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“Tanner?” I said when I realized I couldn’t hear the drag of the balls behind me. When I got to the fifty-yard line, I looked over my shoulder, only to see he was back on the thirty-yard line, watching me with an easy smile. “Are you coming or not?” I called to him, and he shook his head, pulling the bag of balls over his shoulder and trudged toward me.
Dropping the balls at my feet, he raised a brow before looking around the familiar stadium. “I have so many questions about why we’re here. But the first one is, how the hell did you get a key?”
“You know, I’ve never been one to name drop to get what I want. Mainly because I’m a nobody and it would get me nowhere.” He tilted his head, watching me with interest. “However, it’s amazing what droppingyourname can do.”
“Oh, yeah?” he teased, taking a step closer to me. I instinctively wanted to take a step back, but I didn’t. I held my ground. “Who’d you drop my name to?”
The way his lips curled into a smile made my stomach flip, but I put that to the side because falling for my client - an athlete, no less - was not something I could get comfortable with. Not again. But, unfortunately, I learned I didn’t have a thing for science guys like I thought. I had a soft spot for athletes, and boy, was it easy to fall for a guy like Tanner. He was just your average, humble, generational quarterback, but acted like it just came naturally. If his work with his grades was anything to go by, it was obvious he put a lot of work into it.
“Your coach. He practically asked me out to dinner when he found out I was the one tutoring you.”
“My coach?” Tanner’s gaze narrowed, his lips fell into a frown, and I knew then that I’d said something wrong.
“It was a joke. Relax. He didn’t ask me out to dinner. He was just very excited to meet the woman that was going to ‘make or break’ his season.” I blew out a raspberry. “Way to add the pressure. There are so many factors that could affect your performance, not just whether I get your grades up, but now that’s all I can think about.” I rolled my eyes, waving off his concern, but realized that Tanner wasn’t laughing. He was laser focused on me, and his glare was darker than usual.
“I’m going to ask you this one time, Aster. Was he inappropriate with you?”
“No, of course not, Tanner. Believe me, I wouldn’t be standing here teaching you if he had been.” That seemed to relax his shoulders, but I still had no idea what got him so concerned in the first place. I was used to talking to professors, and the coaches were no different. In fact, I always felt like I had a little more in common with them when compared to anyone my own age.
Pushing my lips out to the side, I tried to hide my amusement. “He did offer me season box seats, though as a thank you. I declined because I could only assume it meant that I’d be watching a lot of football, and I don’t want that.” I stuck my tongue out, crinkling my nose in disgust.
“You know some people would kill for box seats, right?”
“Good thing I don’t have them, then. Otherwise, I’d be dead.” He raised his brows and laughed.
“No. I think they’re the ones that are dead. You look like the type to put up a fight.”
“Sadly, I’m not. You know there are people that you look at, and you say to yourself, ‘that person would survive a zombie apocalypse?’” He nodded, looking somewhat confused. Hell, evenIwas confused. I was rambling about zombies in the middle of the football field, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself. “Yeah, well, I’m definitely the cannon fodder that dies in the first ten minutes. Probably for the best, anyway. My eyesight is terrible without contacts in, and I’ve broken every pair of glasses I own after a week.”
Tanner was still silent, but his jaw had dropped ever so slightly before he chuckled and took another step closer to me.
His hand reached up, but then he stopped and looked at his hand. There was something about it I didn’t like, so I walked straight up to him, and stood toe to toe.
“Aster Paige. You are something else, you know that?” he wisped out. It was kind of sexy and gravelly. I enjoyed it more than I cared to admit.
“I know. You tell me that all the time.”
His gaze drifted down to my smile, and his words from the other night came to mind. I wanted to look away, or force him not to look at me, but it would be too obvious being this close to him. He said my smile was devastating. That he saw me in a way I didn’t see myself, and those words had haunted me since. The admittance came after I told him about my mom, and it felt like something shifted between us. Like there was an understanding that I’d never really had with anyone else.
Stuffing his hands in his pockets, Tanner tipped on his toes, and looked around the stadium. “So, are you going to tell me why you went to all the effort to get me out here?”
Using my hand as a visor, I looked up at him. “How on earth do you play with the lights like this? I can barely see you.”
“You don’t notice it much when a helmet on. Besides, the one-hundred-thousand fans in the stadium help to dull it down.”
I gulped. “One hundred thousand?” he nodded. “And you don’t pee your pants with nervousness?”
He laughed and bent down so he could open the sack of footballs. “Luckily, I’m still young enough that I have full control over my dick,” he said with nonchalance as he pulled a ball out and stood. Tossing it between his hands, he watched me, completely unaware that now all I could think about was his dick.
“Good to know,” I drawled out, wondering what on earth had gotten into me. I’d never willingly thought about a guy’s crotch before, but the only thing I wanted to do was look down, which was not only rude, but inappropriate.
“Now, come on, Teach. Don’t leave me guessing. Why am I here?”
Because sitting in the library with you after the other night felt like torture. How, all I could think about was the way you looked at me like I was the most precious thing in the world. How my dreams were filled of memories over what it might be like to have you finish off what you started when we were in the library. I didn’t say that, obviously. No matter how much I felt it. I had to keep it to myself.
“Have you ever heard of kinesthetic learning?”
“Nope.” He tossed his football between his hands. “But I haven’t heard of a lot of learning types before meeting you.” There was that lopsided smile again. If he wanted to talk about devastating, he should look in the mirror.
