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No, he did not. But it’s more than that. It’s not just that I want to be wanted, to be appreciated. It’s that there’s this pull to him that I’m finding harder and harder to fight.
There’s something about his eyes and the intensity of their gaze that has me stepping closer to him.
Alarm bells ring in my head. I can’t do this right now. I’m in no state to pursue…anything…with Alec. I’m in no state to get hurt again.
Instead of dealing with it, I offer a flash of a smile and turn to start walking again. We don’t say another word until we reach the cabin. We do this thing every evening now. We turn to face the view of the lake before we go inside. Where Texas is humid and lush, with the moisture blooming everything richly, it’s as if Colorado has had to fight a little harder for its beauty.
Hard-fought beauty means so much more sometimes.
Once inside, I pull open a kitchen cupboard. I see stacks of cans, neat and tidy in rows. There are also new oranges and apples in a bowl on the table. “You went shopping?”
He nods, going to the fridge. “I had the groceries delivered. Can’t have a personal trainer trying to live on mac and cheese and chicken nuggets.”
I make a face. “No, you cannot. Although I wouldn’t say no to a big bowl of Kraft every once in awhile.”
“It’s the cheesiest,” he says.
“Like those old commercials!” I say, and we both laugh.
“Playing house with you is actually kind of fun,” I tell him and hold up a hand so he can give me a high five.
He does, and there’s something so easy with him. We settle into a strange version of playing house, and I don’t mind. If everything else in my life is on hold, why not have my evenings be this fun, little domestic dance? Nothing should surprise me anymore.
We cook dinner, eat, and wash the dishes together, like we’ve been doing the past few days. He goes to the living room and ices his knee and watches TV. I go upstairs to the loft and read or scroll through my phone.
Tonight, though, I head back down to Alec after only a few minutes. There are stupid sports GIFs to show the man and I’d rather not text them to him. I want to see his face as he laughs.
We’re together on the sofas downstairs the rest of the evening, discussing my current read: a non-fiction book about the last one hundred years of the history of football. I like the higher level of conversation we reach, and his complex knowledge of the intricacies of how the NFL has evolved.
I go to bed at 10 since I’m a creature of routine. I can’t help but notice that he turns the TV off and goes to bed, too, probably to avoid disturbing me since I can hear everything in my loft bedroom.
But it’s nice. All of this is sort of nice.
Chapter 18
Alec
I lean back in the chair in my “office,” which used to be a storage closet. Sebastian is stingy with the square footage in his resorts, so I had to make do with what I could find. Music from Oakley’s workout class fills my head. I’m glad it helps get the Oklahoma University fight song out of my head. When it’s stuck in my head, that usually means I’ve been thinking of Callie. She was a “Boomer Sooner” to the extreme, and she used to sing it for me in a goofy voice to get me to smile.
I type up notes from some email communications I’ve been wrapping up.
Did I expect this—to have a real job working for my brother at the resort?
No. No, I did not.
I’m still ticked that I’m even here at all. I want to be back playing football more than I want to breathe—despite what Sebastian thinks.
But now I’m trying to figure out kids’ recreation events and it’s sort of fun. I’ve ordered enough banana bikes to supply a small army.
It doesn’t get my soul going like football, but it’s nice to have something to do. Some sort of temporary purpose.
This is all very temporary, but it will do. It’s giving my drive to succeed somewhere to park. Besides, I get to work near Oakley.
And I don’t know, something about her being right there pushes me to keep going.
Which is why, in the late afternoon, when the music turns off before her training availability is supposed to end at four, I step out to see if everything’s okay.
She’s got her hair in a high ponytail, her forearms resting on her thighs as she sits next to Juan on the free weights bench. When she lifts her head, she sees me and smiles, and then motions for me to join them.
