Page 50 of Sexting the Coach
This is what life would be like with Elsie. Always another adventure. Making friends with strangers. Not letting the night end without a dance like this.
As she dances, her hair comes loose from her bun, and she eventually reaches up, pulling out the hair tie and letting the whole thing come tumbling down. She’s loose and free. Everything I’m not.
At least people thought Leda and I made sense. Both buttoned-up. Both career-obsessed. Both in bed by nine.
People would look at Elsie and me, as a couple, and think something was mismatched there. Make jokes about opposites attracting. I’ve always been the calm, sensible guy, proceeding forward in the most logical way.
And I realize, watching Elsie now, that there might just be a part of me waiting to get knocked loose by her. Waiting to findsomeone who might push me out of the comfort zone I’ve existed in for so long.
I’m so lost in my thoughts about it that, at first, when a guy sidles up next to her on the dance floor, I almost don’t notice. Elsie is so caught up in dancing with the other girls that I don’t think she notices, either, until the guy leans down and whispers something to her.
When she turns around and looks up at him, smiling and laughing, leaning into his touch, I’m on my feet before I realize what’s going on. Something possessive burns in my chest—something I haveneverfelt before, aside from going after the puck—and I follow that feeling all the way to Elsie, all the way to the man standing next to her on the dance floor.
“…love your earrings,” the guy is saying. He’s tall, with shaggy brown hair, and when he straightens up, I catch his shimmering pink eye shadow. I stop, but it’s too late—Elsie has already caught sight of me out here on the dance floor, the only still person among the undulating bodies.
“Weston!” she says, her hands on me, tugging me in closer to her. In an instant, she’s dancing, her chest grazing mine, her laughter ringing out around me. If she’s aware of what brought me out onto the dance floor, she doesn’t show it.
Sober Elsie would have already been making fun of me for making assumptions. For acting like a dog needing to mark its territory.
But drunk Elsie just laughs and throws her head back, her arms around my neck.
I laugh. Realize my body is moving along to the music, my hands resting on her hips. For once, I’m not thinking about the team, not thinking about Fincher’s bad attitude, not even thinking about Leda and her stupid comments to the press.
I’m only thinking about the feeling of Elsie’s skin under my fingers, and how desperately I want more.
Chapter 21
Elsie
Weston Wolfe ishot.
Obviously, I knew that. We all knew that. Mabel has been making a point about it from the day we showed up on the Squids campus and saw him standing there in his baseball hat, barking out orders.
But right now, in the middle of this dance floor, staring up at him, I just double down on the realization—he isgorgeous.
A strong jawline covered in a dark brown beard. Straight nose, thick eyebrows. The kind of neck I want to rise up onto my tiptoes and bury my face in. The scent of his cologne drifts off him, and each time I touch his chest, I wonder what he would do if I started unbuttoning this Hawaiian shirt.
Obviously, I’m wasted. But it’s not like these thoughts are coming just from the alcohol. Hattie always says getting drunk just lets the real you out.
Real me wants to climb Weston Wolfe like a fucking tree.
In fact, real me wants to drop to my knees right here, right now, and show him that I’m worth another try in bed. I want to forget all that shit about bring friends, about that night being a mistake. I want full access to his body for as long as I can get it.
Sober Elsie screams from somewhere in my mind that I need to make sure I’m not saying any of this out loud, but I shove her back into a closet and focus on the light, hazy feeling of havingSo+. Much. Fun.
I’m still not sure what got Weston to get up and come out to the dance floor, but I’m grateful for it. I keep dancing, sliding my hips against his, turning around and pressing my back into his chest, tipping my head up and lifting a hand to place at the nape of his neck.
He shivers, his hands tightening on my hips, flexing for a moment.
I twist around to face him, tip my chin up so my gaze catches his. His dark eyes focus on me, flicking between my face and my eyes, and once again I’m chanting, begging, pleadingkiss me.
And, for a second, it looks like he might. He leans down, time slowing and warping around me when he gets closer, but before we can touch, something horrible happens.
The bartender calls out for closing time, and the once-dark dance floor is flooded in a bright, fluorescent light. It’s like plunging into cold water.
“Come on,” Weston says, dropping his hands from mine and tipping his head toward the door. “Let’s go home.”
On the way, he tells the Uber driver to go past past my apartment—a block away, so we’re not caught—to check on the mob of paparazzi still lingering outside the building.
