I’d been by Beaux’s side enough to know that when one fan spotted you, the phones came out, the napkins were slid onto tables, and soon the quiet meal you’d wanted ended up with cold food, ice melted in drinks, and a constant stream of autographs being signed.
“How about a compromise?”
His eyes widened in surprised, like he couldn’t believe I’d get it. “What?”
“We go in, get an order to go, and I get one dance while we wait for our food. Then we can go eat it somewhere more private.”
I had the perfect place in mind. Mama Casita’s was near the NCSU campus and I’d heard it had beautiful parks.
“How is it that you always seem to know exactly what I need?”
His hand was at the back of my neck and his lips were on mine, his tongue seeking entrance into my mouth, before I could respond.
***
“You have a great arm,” Oliver said, his hands extended to catch the pass I’d thrown.
“I learned from the best.”
“I don’t know if I’d call Beaux the best.”
I clapped my hands and opened them, signaling for him to throw the ball. “Fine, I learned from one of the best. Happy?”
He threw the ball into my outstretched hands perfectly. When I did a hip-shake for a celebration dance, Oliver’s gaze turned serious.
“Yes, I’m happy. Very.”
We’d danced our Mariachi dance and laughed ourselves silly. I learned that while Oliver could move like a God in the bedroom, a master on the football field, and could roll his hips seductively to hip-hop music, he absolutely sucked at other forms of dancing.
We’d gotten our food after one song, like I promised him, and then we’d left Mama Casita’s, Oliver holding on to my hand with one of his and our order of food in another, and gone straight to the perfect area of the university.
Fall term would start in a couple of weeks, so for the time being the campus was rather empty and Oliver had guided us to a small park that overlooked a nearby lake. When I’d started cleaning up our mess, he’d run to his car really quick and come back tossing a football in his hands.
I blinked away the emotion that his simple statement caused and threw him the ball.
“Your dad do this with you?”
He’d mentioned his parents a few times, but most of it was in passing.
“Of course,” he replied. “Every day when we were done working on the farm, he’d have me out in the backyard throwing passes.”
“Are you close?”
“Close as we can get, I suppose. He never really understood my passion for football, and I think a part of him still wishes I had stayed close and taken over their farm. But he’s also always been supportive of me, behind me a hundred percent. Both of my parents were.”
“It’s good you had that.” A small wave of sadness rolled over me.
“Your mom wasn’t like that?”
Unlike Oliver, Beaux and I had pretty much done everything on our own, always. “Mom tried to support us, and she did with her words, but she was always so busy working that she didn’t have the time to do much else.”
He caught my next pass and tucked it under his arm before he started walking toward me. “What about your dad? Where was he?”
I snorted. “Drowning himself in a bottle of whiskey at the local bar.”
“You know who he is?” His eyebrows arched in surprise.
Shrugging, I started walking toward the picnic table where we’d left bottles of water he had picked up. “Yeah, I mean, I know his name and he lived in town. But he and my mom weren’t really together when she got pregnant, so he didn’t feel any obligation to stick around when she got knocked up. It’s not like he would have been any help. I only knew he was a worthless drunk.”
He scratched the scruff on his cheek and frowned. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what that was like, but I bet it sucked. What about Beaux’s dad?”
I scrunched my face. “My mom’s not a slut, you know.”
“I never said she was, Shannon. I’m just asking.”
I squeezed my eyes closed and exhaled a breath. “I’m sorry, I’m defensive, but neither of our stories are pretty, I guess, and you come from such a normal family.”
“All families have their problems.”
“I know.” I took another sip of water before explaining. “Beaux’s dad was a one-night stand from a time when my mom worked the front desk at a hotel. All I know is that the hotel was fancy and the patrons had money. Lots of it. She didn’t talk about it much, and I think she was ashamed, but she told me when she was sick that she was just lonely during that time. One small child, all on her own. She had a high school degree but nothing that could earn her enough money to give her kid what she wanted.”
“That sucks,” Oliver replied and set the football down on the picnic table. “I can’t imagine what that was like for any of you, really. The fact that both of you have done so well for yourselves is a testament to her and your characters.”
Tears burned the backs of my eyes and I forced myself to look away. “I miss her. All the time. I missed her when she was alive because Beaux and I were always alone, and then I missed her when she was gone.”
His hand reached out and cupped the side of my neck, and his thumb began making small movements just beneath my chin. “How’d she die?”
“Exhaustion, I think. She was never officially diagnosed with a cause of death other than heart failure.” Tears began blurring my vision as the memories slammed into my mind. “She got pneumonia one winter and didn’t have paid time off. So she kept working, and it took forever for her to get better. But she never really did, either. She kept getting sick, kept refusing to go to the hospital because she didn’t have the insurance to pay for it. Once she lost her jobs and kept getting sicker, I think she just gave up.”
His hand at my neck tightened and he tugged me forward until my forehead hit his chest. His other arm wrapped around my lower back and he held me against him while I began to cry. Swaying back and forth, he held me close, letting me expel all the emotions I worked so hard to keep bottled up.
And it was in that moment, with the sun beating down on us, the rustling of a breeze through the trees and the waves lapping against the shore the only sounds around us, I knew I was falling in deep.
So deep I was drowning, but didn’t want anyone to rescue me.
I pulled back and wiped my tears away, my smile shaky when I looked up at Oliver. The understanding in his eyes made all his hardened features seem softer and made my breath catch in my throat.
“Sorry,” I whispered, cleaning up my cheeks.
“Don’t be.” He leaned down and kissed my cheek, my jaw, my lips, back by my ear. “You have nothing to be sorry for. You ready to go?”
“Yeah.” I sniffed one more time. I erased the sadness in my eyes and grinned, biting my tongue between my teeth. “I still have more things planned for tonight anyway.”
His soft grin turned wicked. “Then by all means, let’s go home.”
***
“What a fucktwit,” Melissa exclaimed after I filled her in on Patrick’s phone call from earlier in the week.
I swallowed my sip of wine before I choked on it. It was Saturday, and for the first night since I’d been in Raleigh, I was alone. No Beaux, no Oliver, just my newly bought and set up television—complete with satellite so I never had to worry about missing a single football game all season—and Melissa’s made-up curse words.
“But Oliver, man, he sounds like a man I wouldn’t mind being claimed by. Not in that way, at least.”
“Yeah, he’s something else.”
It was safe to say I was falling fast.
It seemed surreal at the same time that it was natural.
What didn’t feel natural was the little white box I’d found sitting on the nightstand next to my bed this morning when I went back to grab my purse after Oliver had left.
It was too big to be jewelry. It was also way too soon for him to be giving me jewelry, despite the amount of money he made.
Maybe he left it by accident. Maybe it wasn’t for me, but something he’d forgotten.
Maybe he wanted me to wait until he called me after the game like he’d promised he would.
I’d spent hours downstairs thinking of the rectangular box. It seemed to shout through the floor, down to my workroom in Stamped, “open me, open me, open me, come on, you know you want to.”
I’d caved two hours earlier, curiosity almost killing me.
Now, I was going to kill him.
The box hadn’t contained jewelry. It hadn’t even contained a memento, something cheesy to remember him when he played in his away games.
Nope.
A butt plug.
Butt. Plug. It wasn’t a small one, either. He’d mentioned it once and, interested in what he’d done to me, I’d hoped we’d go there. We hadn’t. For the past week he had backed off the backdoor entrance. After the first time he’d pressed a finger inside of me, though, I had looked butt plugs up online.
The plug he’d left surreptitiously next to my nightstand, giving me a clear indication he wanted this, was much smaller than him. It was also not a beginner, small-sized plug.
Hence the sudden need I had for wine.
“I tell you what, Shanna Banana,” Melissa said.