Page 43 of Black Roses

After our Chateaubriand gets served, I ask him, “So how’s training camp going?”

“It’s not called training camp this time of year. We’re still in off-season conditioning. Full blown training camp doesn’t start until late July. That’s when we turn our lives over to the league for six or seven months. To end conditioning, we have a mini-camp in mid-June and then we have free time until we report to training camp.”

“So you get the month of July off?” I ask.

“Technically, yes. But we still work with our trainers and sometimes we attend pre-season functions. Mostly it’s just six weeks of stress and anticipation of the upcoming season.”

“When do you find out if you get the starting position? Do you have a tryout or something?”

He chuckles, confirming just how little I know of American football. “No. I won’t get the starting position as long as Henley is around. He’s a Heisman-winning player. He’s popular with the fans and managers. But mainly, he’s just one hell of a quarterback.”

His words make me wonder, causing my brow to furrow. “Then why stay here in New York if you know you won’t get the job?”

“He’ll have to leave sometime. The guy is forty-one years old which is practically elderly in this sport. He was supposed to retire this year but changed his mind after the playoffs. I suspect it won’t be long. One more season, maybe two.” He looks out the windows, out onto the many lit-up buildings that tower over the busy streets. “I love it here. I love New York. And while I wait, I’m getting stronger. Better. So that when I do get the job, I’ll secure a future for me and Hailey right here where I want to be.”

“Won’t it be surreal for Hailey, growing up with a famous father?”

“I don’t know. I mean, I did a lot of my growing up without a father at all. Whatever happens and wherever my career takes me, I swore the day Hailey was born not to let it affect her or our relationship. Sometimes that can be hard with Cassidy holding the reigns most of the time.”

“Speaking of Cassidy,” I say, finding the perfect opportunity to extract information without seeming too interested.

“Can we not speak of her while we’re on a date, Piper? Thinking of her will completely get my mind off that incredible dress you’re wearing. You look beautiful tonight. You look beautiful all the time, but wow . . . that dress.”

I find it hard to hold in my smile watching him attempt to not look at my breasts. It’s another borrowed dress, and it shows off a bit more cleavage than I’m used to advertising. But it’s fancy and appropriate for the venue. Mason is nothing but chivalrous as he keeps his attention on my face, my arms, my hands. Anything but my boobs. I wonder if he made a bet with himself to not look directly at my chest this evening. I try to imagine what he will reward himself with if he wins.

Tingles pulse through my nerves thinking about what that could entail. Anxiety follows the thoughts as I take another drink from my champagne flute.

“Let’s talk about Hailey instead,” he says. “I have her this weekend and I was wondering if you’d like to join us for a picnic tomorrow afternoon.”

“You have Hailey this weekend?” I ask. “Who’s with her now?”

“She’s at my neighbor’s apartment. I trade babysitting for football tickets.”

I raise my eyebrows. “Sitter too expensive for you? I thought you professional athletes were rolling in money.”

“I can afford a lot of things, Piper. That doesn’t mean I have to spend money on them. Plus, it’s a lot more fun figuring out how to barter for what I need.”

Amazement, or maybe amusement, flashes across my face. His words make me think of Charlie and my life abroad. “I spend a lot of time bartering.”

His face falls, his smiling gaze going dead sober. “Uh, not to sound like I don’t think you have many talents, because I’m sure you do, but what exactly do you barter with?”

I know what he’s thinking. And he’d be right if Charlie were sitting across the table from him instead of me. She has gotten us plenty of meal tickets and free stays by letting men use her. “I barter with my time. I run errands for people, sometimes work in their shops or bars for a free stay in the flat above. Once we lived with an old guy in Wales for a few months, just because he wanted company. His wife had recently passed away and he lived in this huge castle-like home. He gave us a place to stay and three hot meals a day, just so someone was there. We played Monopoly with him every Sunday night.”

He looks slightly shocked. “And that’s all he wanted, companions?”

“Yes. That’s all.” Then I tease, “Well, what he and Charlie did behind closed doors, I couldn’t tell you. But for a ninety-year-old man, I’d say he’s got stamina.”

His mouth drops open and his eyes fill with rage as if I’d saidIwas whoring myself out.

I laugh. “I’m only kidding, Mason. God, if you could see your face right now. Mr. Longfellow was quite the gentleman. And more than a little feeble. I assure you, it was all very proper.”

“Longfellow, huh?” he chuckles, lightening his mood. He reaches across the table and runs his fingertip along the bridge of my nose, down to my tiny piercing. “And what did you have to do to get this?”

I feel his touch throughout my entire body and I pray he doesn’t sense the way my pulse shoots up as if I’d just started a race. I try to control my breathing, but with the way he’s looking at me right now, my entire autonomic nervous system just went into overdrive.

He drops his hand back to the table, close to where mine rests, and I find myself willing him to inch it over and put it on me. Right now, in this moment, my body is winning the war over my mind. And my body craves his touch.

I must have been staring at our hands too long. Or Mason is a mind reader. Because he moves his hand towards mine and threads two of his fingers around two of mine. It’s almost the way childhood friends might hold hands, light and casual, but . . .holy crap. . . it’s anything but. Every feeling I had on top of the Empire State Building last week comes rushing back. The words he spoke ring in my ears.What if you fall in love with me, will you move to New York then?

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