“I don’t either.”

“Good.” He smiled again, this time longer, seeming satisfied as he watched my expression. “Then maybe you give him some wiggle room? Maybe be patient while he sorts out the stupid sh…stuff in his head. He’s my kid, very stubborn and a little hot-headed.”

“A little?”

“Fair enough.” Kona shook his head, as though it was hard to admit his own flaws, but that smile remained and he continued to watch me. I didn’t know what he wanted from me exactly, but I was certain in the end, one of us would be disappointed.

The smile lowered, as though Kona debated if he should say what came next. “I see the way he looks at you.” My eyebrows came up, curious, a little surprised but Kona didn’t change that expression, as though he knew more about what Ransom was thinking that Ransom did. “He might not know it yet, but he wants to be your friend.”

“Friend?” Koa asked and Kona laughed again, picking up his boy.

“Let’s go see Mama.” And they disappeared out of the room.

The patio door gave easily when I opened it and I stood under the awning, watching the waves on the lake, not really seeing anything but the distant reach of the sun across the water.

Kona was concerned about his son, I knew that. Keira was as well. I’d caught the way her gaze followed Ransom when he’d talk about school or the exhaustive football practices and games. They loved him very much, anyone could see that. And the touch of that ghost, the one that came to him out on this lake had kept Ransom from the promise of the person he could be, and instead had made him the boy who had withdrawn from the world.

Ransom had kissed me, then pulled away. I had a feeling I knew why, but if Kona and Keira’s concern were real and they needed me, I could put aside what I had kept hidden from Ransom, couldn’t I? Isn’t that what you do when you care about someone? You put their needs before your own?

I wasn’t sure what Kona thought about my very thin connection with his son, but if Ransom needed a friend, that’s what I’d be. As much as it may hurt me, as much as I wanted Ransom to kiss me like he had again, to be more to him than simply a friend, I could push aside what I felt and be what he needed—either as myself or as the dancer.

13

Trent wouldn’t shut his damn mouth.

“Anyway, like I was saying, you need to come back with us. There was this one chick I ran into backstage. Fuck, was she hot. I was drunk though, but still. What happened to you again?” He lifted the dumbbell over his head, grunting, breathing through his nose. “You…” he released a long grunt, “disappeared on us last time you were there.”

It wasn’t a question, but the guy still stared at me, watching as I kept the bar even above my head. I knew he expected a response, but I still continued to ignore him as I finished my rep.

“Where’d you go?” Marshall stood next to the bench, wiping his red face with a towel. He stunk something fierce and I hurried through my rep just to get away from the downwind reek of him.

That prick followed.

“One minute I saw you there, the next you disappeared.”

Sweat and general funk isn’t pleasant. It’s especially not pleasant when you’re in a weight room with fifteen other linesmen trying to hurry through their workout before game day.

“I got caught up in something, man.” That wasn’t a lie. I had been caught up by the private dancer but Marshall’s nosy ass didn’t need to know that. He also didn’t know I ran out of there as fast I could afterwards because it looked like I’d pissed myself.

Heading to the showers I relaxed when the guy nodded and I lost him near the lockers. “Jackass,” I muttered under my breath, desperate for a little quiet and a lot of solitude while I washed away the sweat and tiredness of the week.

I had it in spades.

The water was hot, moved over my sore joints and muscles, massaging against my back as I dipped my head under the spray. I had fucked up, yet again and wasn’t sure there were enough showers in the world to take that fuck up away.

Scrubbing my face, I could only see surprise on Aly’s face as I took her mouth over and over. At first, I told myself it had been the Kizomba—the music moving into my body, working some kind of seduction, her fine, fit body brushing against mine—it had all added up to me losing my head, to me wanting to touch, to take and giving into the want without thinking. She had some kind of effect on me that I didn’t understand. When I was near her, close to her, I forgot that she wasn’t my type. I forgot that I didn’t want her. I forgot that I didn’t deserve her.

Never mind that I’d been thinking about her for weeks before that kiss. Never mind that if my dad’s loud orgasmic outburst hadn’t cocked blocked me, I would have definitely kissed her the night of the booster fundraiser at our house. Still, that night at the studio, none of my earlier attempts to convince myself I didn’t want her seemed right to me. Telling myself that she wasn’t my type had seemed like the biggest lie I’ve told myself—and I’ve told many. I’d wanted to take what wasn’t mine.

And I had. Just for a moment.

She’d felt so small under my big hands. She’d smelled too good, that exotic jasmine scent again and I could not help myself. I’d been around her, watched her, saw what had been invisible to me before in our infrequent run-ins at the studio. I’d always been so absorbed in my own head, in my own misery that not much penetrated my attention. But being around her these past few weeks, hearing her sing, being so close to her when we danced—Aly had become so clear and so visible to me.

But just kissing her—the first real kiss I’d had in such a long damn time—had awakened that voice, and it berated me, ripped me in two just for tasting something I had no business touching.

Disgusting, it called me. Pathetic. Weak.

I’d listened to it, agreed with it and pulled away from Aly like a man coming back from a fantasy he had no business enjoying. After that, I could not touch her. Oh, I still wasn’t immune to her body, to that soft, soft skin, but something was happening to me that I couldn’t explain, have never been able to explain. I’d spent years so tied up in guilt that my body had forgotten what it was to want. Now it had reacted to the dancer. It had reacted to Aly and behind all that need and lust and want, came the crushing weight of knowing that I had no right to feel that way around either of them.

I didn’t see a way clear of any of it.

The shower didn’t help. If anything, I felt worse, especially when I spotted Trent heading toward me as I dried off and got dressed. Luckily, Ronnie stopped him and I was able to make an escape before Trent could pester me anymore.

It was cold for October and there were orange and yellow leaves littering the sidewalk and along the entrance to the team parking lot. This time of year reminded me of chilly fall days in Nashville as a kid when Mom and I carved pumpkins that always ended up with haggard smiles and too large, jagged teeth.

It also reminded me of Emily’s red hair and that Halloween we snuck away from the tour group at the pumpkin patch maze and we kissed until the sky was dark and Tristian and Emily’s friend Becca were shouting that the patch was closing.

The memory of that maze and Emily’s flushed, pale skin kept my mind distracted so I didn’t notice Aly sitting on the hood of my Mustang until I was a good ten feet from her.

“Hey…hi…. Ransom…” Aly’s tone was light, but I could hear the tiny tremor in it. She wore a pair of dark, fitted jeans and a burgundy cardigan with a multi-colored scarf around her neck. She was bright and vivid, the colors so warm they reminded me of the leaves I’d just crunched under my foot. But what had me gawking at her like a jackass was all that long, wavy hair that fell way past her shoulders. Her hair was glorious and I damn near couldn’t control myself seeing it falling so freely like that. The effect of it not being tightly combed against her scalp was dramatic.