CHAPTER 13
Tessa wasn’t quite sure what to expect when she walked into the stadium Monday morning to observe their last practice before the first game of the season, but seeing Tristan in tight red football pants and a sleeveless Titans shirt was not exactly on her radar.
She stopped dead in her tracks when she walked onto the field. The smell of fresh cut grass and peak male adrenaline was so intoxicating she was almost unsteady on her feet.
They were all lined up in perfect rows, following specific instructions being yelled out by a man she would assume to be one of the coaches.
She watched their bodies move in unison and was in awe at how they could move their huge bodies so gracefully and controlled.
At her height, Tessa had always described herself as an awkward baby giraffe, but these guys handled their size with a certain poise and confidence that could only come from years of training and perfecting.
Tessa was somehow able to make her feet move, and she walked over to one of the benches and sat down gently, perching herself on the edge with a spine rod back, feeling so incredibly out of place.
This was the last thing she ever thought she’d be doing when she signed onto the New York Times, even without the Tristan aspect of this whole debacle.
She tried her best to keep her eyes away from Tristan, but it was no use. It seemed that the magnetic force between them had not dwindled even one single ounce over the past 10 years, and if anything, Tessa swore it felt even stronger.
Tristan noticed her the second she walked onto the field and had to stop his body’s natural reflex to run over to her. She was dressed down today, in simple jeans and a white t-shirt, and he wondered how long it would take him to get her into some Titans merch.
He was all too aware of her eyes on him for the duration of the practice and had to keep himself in check to not be cocky or showboating on the field, but his need to impress her hadn’t gone away over time, and he found himself doing way more than he usually would during a routine practice.
“Why am I getting game day Kelly during practice?” Phillip asked once it had come to an end.
Tristan was panting as they walked towards each other, and he chose not to answer Phil’s question, instead just offering a shrug as if it’s not big deal.
“Is it because we have a new audience member today?” Phillip asked with a mischievous smile.
“Shut the fuck up, bro,” Tristan said, giving Phillip a playful shove.
“Don’t take out your unrequited love on me,” he said, pushing back.
“What in the hell does that even mean?”
“Bro, you’ve gotta read a book some time,” Phillip said with an eye roll. “Unrequited love means like one sided, or not reciprocated.”
“Oh this isn’t one sided my man,” Tristan said, patting some sweat out of his eyes with his towel before looking over at Tessa who was talking to one of the defensive coaches and taking notes. “She still feels everything I do, or else she wouldn’t have acted so crazy the other night.”
“You sure about that?”
“I know her, Phil. I’ve memorized every inch of her, inside and out. What happened between us back then is still on her like a fucking scar, a scar we both have. I just need to find my way back into her heart like I did last time.”
There was a long pause of tension-filled silence before Phillip spoke up again.
“And what about Kiana?”
Tristan sighed and shook his head.
“You know how I feel about all that,” he answered in a whisper.
“Yeah, I do know, and I still don’t understand why you won’t just end it.”
“She always finds a way to talk me out of it dude, I don’t know.”
“Well maybe the hot blonde who is staring at you right now might give you that extra push you need to put a stop to Kiana’s bullshit.”
Tristan’s eyes immediately flew over to Tessa, and she was indeed looking at him; her eyes slowly roaming over every inch of his body as if she were remembering the lyrics to her favorite song she hadn’t heard since she was 20.
“Yeah well, then you’ll need to tell Brinley to stop fucking bringing her around even after we break up.”
“I know, I’ll make sure she understands this time. But you have to actually do it!”
“Yeah, I’ll catch you later,” Tristan said dismissively and walked right over to Tessa, who seemed to startle as soon as she noticed that he was heading her way.
“Don’t run away from me, Smith,” he said to her retreating back, and she froze in place, waiting for him to reach her. They hadn’t spoken since their drunken spat at the bar two nights ago, and he desperately wanted the tension between them gone.
She doesn’t say anything as he stands in front of her, his arms folded across his chest. They both stare at each other with intense gazes, green against blue, daring the other to be the first to speak and break the tension, and to Tristan’s surprise, it’s Tessa that speaks up.
“I’m sorry that I was such a brat the other night,” she says with an eye roll, and Tristan laughs out loud.
“I would never call you a brat,” he says with a smile that causes her insides to flutter.
“I think I was just really tired from the move and overwhelmed with seeing you again and being in a new place and everything. I don’t know, it was a lot and I drank too much. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Tristan says, leaning into her to give a friendly shoulder bump, desperate for any kind of physical contact, even if only a friendly one.
“So, you ready for the first game in a few days?”
“I’m always ready,” he replies with a cocky smile that makes Tessa roll her eyes, but she also can’t help but to smile.
“Are you ready?” He challenges back. “You ready to travel with all of us?”
Their first game was away in Detroit, which meant they all had to be on a plane tomorrow and hunker down in mediocre hotel rooms.
“To be the only woman on a plane full of a bunch of hunky footballers? Yeah, I think I’m ready.”
“Watch it,” he says playfully, but the look in his eyes say a different story. “Or I’ll handcuff you to me.”
“Don’t make any fun promises you can’t keep,” she says back with a wink, and saunters off the field, leaving him shocked but also pleasantly breathless.
“Keep trying me, Smith,” he says to her back.
“You’re the one with a girlfriend, not me.”
Now he really is speechless, and watches helplessly as she walks down the hallway to the press room. Fuck, he’s really in trouble now.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Tessa says as she walks down the plane aisle. Every single seat is filled by either a giant man or said giant man’s luggage. The literal only seat on the whole plane that is open is next to Tristan.
“You really thought you could get away with that little comment yesterday? Come on, you should know me better than that, Tess.”
He smiles but she huffs in frustration and confusion as she sits down next to him, throwing daggers at him with her bright blue eyes.
“Well don’t look so excited to spend time with me.”
“I just don’t know how to take anything you say.”
“What do you mean?”
“Is everything always so flirtatious with you? Does Kiana know you talk to girls like this?”
“I don’t talk to girls like this,” he says, suddenly getting serious and causing her to shut her mouth quickly. “I talk to you like this.”
“See? That, right there,” she says, pointing accusatory fingers at him. “How am I supposed to take that?”
“You should take it like the truth.”
“Which is what, Tristan?” She asks with a frustrated sigh, sinking back into the seat as the flight attendants come around and do their safety checks.
“That all sense of logic goes out the window when I’m around you.”
“You haven’t been around me in a decade,” she counters, but he doesn’t seem phased.
“So you can see how troubling it is for me to discover that even after that amount of time I still have the same reaction to you.”
“I can’t do this,” she says, desperately looking around the plane for another place to sit.
She suddenly feels hot, nearly suffocating under the intensity of the chemistry radiating between them.
Why is she suddenly thinking about the way his tongue felt between her legs that one night they shared together?
“This is so inappropriate on so many levels. You have a girlfriend and we are supposed to be working together.”
“Suite yourself,” he says casually as he gets comfortable in his seat. She throws an unamused look at him, but he only winks back at her in return, and she grunts and throws her headphones in her ears.
About an hour passes on the flight. Tessa has her nose buried in a book with her earbuds in while Tristan is watching some play film on an iPad that looks cartoonishly tiny in his large hands.
Tessa sneaks a glance but then looks away.
I will not allow myself to think about his hands, to remember his hands.
She can’t help herself and glances his way again, but this time she sees two little girls who are seemingly speaking to the phone, and Tristan smiling a mile wide. Her heart swells seeing the look on his face, and she wonders if he knows them.
“Whose kids are those?” she asks, taking out an earbud and leaning towards him.
“Huh? Oh, this is Winnie and Emmie. Jordan’s girls.”
“Jordan, your brother?” she asks in surprise.
“Yeah. Him and Katie.” He says it casually, as if she should know these things.
“They’ve stayed together all this time?” Her mind wanders back to Katie fondly and how nice she always was to her.
She always thought about Katie and hoped that good things came to her in life but never expected two college sweethearts could actually make it.
It was hard to believe when a love and bond as strong as her and Tristan had been shattered so easily.
“Yep, got married, have two babies, and she already pregnant with another one.”
“Another one?!”
“That’s what I said,” Tristan laughs and looks back at the video. “They’re so fucking cute. You’d love them.”
“Does Jordan still play?”