First and Ten (10 page)

The only way out was through the front door.
Past a woman Jerome had not only been with and was still in the
picture. Who would always be in the picture. What was Dani
thinking? Dating an NFL player that could have and probably has had
every woman in this city and the next. Dani would be just one of
many who’d passed through that door.

With a buzz from her phone, Danika steeled
herself and made sure whatever came about she could handle. She was
William Albright’s daughter, which gave her an iron will…no that
wasn’t it, but that’s what people assumed. What it really gave her
was a home that always accepted her, even when she might not
deserve it.

“Um, Rome,” Dani said as she placed her hand
on his shoulder. He was in mid argument that Dani was trying to
block out. “My ride is here.”

“Your ride?” he growled as he turned his head
and shoulders just enough to see her. His jaw twitched and flexed
as he cut his eyes back to the woman who stood with her hands on
her hips in irritation. Between the two women, Dani thought she had
the bigger right to be irritated. “I’ll be done with this—”

“This! This!” the woman exclaimed sending her
hands flying as gold from the rings covering her fingers caught
flashes from the streetlights. “Don’t treat me like a this because
you got some Becky at your house.”

“Becky?” Dani questioned, but Rome put his
hand up to silence her. “Right, well that’s my Uber so could you
let me get my bag out of your car?”

“Candi, stay here.”

“Oh, baby, you know I’m not about to leave
any time soon.”

“Call me baby one more time, Candace,” he
warned with a tone that had Dani’s skin prickling. “Stay on the
porch.”

Dani nodded to the driver and placed a finger
up to let him know she’d be there in a minute as she followed Rome
to his garage. Jerome didn’t have his keys with him so he punched
in a code and the door opened. After retrieving her bag from the
SUV, he held it to his chest.

“You don’t have to go,” he said. “Candi will
be out of here before you know it.”

“It’s been over fifteen minutes and she’s
still at an eight. Something tells me you won’t be down to a calm
level for awhile.” Dani reached for her bag, but he stepped back
like a kid on a playground. She couldn’t hide her smile.
“Rome.”

“Dani, you weren’t supposed to move from the
wall.”

“It’s easier when you’re holding me up.”

He stepped close and Dani’s heart sped up.
“Do I at least get a kiss good-bye?”

Dani smiled as he leaned down and claimed her
lips. If it wasn’t for the loud sighing and complaining coming from
the porch she could have actually enjoyed it.

“How about Tuesday I pick you up?” she said
as she reached for her bag only to be rebuffed again.

“You’re going to make me wait until Tuesday?”
he whined.

“Jerome,” Candace called and shattered their
moment further. “If you don’t get rid of that Becky I’m gonna get
rid of her for you.”

“I can’t hit a woman,” he said. “But you
can.”

“It’s not my fight,” Dani said as she finally
got her bag and walked toward the car only to turn back and call.
“At least, not yet. Five-thirty. Workout clothes.”

“You haven’t given me your number yet.”

“We know the same people, if you need me
before then you can find me.”

When she got in the car, she told the driver
where to go and looked up at the woman on Jerome’s porch. She waved
her manicured claws at Dani with a snarl of satisfaction on her
face. Now it was Dani’s fight.

“You want to ruin my life, I’ll be more than
happy to ruin yours,” Candi snipped when Jerome returned to the
porch. Nothing more than the top step with a few pillars, but it at
least kept Candace out of his home. “Why do you suddenly want
DeMonte?”

“It’s not sudden by any stretch of the
imagination,” Rome said as he watched Dani being driven away by a
stranger. He reached for the extra key he had hidden behind a small
part of his door trim. “Thanks for reminding me, the last thing I
want is you coming in my house.”

“Oh, you loved when I came in your house,”
she purred as she stepped close and grasped his shirt. “I bet I
taste so much sweeter than that white little Becky over there.”

“Candace, your soul is darker than any I’ve
ever seen.” He looked in her eyes so black he couldn’t make out her
pupil verses her iris. Her skin was a flawless, deep caramel, and
she had thick lips and hips to match. At one time, Candace had
actually found his heart. He’d been warned to not try to take a
girl out of Roseland, but his neighborhood in north Omaha hadn’t
been much better growing up. “Why don’t you answer my first
question? Where’s my son?”

“He’s with my mama. You have a problem with
that?”

“She still live in that row house?”

“So what if she does?”

“Then yes, I have a goddamn problem with it.”
Rome stood his ground. “Because I’m pretty damn sure the subpoena
we sent for you was all the way in Naperville.”

“It’s just a rental. Those pennies you drop
on me once a month aren’t enough for me to buy my own house let
alone move my mother in with me.”

“Pennies,” Rome roared. “Pennies are what you
were picking up at the strip club when I found your ass. Never try
to turn a ho into a housewife. Waitress my ass. I can’t believe I
fell for that shit.”

“What does Ms. Becky do?” she sniped. “She
looks like a cleaning lady.”

“She,” Rome said and pointed down the road
for emphasis, “is none of your damn business. You and I have only
one thing to discuss and that’s
my
child. Get all
self-righteous about how I wasn’t there for you all you want. You
took my seed and ran. Filing petitions out of state to get money
when you didn’t even have a permanent address. That’s my boy.
That’s my blood you have and Candace, I’m getting him back.”

Rome slammed the door and left her to stand
in the cold. His hand flew in frustration and caught the edge of
the glass dish he used to catch his keys. It shattered into a
million pieces and he heard Candace cackle outside his door.
Fucking bitch, he hated her. Crushing the glass more, he stomped
into the kitchen only to see an empty bottle of orange soda sitting
on his kitchen island.

Anger that coursed through him melted at the
fact of all the things in his fridge, Dani picked his favorite. He
wasn’t even upset. She was who he belonged with, not the creature
that he stupidly tried to save from itself that had been at his
door a moment ago.

Pulling out his phone, he remembered her
challenge. That would be too damn much for his pride to track down
her number and call her to come back. Fuck if he didn’t want to.
He’d have to wait until Tuesday. Seven days until he could see her
again. The thought was agony. OTAs weren’t for another two weeks so
he couldn’t even distract himself. He had two options. Workout
every damn day like he was a rookie at OTAs or set up a tent on
Northwestern’s Evanston campus and pray he could see Dani before
she sees him pathetically waiting for her. Then again, how bad
would it be to call his agent for her number?

“Why do I think this isn’t about needing
fashion styling?” Randall roared with laughter. “I’m not sure if I
should give her number to you.”

“What’s that clause in your contract that
lets me talk to the Speilman agency?”

“I’m blanking, but I’m texting you Dani’s
cell. If I remember correctly, you’ll have to wait until
morning.”

Jerome didn’t wait. It wasn’t in his nature.
In fact, he spent very little time waiting and now would not be the
time he’d start. After hanging up, he stared at the text from
Randall with Dani’s number. His stomach turned as he tapped the
number and the options came up. It only made sense to save it as a
contact first. If nothing else, it added a layer of acid to his
belly so he could spend three hours burping. And damn if a woman
wouldn’t want that from her man.

Setting the phone down, he decided he should
sweep up the glass shards and set his place right. Not like she
could see his home, but it helped him rid himself of Candace and
the negative juju she’d dropped on his home. The house had been
cleansed like at the end of
Poltergeist
, if only he could
find the voice of that little old lady…oh he could. Hitting the
internet, he found the clip and blasted it through his sound
system.

With the phone at the ready, he pulled up her
number and stared.

Dani scheduled a session at Hot Spot Yoga and
Fitness for the following Tuesday. She had a feeling she’d need the
stretching if she planned on anything with Rome the next week. She
spent most of her ride back to her car responding to texts and
voicemails from her clients. Breaking her own rule, but how else
would she be able to quell the quaking in her core. The worst part
was she could smell him. His cologne and musk. It covered her hands
and even leaning down she could smell him on her shirt. He’d taken
her to a place she’d forgotten. She was already lost in her own
world, but add that to her confusion over what she would do once
she graduated. Go on to get a PhD? Start a business? Apply to work
at her daddy’s firm? At least she had one less option.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” Esme accused as
she met her Thursday morning for their study group.

“Have I?” Dani feigned innocence without
looking up from her laptop.

“You’re lucky I didn’t call the police.”

“Why?” Dani laughed.

“You get into an SUV with a man I don’t know
and won’t answer my calls for a day.” Esme’s eyes sparkled. “Please
tell me it was because you were tied up being teased sexually until
your body could no longer produce adrenaline and you passed out
from sheer ecstasy.”

“How long does that process take?” Dani asked
as she twirled her hand. “For scientific purposes. I mean, I know
you were pre-med for a semester or two, right?”

“I was pre Edmond Washington.”

“The third right?”

“Yes, Edmond Washington the Third.” Esme let
out a little sigh then plopped into the chair across from her.
“Don’t try to distract me.”

“But it’s so easy,” Dani said as she flipped
her laptop around and had a webpage up with men only wearing jeans
that hung low on their hips.

“Not this time,” Esme warned, half closing
the laptop, then popping it back up before the screen dimmed, and
finally closing it with a shake to her head. “Unless it’s a picture
of him taken by you pre or post coitus, I don’t want to see
it.”

“Damn,” Dani said as she picked up her phone.
“Guess I have to erase my sex tape.”

“Don’t joke. I thought you’d need a sex tape
to remember how to even do it.”

“I’m hurt, crushed even.”

Dani turned her laptop back on and pulled up
their power point project.

“At what point did I stop being your best
friend?” Esme asked. “You tell me about every guy you’re with.”

“No, you tell me about every guy you’re
with.”

“Only because you’re a self declared
nun.”

“I’m adding that to my list,” Dani joked.
“Nun. For after I graduate.”

“You seriously left with that specimen of
male perfection and came back still chaste?”

“English Lit?” Dani guessed Esme’s one time
major.

“Maybe you should open a joke shack. Drive
up, get a bad smart ass remark for only fifty cents to make it so
your friends go away.”

“My test market isn’t performing very well,”
Dani countered as she raised an eyebrow at her friend. “Plus, I’m
worth more than fifty cents.”

“Fine, keep him your little secret.”

“For now. Right now it’s just a few chance
encounters and a boat ride.”

“Boat ride? Like a dinghy?”

“No.” Dani let out a sigh, looked down and
then back up. “Like a skyline, Lake Michigan tour…alone.”

“Not Jack’s boat?”

“Yes.”

“He bought out Jack’s boat. Do you have any
idea—”

“I do and then he was emasculated when he
found out who my dad was.” Dani’s phone buzzed and flashed up the
words message and she let out a low groan. “I swear you’d think Van
didn’t know how to tie his own shoe let alone a bowtie.”

Swiping her pass code on the screen, she
pulled up the message and her heart skipped a beat before it set
off at a pace reserved for Olympic sprinters. She pulled in on her
lips as she tried to search for moisture only to come up dry and
wanting. It wasn’t wetness she wanted. She wanted to taste Rome
again. To still have his musk on her hands and clothes. It was
embarrassing that she hid her shirt in her closet so the maid
wouldn’t accidentally gather it for the wash. Now all she could do
was hold her breath as she read the message on her phone.

Couldn’t wait for Tuesday. Meet me
tonight.

Dani’s face flushed with heat. Esme snatched
her phone, then ran across the room.