Page 42 of Crossing the Top Line

“Sounds good. Have a good night,” I say with a smile.

This is the right thing to do, I tell myself, as I slide into the driver’s seat and start the engine. We need boundaries, firm ones, if we’re going to have any chance of working together peacefully. But that doesn’t stop my heart from sinking as I watch his form shrink in my rearview mirror as I drive away and into the night.

Howmanytimesdoyou have to do something for it to count as a tradition?

The thought floats across my mind as I sit across from Tori for the fourth week in a row, eating our lunch together. That has to count, right? Twice is just a pattern, and three times is a lucky number for a lot of people. Most new relationships will fail after three dates, at least in my experience. So, four times has to be significant, especially when she was the one to suggest we take my car to the deli instead of walking.

Could that request have come from a place a practicality? Maybe. She’s covering the outing me and a few of the other guys are doing to a local elementary school, and it would be silly for us to drive separately if we’re going to the same places. But I’m choosing to think of this as her trying to spend more time with me one-on-one.

“So, yeah, sorry I won’t be going to Philly this weekend,” Tori finishes, though I’ll admit I lost the thread of her words a while back.

“That’s okay,” I reply, taking the last bite of my po’ boy.

My stomach jumps a little, nerves I’d forgotten about surging back to life. This game in Philadelphia is game five, and every day that passes makes me stressed and hopeful in equal measure. The coaching staff has two more games to finalize the roster, and we’re nearly there. Everyone in the locker room except for Spencer, Eli, me, and three other guys were on last year’s roster. Three of us have to go in order to meet the maximum number of players allowed on the active roster. The cut could come at any given moment, looming like a giant over my shoulder.

And the fact that Eli and Spencer were called in to participate in an afternoon skate without me isn’t helping my nerves in the slightest.

I blink and look up into Tori’s face and realize she’s staring at me, eyebrows furrowed and head cocked slightly to one side. Beams of sunlight stream through the dusty window and catch on her gold highlights, and for a moment, it almost looks like Tori has a glowing halo around her stunning face. But then she leans back, and the spell is broken.

“You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” she says, voice suddenly low and serious.

So, we’re talking about the school trip now. Good to know.

I shrug. “Kids don’t bother me, and you know I’m good in front of a camera,” I reply, throwing her a smirk.

She rolls her eyes, but smiles. I was picked to do an intermission interview last game, and judging by how often I’ve been tagged across social media, the fans are loving it. I’ve had at least three women message me and offer to bear my children, as long as I look at them like I was looking at the camera. Little do they know, I wasn’t making eyes at the lens, or the camerawoman. I was staring straight past them and into Tori’s mismatched eyes, delighting with the shade of red she turned as I let my comments linger about getting pucks in deep.

“If you pull that shit again, I’m going to take you off the list,” she chides, but it lacks any real heat.

“That’s your call, but good luck explaining it to your boss,” I say with another more taunting smirk, pulling out my phone.

She’s spluttering a response, but her half-formed sentences aren’t trying to deny the underlying truth of my words. Her job is obtaining good content to get fans excited enough about the team to buy tickets to games. She takes her role seriously, and I want to do anything I can to help her. Maybe undressing her with my eyes while a camera was shoved in my face isn’t her idea of “good content,” but she can’t ignore the results it produced.

A dozen notifications have come through in the half hour we’ve been here, and just for fun, I open a few.

“This fan said she’s buying my jersey, and even wants to give me a private fashion show. Should I pencil that into my calendar?” I tease, looking up through my lashes.

Tori’s little scowl is so precious, even if it’s only there for a moment. She even tries to growl, though I’ve heard more intimidating noises from newborn kittens. I put my phone away and turn to look at her more fully. Her cheeks are red, as are her ears and neck, and she’s very purposefully not looking at me.

“We should go, or we’re going to be late,” she states, moving to stand before she’s even done speaking.

My smirk softens into a smile as I nod and stand as well, catching up to her with ease. I move close, resting one hand on the small of her back as I reach above her head and shove the door open with my other. I feel her shiver and spot the goosebumps through the material of her polo, but to my surprise, she doesn’t move away from my touch, even as I keep contact all the way to where my car is parked on the curb. It’s with no small amount of reluctance that I move away, darting out to open the passenger side door for her before she can even lift her hand.

Tori looks up at me then, pausing her steps and the very air around us. The lighter of her irises has turned crystal blue in the sun, and I notice the smattering of tiny freckles on the tops of her cheekbones. She breathes deep, and I watch as her pupils expand until only a sliver of color is left around them. Her scent wraps around my heart and squeezes, sugar and flowers coating my tongue and making my mouth water. We’re close enough that our chests brush whenever we both breathe out, and my hand twitches at my side. Bone-deep longing fills my gut, my instincts screaming to destroy the space between us until neither God nor man can separate us.

But then she blinks and steps back before gracefully climbing into the passenger seat, shattering the frozen moment we’d made.

I close the door softly behind her and walk around the back of my SUV, gathering my wits and adjusting my mostly hard cock in my jeans. We’re working, I remind myself. I can’t let my thoughts run away from me, not if I want to avoid having to explain the birds and the bees to a group of small children. I just have to make it through this relatively short drive, and then I can put some needed space between us, even if my primal mind hates that idea.

Once I’m seated and pulling away from the curb, it’s easier to keep my mind clear as I focus on the directions coming from the GPS. We’re both quiet, not bothering to turn on any music to fill the air.

Not that there would be much room for it with all this sexual tension taking up space.

Thankfully, the drive is short, and I recognize a couple of vehicles, as well as the guys milling around them in the parking lot. I carefully pull into a space next to them, taking in the group as I come to a stop and turn off the engine. There are a handful of beefy security guards, the sleeves of their black t-shirts stretched to their limits around massive biceps. When I slide out of the driver’s seat, the nearest guard gives me a nod but then returns to scanning the area around us. I jog around to the passenger side, but Tori is already out and shutting her door, her eyes on her phone.

“Thought you got lost, Ace!” a laughing voice calls from nearby, drawing both of our attention.

I look up and grin at Paul Francisco, one of the oldest veterans on the team. His scruffy beard peppered with silver, a few laugh lines crinkling the deep brown skin around his dark eyes, and a close-cropped haircut that is at least a decade out of fashion. In contrast, the man beside him, Wyatt Hughes, looks like a child, with round cheeks and limbs that he hasn’t quite fully grown into yet. He was drafted this past summer, and still has the star-struck shine in his eyes whenever he looks at one of the more seasoned players in the locker room. They play together on the third defensive line, and it’s quite an odd-couple pairing. But their stats are some of the best on the team, so Coach must be onto something.

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