Chapter 26

26

W elcome to Boston in November. We're supposed to get hit with a nor‘easter that could be a lot of rain and wind, or it could be a lot of snow and ice. A cold front is headed in from Canada along with this, and Boston is on the rain-snow line. Every few years we get one of these in the fall the way we are now, and it always leads to a crappy winter. Thankfully I don't have work for the next couple of days.

I slip out my phone as I walk to the garage, debating if I should text Tinsley. Today was a bastard of a shift, and I just want to hear her voice and know she's okay. That last letter from her stalker was a motherfucker, and it threw her—understandably so—into a bit of a tailspin. She's withdrawn further from me, and I don't know how to reach her or make her feel safe when that's all I want to do.

I have nothing to say. Not really. She's smart to keep her distance, and it would be wise if I followed suit. For the most part, I have. She hasn't given me a choice but to.

I haven't seen her since she sprained her ankle, and that was more than a week ago. Vander—not Tinsley— texted me about the letter she received over the weekend. I pressed her about it via text, since she's been evading me like it's her sport, but she pulled away even more, and I let it go, not knowing what else to do.

I'm miserable. There are signs of her all over my place, though she does try to keep mostly to her room. She uses the yoga mat I bought her in the gym, and I know she runs on the treadmill because the settings are left for her. Some of her food is in my fridge, and yesterday I found Doe playing with one of her hair ties.

She's here, but she's not.

It's driving me crazy.

I need this whole stalker thing to get figured out so she can go, and I can get my life back—one that hopefully includes meeting and falling in love with someone else. Only instinctively, I know that's a joke. It doesn't matter if she's right in front of me or three thousand miles away. It's her. It's always been her.

And frighteningly enough, it might always be her.

Karma never quite came back around in my favor where women are concerned, and now I'm being punished again. I'm engaged to the woman of my dreams, the woman I would want to be engaged to and marry for real, but it's not real and it never will be.

I put my phone back in my pocket and drive home. I'm in a shitty mood. Whether it's the change in barometric pressure, my crappy day at work, or that I'm in love with a woman who wants nothing to do with me, I don't know. Whatever it is, I'm fed up with everything.

When I get home, the apartment is quiet, and I don't bother knocking on her door to check if she's home. I never do. I make dinner the way I have been since she moved in and help myself to a few fingers of bourbon while bouncing texts back and forth with the guys as I settle in and put on Thursday Night Football since Mason is playing.

Poor bastard has a short week between games, but I have zero doubts he'll rise to the occasion. It's what he does.

Just as the game starts, the front door unexpectedly swings open, and there is Tinsley, all bundled up in a black winter coat and knee-high boots with leggings tucked into them. All of her gorgeous hair is piled on top of her head in a high ponytail, and her makeup is extra, which makes me think she came right from set. Her purple eyes meet mine, and she pauses, uncertainty flickering across her features.

She's not happy to find me here, and I know part of her is debating whether or not she should turn around and leave. I settle the debate for her as I stand and say, "Hey. It's getting cold out there."

Stupid and banal, but she likes her temperatures warm and balmy.

"Yeah. It's awful."

I chuckle and smile lightly, and immediately my gaze drops to her left hand. She's wearing the ring. It's the first time I've seen it on her in person, and knowing she must have put it on when she was done shooting for the day makes my heart give a heavy thud as if it's kicking me in the chest. She follows where my eyes are, and I clear my throat and look away.

I offer her a casual smile. "How was your day?"

"Good. Exhausting. You?"

"Same." I don't bother going into the bullshit of my day. It's the last thing I want to think or talk about. She's here, and it feels like I can finally take a breath. Even my salty mood feels lighter.

She removes her boots and takes off her coat, putting both in the front hall closet. "We had to do like a hundred takes on one scene because we couldn't get it right. It set us back a bit, but hopefully we can make up the time. However, I think the storm will push us even further behind schedule. Did you know we're supposed to get like two feet of snow and ice? What is that? It's barely November."

Oh, little rose. You're cute when I affect you and make you jumpy.

"The weather people keep going back and forth on snow versus rain. I guess we'll have to see when it starts later tonight." I pause because she won't advance. "That's too bad you're behind schedule."

It's really not. I'd love it if she were decades behind schedule. I'm also shocked that with the storm coming, she didn't intentionally try to hunker down somewhere else. Like with Loomis. Or maybe that's why she's so jumpy. My girl hates storms.

"Did you eat?"

"Eat?" Her eyes go a little round, and her eyebrows slant inward as if the word was foreign to her.

Fuck this. I cross the room until I'm beside her. "Yeah, you know, food."

"Oh. No. I didn't." Then she laughs. "I haven't had anything to eat since breakfast. Like I said, it was a crazy day."

"Go sit down. The game is on, and Mason is playing. I'll make you a plate."

Absently, she slides her ring back and forth on her hand with her thumb. "Um."

I roll my eyes, so done with this bullshit. "Go sit down, Tinsley. You can watch football with me, have a drink, and eat some food. Believe it or not, you're not so irresistible to me that I can't be around you without fucking you against the wall."

My dick twitches in my jeans, calling me a lying bastard, but I ignore it and go to the kitchen without another word or a backward glance. I made extra, and I know she likes this meal because she ordered it in a restaurant years ago for her twentieth birthday. I pour her a flute of her favorite sparkling wine from the wine fridge, make her a plate, and then carry it out to her, setting everything down on the coffee table because it's more casual and it's where she's sitting. If she gets food on my rug, so be it.

The tension simmering between us has a buzzing undercurrent. Something intoxicating and pounding. It's more than lust or the whisper of sex. But I don't push it or stoke it or even draw attention to it. The last thing I want right now, when she's actually sitting here, is to scare her off.

"Mason just ran for a first down," she informs me as I retake my seat on the couch, my drink once again in my hand.

"We've been working on his running game," I tell her. "I go to his place, or he comes to mine a few days a week to run sprints."

Her head swivels in my direction, eyes wide with shock. "For real?"

"He's great from the pocket, but his running game outside the pocket has always been his weakness. We've worked on making him faster and race each other on the treadmill. It's why I have two, or didn't you notice?"

"I was wondering but never asked. I like the one on the right the best."

"Same. That's the one I use, but Mason's is the one on the left. The loser has to buy drinks for everyone when we go out, but that's usually in the offseason."

"Wow," she exclaims, surprised, but there's a strange undertone to her voice. "That's a great bar story. It must get you both laid whenever you want."

I smirk. It forms like the wicked wind that's starting to whip outside the window. "Maybe for Mason, it does."

"Not you?"

I shrug and take a sip of my drink. I won't answer her. She's fishing, and I won't be her bait. My truth is a little more reality than either of us can bear. After she's done eating, I expect her to make an excuse and go, but she doesn't. She hangs around, her legs sprawled out toward me on the other side of the couch. After watching her roll and crack her ankles and flex and extend her toes for the tenth time, I scoot closer to her, lift her feet, and drop them in my lap.

"How's your ankle?" I press around the part that was swollen last week. She was walking fine when she came in, but it still might be tender.

"It's better, thank you." She tries to pull her feet back, but I hold them in my lap. "What are you doing?" she squawks, only for it to turn into a deep moan as I start to rub her feet, my thumbs digging into her insteps. "Oh god, whatever you're doing, don't stop."

"I love it when you say that to me."

She rolls her eyes. "Strange, since I've never said that to you. Ever."

"What? That you didn't want me to stop? Yes, baby girl, you have."

"Never. Not once."

I smirk. "Several times, actually. Screamed. Moaned. Whispered. Begged. You've said it to me all those ways."

"Ugh. I hate you." She jabs her foot at me, and I laugh and tickle the bottom of her feet until she squirms. "Shit, stop that. No more tickling. I like how you rub me, so keep doing that."

"That's what she said."

She laughs. "So lame. I was referring to my feet. Not anything else."

"Maybe, but it's still true."

"Is this how you woo all your hot dates? Make them dinner and a drink, and then rub their feet until they're putty in your hands and they beg you to rub them somewhere else? Or do you simply bring them home and fuck them on your entry table before they even take off their coat? "

"Huh?" I sit up a little straighter, my gaze snapping from the TV to her.

"Right. You have no clue what I'm talking about."

Her sharp tone and sardonic words give me pause, and I wait her out, even as I continue to rub her feet. And when she leaves it at that, I lose my patience. "Actually, I don't. Please enlighten me."

She makes a face, her lips twisted and pursed to the side. "It's nothing."

"Bullshit, it's not. Tell me." I squeeze her foot. "That's the second comment you've made tonight about me getting laid and using cheap tactics to make it happen, and last week you said something similar when I came to look at your ankle. Why? Where is this coming from?"

A huff passes her lips, her expression dismissive and annoyed that I'm pushing this, but tough shit.

"I found condoms," she bites out. "Everywhere. In the kitchen, in the freaking front entryway table, in your office. Even here in the side table drawer." She knocks on the table between the sofa and one of the chairs.

Oh. Interesting. "What were you doing searching through my drawers like that?"

"I was looking for paper."

Paper. Hmm. Okay. "I don't have a lot of paper around."

"I know. But you certainly have a lot of condoms instead."

I try not to laugh. "Does it bother you that I have condoms stashed all over my house and not paper?"

Those cute, pursed lips turn into a defensively infuriated scowl. "Why would I care about all the women you fuck or where you do it?"

"Because you brought it up. More than once. So clearly it bothers you."

She tries to jerk her feet back, but I hold on tight .

"Unh-uh. Tell me why you care. I'm sure you've fucked your share of guys over the years."

Color rises up her cheeks, and she looks away from me. I laugh. I can't help it. I'm jubilant.

"Let me go!" she snaps, working to free her feet. She thinks I'm mocking her when I'm anything but. I let them go, watching as she stands and storms off for the kitchen with her plate and empty glass.

Is she admitting she hasn't been with anyone else since me? No one else in these two years? Same as I haven't.

My chest inflates, and I rub at it, trying to settle the excited helium back down. It doesn't mean she didn't screw around because of me. Her life is as complicated as it gets, especially with men.

She heads for her bedroom, and I call out to her. "Did you happen to check any of the expiration dates on the boxes or condoms?"

She pauses but doesn't turn back to look at me, so I press on.

"They're old, little Rose. Honestly, I forgot about them. Yes, I used to bring women here, fuck them all over my house, and then make sure they were gone before first light. I didn't care about any of them, and they all knew the score before they signed up for it."

She tenses, her shoulders hiking up to her neck, and I stand, moving toward her but still maintaining several feet of distance between us.

"That was how I lived, and I was unapologetic about it until I spent ten days sailing around the Bahamas with a woman who changed it all for me. She sort of ruined me for anyone else, and after her, I couldn't bring myself to go back to how I used to be. It all felt empty and shallow because it was. I haven't touched a woman other than her in two years because I don't want any other woman but her. "

There. I said it. It's out there.

Maybe that was stupid, but I'm so goddamn tired of holding it in. Of playing cat and mouse only to be left with a moldy slice of two-year-old cheese. I miss her, and I crave her, and I want her to be fucking mine. For two years, this has been sitting on my chest. With any luck, setting it free will give me freedom in return. A tip of the karmic scales.

I sure as fuck hope so.

I feel due when it comes to her.

I go to sit back down, pick up what's left of my drink, and swallow it in one gulp. My feet kick up on the coffee table, and I turn up the volume, letting her know I don't want to talk about this anymore. And without another word or a glance, she walks down the hall to her room and shuts the door behind her.

And for the first time with us, I don't chase after her.