He handed me one of the cups of coffee, and I took it silently. I didn’t need to remove the lid to know this coffee was exactly how I take it. Not too heavy, with a drop of half and half, and a packet of sweetener.
“No snarl today,” he whispered from the corner of his mouth, “baby steps, eh?”
Jesus stood up, smoothing down the whiskers of his moustache. “Great, that saves me the introduction. Both of your calendars have been updated; Jupiter is at your disposal, and we’ve set aside an hour of his time every morning.”
An hour?!
Every morning?!
The butterflies in my belly transformed into anxious excitement. Fifty/fifty. My head knew this was a bad idea, but my heart was jumping for joy, and my vagina was throbbing hard, because I couldn’t seem to stop her whenever Jupiter was within a hundred yards.
She remembered everything.
Maybe the excitement and anxiety was seventy/thirty.
“Um, Mr. Rodriguez, perhaps it would be better if I saw the starting nine at least. Jupiter doesn’t have time for all of this, I’m certain.”
“The coaches and I make the schedules around here, Ms. Matthews, not you. This is what’s happening now.” His annoyance flicked to Jupiter, giving me the distinct impression he wasn’t an innocent party in whatever was happening. “This is the change of plans.”
“It’s Doctor Matthews,” Jupiter corrected him, and received a glare in response.
“Let’s hope Penn Shepherd is right about you, but I won’t be expecting miracles,” was the last thing Jesus Rodriguez said before leaving my office.
For a second I forgot about the guy to the left of me, as I stared at the empty doorway where he’d failed to close the door behind him. Before I could follow him and do it myself, Jupiter ran across and kicked it shut.
“Don’t mind him, he’s a grumpy fuck. He’s been with the club a while and he’s stuck in his ways. Between you and me, I’d heard that he presented Shepherd with a couple of ideas for how we can improve as a team, but Shepherd wanted to go with yours. Congratulations.” He raised his coffee to me with a grin and sat down in the stool next to mine, not opposite.
My nose tingled as the scent of him enveloped me, making me lightheaded. It was the scent of California; of summer on the beach, of nights under the stars; of home.
“Also, nice office, and that’s a great view.”
I glanced out of the window where a team of grounds-men were readying the field for the game tonight.
“What did he mean just now about a change of plans? Why is it just you here?”
To give him credit, Jupiter didn’t even look guilty. “I thought it was best if I helped you, not the rest of my teammates. I suggested it to Coach, and he mentioned it to Rodriguez.”
I pushed my glasses back onto my head, which was more habit that anything. “What? What does that mean?”
“It means if you’re going to spend time with anyone around here, it’ll be me.” He shrugged and leaned back, then stretched his long arm to snatch up a packet of LifeSavers out of the box still on the floor. To be fair, it was so big I could put it in the dining room for the entire roster, and there’d still be some left. “I’ll take these…”
I blinked, trying to figure out if I’d heard correctly, and given the look on his face, I had. “Are you serious? Do you know how childish that is? It’s bad enough that I’m here because of you, and now you’re the only one I’m allowed to work with. This isn’t fair, Jupiter!”
His blue eyes flared like the word neon had been invented to describe them.
“I don’t give a fuck! The field is the only place I play fair. When it comes to you, all bets are off.”
I shot him a look which conveyed exactly what I thought of that. “I’m not a game, Jupiter. You can’t play me.”
“Okay.” He schooled his mouth into a line, though I knew he was holding something back. “I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll let the guys come and see you... if you tell me what you meant theother night when you said my body was ‘all that’.” He perfectly mimicked the hand movements I’d made, and his head fell back in a loud guffaw until he nearly fell off the stool. I kind of wished he had. He righted himself and took one look at my face, though his wide smirk hadn’t dropped. “Thought not. You and me it is then, especially when your hair is down like that. You know I can’t resist it.”
My teeth gritted and I snapped the band off my wrist, scooping my thick strands into a top knot, but it only made him laugh, which set off those waves in my belly again. I picked up a pile of papers to distract myself from his presence. He might be wearing more clothes today, but it was still only a t-shirt and track pants, and I could still see his muscles rippling underneath them.
It was borderline obscene.
“Come on, Marn.” His voice dropped, almost pleadingly; a tone which laved every inch of my body until it tingled. “Run your ideas past me. You always used to… tell me what that list is.” He nodded at the white wall.
I huffed, trying not to look at him. He was too close, he was too big, and he’d clearly come straight from the gym. The strands of damp hair curling along his collar had lightened a little, and were now long enough to see the dark mahogany color transforming into a shade resonant of a fox’s pelt.
