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I glance over right before we near the boys, prepared to keep insisting I know nothing about what he’s saying. But from the look he’s giving me, I decide to give it up.
“How’d you guess?”
Willis chuckles. “Nobody else in town has that kind of money. It wasn’t hard to figure out.”
I should have done several separate donations in varying amounts so they wouldn’t know. I open my mouth to change the subject, but I don’t have to. A crushing moan and scream punctuates the air, and Willis drops his clipboard in the grass. He sprints across the field to the player flat on his back on the grass, screaming something about his leg.
Later on that evening, the Summit, our full-service restaurant on the top floor of the resort, is crowded, but the staff knows to put me in a quiet corner, where I always sit. What they don’t know is—wonder of wonders—I’m not dining alone tonight.
At least, I hope I’m not.
I dip my finger in the glass of water, then rub it along the top, making it sing quietly. It’s satisfying, so I try it again. I don’t know why I’m so amused.
Maybe I’m distracting myself from the fact that Oakley isn’t here yet. After our afternoon training session, she said she’d see me tonight. So I went back to my place, where, because she told me to, I iced and elevated my knee.
I loosen my tie just a tad. I can’t stop replaying what happened to Juan, the player who was injured at the camp today. I get the willies just thinking about how he was clutching his knee. He couldn’t walk on it at all, so we ended up calling an ambulance. I tried to talk to him while we waited, but I could see it in his eyes: the horror of knowing he’s hurt—badly.
I glance at my watch. Oakley’s late. Only by a few minutes. But as I’m sitting here, I think again about how my knee is starting to feel like a knee again instead of a tight, contorted mess. The only sensible thing was to offer her a nice meal as a thank you, even though I lost our little bet.
Except, I don’t trust myself with these kinds of things. I haven’t in a very long time. Is this a date?
Asking her to dinner was the first time I’d asked out a woman since Callie, and it felt about as bad as I always thought it would. I know what my mom and Callie’s parents say is true, that I can’t live like this forever, that I need to move on with my life, and that Callie would want me to be happy.
I’ve just never met anyone who felt like they were worth the impossible amount of effort needed to do so.
Callie was compact—a tiny dragon with a mouth to match. My first love. My only love. After she passed away, football was all I had left. It was all I did, all I cared about.
And look where that got me. I dab at the drop of water that spilled from my glass on the linen tablecloth.
Oakley’s different. She’s tall, strong, no nonsense. Her demeanor when she’s training me is formal and polite, like a doctor’s bedside manner. But then there are moments where she gives me a smile and our eyes catch a little longer than normal and my mind lights itself on fire.
Make no mistake, I’ve liked spending time with her, even though the work on my knee brings up some symptoms that I’m pretty sure are in the realm of a mild case of PTSD. But Oakley leaves me wanting more. Which is why this dinner tonight seemed like a necessity, saying goodbye to someone who’s helped me with both my knee and my moratorium on women.
You gotta ease into things, and though I’m not ready to date, this one, nice dinner with Oakley will be a good start.
As if I can conjure her with my thoughts, she appears in the doorway to the restaurant, her face a little flushed. She hasn’t seen me yet, but I can’t take my eyes off her. She’s talking to the front-of-house employee, who nods his head and starts leading her to my table.
She’s wearing a medium blue blouse, a black skirt, and black high heels. Her hair is down in waves. If I thought she looked like a gazelle on the treadmill, that’s nothing compared to her long, confident steps now. It’s mesmerizing.
She sees me. The way she’s walking towards me, with her gaze trained on me, feels significant, like a memory I’ll want to keep with me.
I stand as she reaches the table and try to step around to pull her chair out for her, but the waiter beats me to it.
“I thought I’d die of old age waiting for you,” I say, and then stop abruptly. It was meant as a joke, but also as a way to convey to her how excited I am to see her. But I don’t think she understands.
“Sorry.” Her face crumples, and a frown settles around her mouth. “I went for a walk and ended up staying out there longer than planned.”
“Oh, no. It’s fine.” Can we back it up please?I don’t know what I’m doing. Last time I was out in the dating world, I was in college. I don’t need to be reminded of that cringiness.
“You went out walking tonight?” I ask. “Along the beach?” I pour her a glass of water from the small pitcher at our table.
She shrugs and adjusts her chair closer to the table. “I needed to clear my head. I usually go early in the morning because I’m used to getting up early. But I needed an extra one tonight.”
“You okay?”
She bats me away with a wave of her hand and a quick laugh, but I can tell it’s not easy for her to stay breezy and uninvested. “I’m good. It’s really nice out there.”
The waiter comes and Oakley orders the steak, medium rare. So do I because it’s Lionel’s steak and there’s nothing like it in the world, which is why Sebastian has put him in charge of opening the restaurants at all the Tate resorts.
