"Hey, Thunder! Drinks?"
He turned and waved off the defensive lineman. "I have plans tonight."
One of the guys gave him an odd look, but he just brushed it off. Normally, he would've been more than happy to go out with them, find a woman to hook up with, have a good time, and hope she was gone by the morning. None of that sounded like a good time to him anymore now that he had Willow.
The friends and family space wasn't too packed, which was normal for a pre-season game. There were a few more players' kids who were able to stay up past their normal bedtimes because it was still summer. Some players, like Thatcher, had a B-list of friends or extended family that got pre-season access but not regular season tickets.
And then Thatcher saw her across the room.
Willow was not on his B-list for tickets, but he still offered them to her. That was last week as they were laying naked on his very sturdy dining room table. In the afterglow of screwing her senseless, he asked her if she wanted to come to his game before realizing that she might think this was too fast, that maybe being the girlfriend of a football player wasn't something she wanted to be known as just yet. But she said yes to him, and he rewarded her for it later that night.
Which is how she ended up standing there tonight with her brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, a pair of shortsthat accentuated her legs, and the pink tank top… Wait, what happened to her pink tank top? Why was she wearing a jersey instead?
He looked down at her chest, not only because he liked looking at her chest but because he wanted to see the number she was wearing. Yep, it was number 49. Thatcher's number. He couldn't stop the goofy look on his face as he walked over to her. She looked up from her phone as he got closer, her hazel eyes locking on him as a smile spread across her face.
"Hi."
She stood up on her toes to kiss him gently on the cheek, and his hand reached for the silky jersey fabric on her hip.
"Is that my jersey?" he asked as he looked down at her.
"They had a sale at the shop so I thought I would buy one." She did a little turn for him to show off the KENT in bold letters on the back, and he didn't mind seeing her tight ass in those shorts either. "So, what do you think?"
"You look delicious in that." He leaned in closer, his lips next to her ear. "Although I think it may look better on my bedroom floor."
He pulled away to see Willow staring at him. She would tell him that Wolf was just her last name, but the hungry smile on her face right now reminded him that she was lying. She could be a predator when she wanted to be, and he was more than happy to be her prey.
He slipped his hand into hers and nodded towards the door. "Let's get out of here."
They wandered out of the stadium into the warm breeze off the lake. The summer sun was setting, and the sky had started to turn pink and orange. But that didn't seem to have deterred the faithful Chicago residents, who were still clinging to the last bits of summer.
Thatcher grabbed a black baseball hat out of his backpack and pulled it low over his brow to try and hold on to a little anonymity in this city. If this was fall, there was no way he would be taking this walk from the stadium to his apartment after a game. He would be swarmed with fans. But a Saturday night in August after a pre-season game? He could get away with it.
Plus, it meant he was able to walk along Lake Michigan with Willow by his side. It was a bit of a trek for sure, but it passed by Grant Park and Buckingham Fountain with the water glittering on the other side. Definitely not something he ever wanted to do in the middle of winter, but tonight was the perfect weather for it.
It also didn't hurt that Willow wanted to stop by an ice cream stand set up in Grant Park and take a break on the way home.
He watched as she licked her chocolate ice cream cone before some of it started to drip onto her fingers. He would be doing something about that at his place later if he didn't have a post-game routine that he learned to stick with a long time ago.
After they were done, he grabbed her hand as they continued to walk north toward their apartment buildings.
"So be honest," he said. "What did you think of that game tonight?"
She smirked at him. "I'll be honest with you if you're honest with me."
"About what?"
"About why I'm not allowed to stay at your place tonight."
Thatcher smiled down at her. "Fine. But you start."
So Willow told him about sitting up in the stands with some of the other players' families and how they were all excited when Thatcher caught that running back at the end of the game and saved the other team from getting a touchdown. One of the player's moms turned around and congratulated her for that.
"Was it Martin's mom? Because she does that to everyone."
"I think it was Martin's mom. His name was on the back of her jersey."
"Sounds like someone I know."
