I break away, walking down the hall the the bedroom and leaving Mack with one hand raised in greeting.
After I do my stretches and slide into bed, I ignore the pulsing warmth in my body, the instinct that even now to draws me to Mack like a moth to a flame.
I’m better than my instincts now, and I’m here to do a job.
Mack comes to me in my dreams, but there’s no way to control the dreams that bring you back to a former lover. In the morning, when I wake, I shed that desire and start in on the challenge of bringing the NFL’s prodigal son back to the light.
CHAPTER SEVEN
My back and my head hurt like I’ve been drinking hard when I wake up the next morning. In a way, I have. I indulged myself in staring out at Renata, thinking about all the years we missed out on, all the time that I discarded for the sake of… well, a lot of things she has no idea about. There’s no coming back from what I did, even if I did it for a good reason.
I go through the motions of my typical morning, waking early and working out, followed by a nasty coffee-protein shake combo that Wingate came up with a year or so ago. I can’t help liking it, even though it’s probably the grossest combination of stuff since Kind Bars were invented.
“At least the protein shake doesn’t break your teeth, Mack,” I say to myself, out loud. My muscles are still pumping from lifting, and my legs are sore from the intensity of yesterday evening’s workout. I was so angry at Wingate and so frustrated that this woman I worked so hard to forget would be coming back into my life that I pushed myself too hard and got my legs into a mess. I sip on the coffee-flavored peanut-butter protein shake and fiddle with the side of the glass as I look out of my kitchen window. The lights in the guest house are still off, and with good reason. Renata’s probably dealing with some jet lag. I wonder if I ought to make her some coffee and leave it on the porch in one of those Yeti cups that keeps your coffee boiling hot all day.
But Wingate said ‘no contact,’ since she still obviously thinks you’re the worst scum on the face of the entire planet Earth. And you just about are, aren’t you?
The protein shake leaves a greasy mustache on my upper lip, and I wipe it with one of the fluffy kitchen towels that the cleaning team leaves around. I don’t even know where they came from. Wingate’s got a team of decorators and designers, and they took the image I gave them and created this house from nothing.
It’s not my house, not really. Not mine alone. It's the house from my imagined life with Renata, and I didn’t think she’d ever see it in person.
To tell the truth, I’ve thought about moving out more times than I can count over the last few years.
The kitchen is too big, with a chef’s stovetop set on a big wooden island, copper pots and pans I don’t use hanging from ceiling racks, and what seems like acres of smooth, open counter space. Counter space that was intended for making cookies and pancakes and omelets on Sunday mornings—not for lining up shots and pouring beer pong beer.
I sigh and drink the rest of my shake, slamming down the cup in the sink. It’ll be gone by the time I come back to make lunch, cleaned and set aside by one of the silent staff that Wingate hired when we moved out of town. Wingate used to stay in this big house I have, but now his is almost through being built down the road. Can’t say I blame him for moving out early. He’s not much of one for girls wrestling in baby pools, and he thinks I’m on some kind of immature downswing.
A burst of rage breaks through the zen I cultivated during my workout.
The damn man told me I couldn’t have my party today, but it’s my privilege and my right to have people to this house when I see fit. It’s not like Renata’s going to make her way over here to personally tell me off since she’s the one who wanted no contact, and she even stipulated it in the contract she signed.
I should be glad she’s here to reform my image, to save my career. If there’s ever been one thing I loved almost as much as I loved Renata, it’s football, and the Carolina team in particular. But Wingate’s head is screwed on incorrectly, and he’s meddled and meddled until he brought back the woman I left behind, the one thing I didn’t need as I headed into a new season.
I growl as I look across the field to the house where that woman is staying. The lights still aren’t on, and there’s no way she’ll know about what I’m doing this morning. By the time she wakes up, I’ll have half the team and fifty of our closest fans lounging in the pool on the side of the house. I’ll make the party bigger than I was going to.
She said no contact.