Page 10 of Poke the Bear

“Ahh…” My girl didn’t like football, I was willing to bet. That deer-caught-in-the-headlights look said a lot. “Dad watches it on the TV each year.” Her eyes flicked around wildly. “I used to listen to it when I was drawing.”

“Drawing?” Freya was artistic? I felt like I was sucking down each detail I learned about her with way too much eagerness. Keep your fucking cool, I told myself, even as my arm moved to curl tighter around her. “What do you draw?”

She was going to answer, then stopped herself, smiling before staring back into my eyes and shrugging.

“Pretty sure that’s not something a fake date would tell you,” she said.

“And what if this wasn’t fake?” I was coming on too fucking strong, but in this the bear and I were one. We wanted to know the same thing: everything. “I said I wanted to take you out. We can go now.” I turned to look for an exit, but she stopped me with a hand on my arm.

“Really?”

Who had hurt Freya to ask a question like that? She was smiling, but it wasn’t a simple, happy thing. There was pain there and hope, I clung to that, a fragile, flickering thing. She wanted to believe I was interested and I needed her to accept it.

“Really,” I said. “Tell me about you.” But just as she sucked in a breath to do just that, the compere broke in, letting us know the tally was about to begin. “I still want to know.” She smiled at my growl. “After this is done.”

“After you win,” she said.

Fuck, she was perfect. I’m not sure if she even gave a shit about football, but right then I felt like she did about me. She squeezed my hand, like wives and girlfriends did all across the ballroom, and gave me something that was more precious than she knew.

It was a privilege to play footy at this level, something our head coach made clear every day during training. Plenty of other fellas had given it their all and found out they didn’t have what it takes, so I was aware of how good I had it. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t lonely. Not as much as it would if I made it into the Australia wide league, but still… When I sat through each medal count, feeling hope spike each time my name was called, then felt it dip when other bloke’s numbers rose higher, I wanted this.

Someone to sit near me, to see me, to give my hand a squeeze and just make me feel I had someone in my corner as I waited to see if all my hard work paid off. I was so fucking into her before this, but now? I stared back, hoping she’d see how bloody grateful I was. I rubbed my fingers across the back of her knuckles over and over.

I looked up then at the screen and saw the round one clips playing, remembering the mark I took, throwing myself up into the air, after leaping off Darryl’s shoulders, intercepting the ball and tucking it into my chest. I felt like I was flying that day, but somehow I felt the exact same thing right now. That same elation, that same sheer fucking wonder that I’d manage to achieve that, achieve this. I looked at Freya then, soaking her in. Everything I ever wanted was on the line and I just had to reach out and grab it.

Chapter 5

Freya

What the fuck was I thinking?

I liked to live my life quietly, doing new things only after I’d planned them out, thought them through, but then Adam… My heart was pounding so hard, I was sure people would see it trying to fight its way clear of my chest… I glanced around, and that feeling tripled instantly. Cameras zoomed in a little closer, focussing their glassy eyes on me and Adam. They seemed to take in the way he sat close to me, body tilted my way, not towards the front of the ballroom, the way he seemed to eat into my personal space.

Bringing me back to my original question: what the fuck was I thinking?

Whether I wanted to be or not, I tended to fade into the background and that seemed like a damn fine idea, especially when I saw them.

Some of the partners of the players shot me politely friendly smiles, but still others just stared. Their eyes did the thing that I feared, comparing the two of us and wondering why we were together.

These were the days I wished I was a bird, not a woman.

Flashy, bright, beautiful males, like Adam, made sense in the bird world, and the drab little females just watched them posture before choosing the one they were interested in. But instead I was just a drab little female amongst a whole lot of beautiful ones. I didn’t envy that woman’s perfect teeth or the other’s amazing makeup. I just knew it was utterly unattainable for me and was willing to high five her for winning the genetic lottery but.... Then Adam looked over at me and my mind went quiet.

Those blue eyes of his sparkled with such warmth and those lips? They curved up into a smile, a fucking dimple popping when he did so. He made me feel like there was no one else in the world, just me and him.

And suddenly that’s all I wanted.

I’d never felt like this before, never wanted to be near someone, drawn to them like a moth to a flame, so I leaned over then, breathing in his freaking amazing aftershave and said something I would never have dared.

“Do you need me to move in closer?” I said. “Make people think I really am your date for tonight?”

No, no, NO! my mental voice shrieked, but his smile just widened.

“Yeah,” he replied, then put his arm around me. “I need you to make it look real.”

My dress was made of tissue paper, his body heat radiating through it and I felt that warmth all the way down to my toes. It felt like it thawed stuff I didn’t even know was frozen, letting me melt into him. But then Adam leaned over and brushed his mouth across my ear and damn, that tiny little touch set me on fire.

“If you do that for me, I’ll be able to get through tonight in one piece. You can do that for me, beautiful, can’t you?”

---