Page 64 of Playing for Keeps

“We’re going to watch the dam show together tomorrow night. Make sure you’re here. Don’t worry—I’m having dinner catered by Louie’s.”

Max slaps me on the back and says, “You need to see it, need to get the specter out of your head. Your imagination will make it worse than it is.”

“Why not. I’ll bring the whiskey.”

I didn’t plan on spending my free time during bye-week watching a fucking sports news special about my own past, but I think Max is right. Sean drives and we leave from the stadium after treatment for my back. We arrive at Cat and Hunter’s house after stopping for the promised bottle of whiskey and walk in the back door without knocking.

The first person I see, standing at the kitchen island, looking like frosting on a cake, looking like she’s waiting for me, is Chloe. Fuck. My damn heart races and my cock responds in the usual Pavlovian way. She stands frozen, her damn violet eyes pinning me.

Cat invited me,” she finally says. Sean walks past me and the kitchen clears out. I don’t even know who was in there, but they’re gone. The lights are bright and I see the sorrow in her eyes.

“Good trap. Now I can’t trust you or any of my friends.” Part of me feels that way, but not all of me. What I really think is that I can’t trust myself. Can’t trust the feelings I have for her, or the fucking desire I have to go to her and wrap her in my arms right now and kiss her silly.

“Don’t blame your friends. Cat feels responsible because she fixed us up. She thinks we need closure.” She takes a shuddering breath and gestures for me to come in and have a seat, but I don’t move a muscle because if I get any closer, I’ll reach out for her and fuck if I know if I should or shouldn’t because I’m fucking messed up.

“I have some important things to say.”

“Say them. Then I’ll leave. You can stay.”

“The Perspective was a terrible idea and it was all mine and I tried to undo it, but … that didn’t work out and I’ve never been sorrier for anything in my life.” She pauses. I stand like a stone, trying not to feel anything, letting her words bounce off me. I know what she’s saying, understand it all. And maybe a couple years from now I’ll think it’s perfectly reasonable to forgive her.

“I don’t expect you to forgive me—”

“Good.” My voice is too sharp and I clamp my jaw shut when she flinches. Her violet eyes sparkle with tears, but she holds them back because she’s brave and strong. As I’m standing here trying to hold myself together, I have to admire that in her.

“But I wanted you to know that all my feelings for you are real. You’re the best man I know—that I’ve ever known.”

I wonder if that includes her dad. Her words bounce around but they don’t penetrate. Not that I don’t believe her, because I know exactly how she feels. But I can’t do anything about it.

“How is it that you feel?” I say because I’m a sadistic S.O.B. and maybe I need something to haunt my dreams later. Hell, something to haunt me the rest of my life—that spectacular woman who—

“I love you, Tate Fontanna. I’m madly in love with you and I wish it wasn’t true right now, but it is.”

“If that’s true, I wouldn’t want to see what you do to the guys you hate.” I’m trying too hard to be mean and she sees through me and smiles. I don’t smile back because there’s too much sadness bubbling up in me everywhere, inescapable sadness. Seeing her doesn’t cure it. Only makes it worse. I want to trust her, to get back to that vulnerable loving spitfire, to the sparring and the heat, but there’s unmistakable distance, an unbridgeable distance between us.

My silence drags on and she bows her head.

“I’ll go. You stay.” She picks up her bag and slips past me without meeting my eyes and I know she’s crying as she goes out the door, letting it bang closed behind her.

I stay and we watch the Perspective without her. I’m mostly numb, but the clips from the funeral scene don’t have the same power over me that they did once upon a time and I realize that’s the key. Even the insinuations of my guilt don’t make me flinch, don’t make me feel any guiltier than I am. When I question whether I really am guilty, all my friends call it bullshit and I find I’m starting to believe them, to believe Chloe Smith’s voice when she called me human, not guilty.

Chloe is human, not guilty too.

I’m not certain whether it’s my dick or my conscience talking, but I hear the voice loud and clear just the same. I wonder if she’s going to call me again and whether or not I’ll answer.

Hell. She doesn’t have my number. I trashed my old one and got a replacement today courtesy of the front office, courtesy of Cat’s office, Public Relations. I know Chloe did the same with her phone and I don’t have her new number, but Cat does.

No way am I ready to ask Cat for the number. It’s between me and Chloe and I’m still in limbo, still finding a new way to think, to act. And Chloe is still a fucking sports reporter down to her bones and always will be. That much I know.

That’s what I’m not sure I can ever wrap my arms around fully.

I make my calls to my parents and brother and eat a late supper with my friends, feeling half there. Half alive. Half broken.

* * *

It’seasy and it’s hard at the same time to let the weeks go by without Chloe, without reaching out or reconciling the unsettled feelings in me. I know I need closure one way or another, but I have no idea what that looks like.