredible thing we just did that she’s lost all sense and logic?
Her profile is to me, making the pink flush to her cheek visible.
Is she embarrassed? Unlikely, since she started it.
Or does she just regret it now that it’s over?
I look down at my phone and hit Save on the contact named “Bugs.”
“This is your actual number, right? Not the dummy one you hand out to losers?”
“You need to go.” She pulls on her coat. “So I can lock up.”
Probably best I don’t mention the custodian gave me a key, in case it gets him in trouble.
“Okay.” I turn to grab my jacket from the front row seat but am stopped in my tracks because it still bears the imprint of her body .
I give myself a quick mental shake and grab it—it’s still warm.
Fighting the desire to sniff it to see if it’s taken on her fresh floral aroma, I skip up the steps to the stage. “But you will let me know when you need me, right?”
Her eyes land on mine again. Perhaps she feels like the twenty feet between us is a safe distance to do that.
Her face softens a little amid a tiny, almost involuntary, flick of her brows. “Need you for the play , you mean?”
Is that the tiniest glimmer of a smirk playing at the corner of her luscious mouth?
“Exactly what I mean. Just that. Only that.”
“Unfortunately there’s no one else to help me.” She drops her head to one side. “So I have no choice.”
“Great.” And for some reason I’m now desperate to be involved in the play I wanted no part of until, well, now.
I turn and head for the back door, sliding my phone into my pocket like it contains the key to being voted MVP.