Seduced by the Game (42 page)

“It’s a good time. I
promise.” I hold out my hand, and she breaks the replay and accepts my offer.
Pulling her up off the stool, I lead her out onto the crowded floor, and we
take a stance beside each other. George jumps right into the line dance,
knowing all the steps, and I do my best to follow along and join in. I’m
definitely not drunk enough for this, but at least since I’m sober this time, I
really take in the way she laughs at my incompetence.

* * * *

Bryan can’t dance, but his
effort more than makes up for his lack of ability. His eyes are so intense as
he watches me and tries to pick up the simple, repetitive moves. It makes me
laugh, and I feel grateful to him for doing this for me, making a fool out of
himself just so my mood would lighten.

I make him suffer through
three dances before I nod in the direction of the table and put him out of his
misery by letting him off the hook. We get the attention of the waitress, and
she quickly gets us two cold bottles to quench our thirst.

Taking a long swig, I
relish the feeling of the cool liquid as it flows down my throat, and I can
feel it hit my stomach. Then I look at Bryan, who’s playing with the label of
his beer. “Thanks.”

“Hmm?” he asks, raising
his eyebrows at me.

“Thanks. For dancing with
me.” I wonder if he knows that dancing is one of my go-to coping mechanisms to
de-stress. “It was fun.”

“I hoped you’d think so.”
He scooches his stool a little closer to mine. “Thank you. For helping me after
my trade. This wouldn’t have been possible if it weren’t for you.”

My stomach clenches,
appreciating his kind words. I had wanted to make his transition smooth, to
help him adjust to Dallas and the Comets and see his potential here, instead of
being as sad about it as he had looked that day. It’s instinctual and natural
to reach out for him and place my hand on his. “No,
you
had the
potential, the skill, the talent to fit in here and contribute to the team. I
didn’t do that.” But I do think about all the things I did do, none of which
was any good for him, and that makes me sad. I look down and remove my hand
from his.

But he grabs my hand so I
can’t pull it away, which makes me look up at him. His smile is shy but sincere.
“Georgiana.” The way he says my name sends shivers up and down my spine; I
remember the way the way he said it in my bed, when he was inside me, and that
hazy but strong memory is instantly conjured in my brain with that one word.
It’s funny how he can say so much when actually saying so little.

I just look into his dark
eyes for a while. His thumb rubs back and forth over my knuckles, and I wonder
briefly if he knows he’s doing it. I’m getting lost, getting caught up in
something I know I shouldn’t get caught up in—which is why I was trying to
avoid him in the first place. I don’t want to do it, but I know I have to break
this spell. “So, what happened with your girlfriend?”

Like I did with this
spell, Bryan breaks my gaze, glancing to the side and his eyebrows do this
crazy fast lift thing before they fall back into place low over his eyes.
“Corinne and I are no longer together.”

Corinne. So that’s her
name. It makes me feel worse now that I know it, because it makes her
more...real or something. I want to tell him again that I’m so sorry, because
even if he tries to pardon me, I had a hand in breaking up his relationship. It
wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t been dumb enough to bring him into my
apartment instead of seeing him off like I should have if I were being a true
professional. I don’t know why I thought I could do that, or how I thought it
was possible.

Before I can say the
words, though, he continues, “But it was over a long time ago, way before my
trade even. We just didn’t know it yet until we had a reason to reevaluate
things. We needed a reason to call to it quits.”

I roll my eyes. “So I was
just the catalyst, hmm?” It sounds clichéd and stupid. I don’t buy in to it.

“A little bit, yeah. But
it was everything. The whole deal with the trade. She didn’t love me enough to
want to follow me here. Turns out that she hated living in Raleigh, but she
just sucked it up and never told me. And I didn’t love her enough to rely on
her for comfort during this hard time. I needed you for that.”

I don’t have anything to
say to that. How much of this am I supposed to believe? I want to tell him that
I think he’s full of shit, but I can’t find a nice way to say it so I just say
his name and let my voice fade away into silence. “Bryan...”

“Georgiana.” Again, all it
takes is him saying my name like that, in his deep voice, letting all four
syllables roll off his tongue like a melody. He leans in close, closing the
distance between us slowly yet surely. Bryan tilts his head and closes his eyes
once he’s close enough to know that he’ll hit his mark, and he most certainly
does. His lips are slightly chapped but still soft, too. He doesn’t move; he
just keeps our mouths connected for a few seconds.

Then he backs up, in turn
breaking our mouths apart, and opens his eyes to look at me. Meanwhile, my eyes
have been open the entire time, nothing less than shocked by Bryan’s sudden yet
confident move. He must be feeling good now, because the guy I met earlier in
the week would never have done something like this; he never would have had it
in him.

Bryan smiles at me
encouragingly and imploringly, waiting for me to react or do something to
indicate how I feel. I can tell that he hopes I’ll reciprocate, and I want to—I
do—but I’ve got some trepidation about it. He just got out of a relationship
with someone else. Did he have sex with her on Monday, the day he was traded,
and the day before he and I had our drunken tryst? The idea of it makes me feel
kind of sleazy, and I’m not sure that he’s ready to jump into something new with
me, even if he’s acting like it. Did he make her feel the same way I felt when
I was with him?

That last question is what
launches me forward in his direction. I want to recapture that feeling, the way
I felt with him, the way he made me feel. At first, I plant my hands on his
cheeks, but that quickly evolves into me holding on to his big ears as my lips
crash against his, our teeth clacking together as my mouth mauls his. I can
feel by the way his face moves that he’s smiling. Bryan puts his warm hands on
my forearms, holding me there in position so we won’t stop kissing, and I lose
track of time as we make out in a public place, like horny teenagers.

The music’s loud, but that
doesn’t mean that we don’t hear the eruption of noise behind us. There are only
a handful of my Comets still hanging around, but I’ll be damned if they don’t
all see Bryan and me going at it at the table in the corner.

* * * *

“Oooooooh!” The sound of
the guys calling out behind their hands is utterly distracting, but I guess it
saves us the trouble of figuring out how to let them all know that there’s
something between us or something starting. But until one of them says actual
words, there’s no way of telling what they think about the two of us kissing
each other.

George’s body freezes; I
can feel as her muscles tense. She’s embarrassed, leaning back and putting a
few inches of space between us again. Her hands fall from my head, down onto my
shoulders, and then all the way down to my knees. I’m worried that she’ll let
them fall away from me completely, so I grab them in mine and give them a
reassuring squeeze.

She smiles at me nervously
as her face turns a pretty shade of pink, obviously grateful that I have her
back. I know that she could just as easily brush this off as another
alcohol-fueled mistake in order to avoid this confrontation as she could accept
responsibility and own this, so I wait for her to take the lead. George licks
her lips as she prepares herself for what is likely to be a verbal assault, or
at least a few little jabs. I’m hoping, anyway.

They look at George then
look at me before looking back at her. I think I can read their minds, and
they’re all wondering if she’s going to slap me for invading her personal space
or trespassing on her lips. They looked shocked that she’s letting me touch
her. I watch as she pulls herself together and puts on a stern expression as
she turns to Harris, Rockwell, and Klingensmith. She barks out, “What?”

Instead of looking at us,
they all start to look at each other, trying to figure out what’s going on
because they don’t know what they’re seeing. Rocky speaks up first. “Um, you
were...uh, kissing...him?”

“Yes, that
is
what
that’s called. Does that surprise y’all?”

Rockwell looks like he’s
under a spotlight or—probably more appropriately—a police interrogator’s lamp.
“Well, kind of...”

“Do you think I don’t kiss
people, Justin?”

I choke on a laugh, and
then I squeeze George’s hand, trying to tell her that she should be nice to my
defense partner.

“No... I mean, I don’t
know. Yes?” He’s confused and floundering. “It’s just, well, we’ve never seen
you...or at least I’ve never seen you...kiss someone...like that.”

Klingensmith speaks up.
“And never one of the guys.” He turns to me. “Stock, you just got your hand
caught in the cookie jar.”

I smile at him. “Jealous
you never had a shot?”

Klingensmith scrunches up
his face in disgust, like he just puked in his mouth. “No. Ugh, God no. Are you
crazy? That’s George. That’s gross.”

George furrows her
eyebrows and hollers, “Mark! Seriously?”

“I didn’t mean that
you
were gross, I just mean that
that’s
gross. You’re, like, my sister or
something. I don’t want to think about that. And I certainly don’t want to even
think about being a part of it. Stock, man, best of luck to you.” Then he turns
to Harris like a light bulb just went off over his head. “I told you! Pay up,
man! I told you there was something weird going on between them.”

“Fuck,” Harris groans, but
he doesn’t reach for his wallet. “I thought she just didn't like him.” That
makes George cover her mouth to hide her giggle. Harris throws in his two
cents. “Okay, yeah, but like...why him? I mean, if you were going to go after
anyone on the team...” He looks down at himself and cocks an eyebrow, like he’s
thinking that he’s a total stud and should have been the one to command
George’s attention—for no other reason than he thinks he should always be the
one to be fawned over by people of the female persuasion.

“And that is why, Adam, it
never would have been you.” She turns to me, a gleam in her eye that is much
more preferable than the scared look that was there just a few moments earlier.
“Do you wanna get out of here now?”

I feel like a stud.
Nothing would make me happier. “Yup.” I never let go of her hand as we stand up
from our stools and breeze past them as we head for the door. I feel light and
free in a way I haven’t for a very long time. We walk to the team car that I’ve
been using since I got here, and I open the door for her. When I get into the
driver’s side, I ask, “That wasn’t so bad. And now everyone knows.”

“No, everyone will know by
tomorrow,” she tells me. “The whole team, the coaches. My boss,” she sighs. I
worry that she’s worried, but she turns her head and smiles at me. “Let’s wait
’til tomorrow before we count our victories, and let’s just enjoy tonight,
okay?”

“Okay. So, uh, where to?”
It’s a broad enough question that I get to let her decide where to take our
night.

“Would you mind taking me
home? I’m tired and don’t feel like getting my car right now. I probably
shouldn’t be driving anyway,” she rationalizes. At least I think she’s
rationalizing spending the time with me. Maybe she’ll then have me pick her up
sometime tomorrow so I can take her to the rink to get her car.

“No problem.”

George gives me directions
to her place from the bar because I don’t remember the taxi ride, but other
than that, we don’t talk. That’s okay with me, because I’m not much of a talker
anyway. I reach across the center console and entangle my fingers with hers
until I pull up toward her building.

“You can park there,” she
says, pointing with her free hand toward a spot near the door. I infer that
it’s her spot, and it’s empty because her car’s not here. I do as she
instructs, but I hesitate as the car idles. George lets go of my hand and opens
her door as she asks, “Would you like to come up?”

It’s my turn to freeze. Do
I want to come up? Yes. Yes, I do. But should I? No, I probably shouldn’t. But
I don’t want to actually say the word “no.”

She smiles at me as she
stands beside the open car door, leaning down so I can see her face. “In case
you didn’t know, Bryan, the answer’s ‘yes.’”

I turn off the ignition
and follow her inside her building.

* * * *

I’m feeling pretty good as
I open my apartment door and hold it open for Bryan to come in behind me. He’s
smart, sliding the deadbolt into place and locking the door securely. It’s a
safe neighborhood and a very safe building, and I feel even better knowing that
I’m not alone in my apartment, but I’m not worried about whether or not the
door’s locked. I like that he closed up behind him like he doesn’t plan on
leaving tonight.