Most Valuable Playboy

My chest tightens, and unease seeps into my bones during the rest of the meal. As we finish dessert, I replay the conversations I’ve had with her lately, trying to find the true meaning. Friends or maybe something more? More, or just friends like we’ve always been?

When the meal mercifully ends, Ford continues playing cruise director of my personal life when he says, “Hey, Vi, since I drove our boy to the restaurant, why don’t you take him home?”

I know what he’s up to. Violet valeted her car, and Ford figures someone will snap a pic or post a tweet about us waiting for the car together at the new eatery.

But he’s also given me an excuse to leave with her without her brother thinking I’m up to something. I’m not technically up to something. I simply don’t want the night with her to end, and I’ll find out soon if she feels the same way, or if Ford is right.

Ford heads out first, grabs my bag from his car, and hands it to me. As I take the bag, I wince, my shoulder tight from the game.

The valet does a double take when Violet asks for her car. I tip my chin. “Hey, man.” The guy beams and races to find her vehicle.

I grab a twenty from my wallet and tip him well when he returns. Then I settle into the passenger seat as Violet drives. When she turns on Fillmore, I roll my shoulder back, trying to loosen the muscles.

“You okay?”

“Just sore.”

When we reach my home, she doesn’t pull to the curb and say have a good night. She pulls into the slim driveway, and I grin as I reach into my bag to grab the garage opener. I hit the button. Anticipation threads through me as the door rises. She pulls into the garage, and I want to punch the air because the night isn’t ending.

“You didn’t want to park at my house the other night,” I say.

She swallows. “It was easier not to then.”

“Is it easier to park here now?”

“I’m not sure if it’s easier, or simply what I’m doing.”

And I’ll take that as a good sign. I’ll take that as the sign that Ford was wrong tonight.

I tell myself to just let the night unfold. We go inside, and I drop my bag in the hallway, heading straight for the freezer in my kitchen. I grab an ice pack and wrap it around my shoulder.

“Does it hurt a lot?” she asks.

“Standard war wound.”

She gives me a look. “Seriously. Are you injured? Are you being the big tough guy who doesn’t let on that he’s hurt then plays through the pain?”

I scoff. “No. I’m not injured. This is just normal soreness. This is how I usually feel after a game.”

“Gee, I wonder why. Could it be throwing thirty-yard passes with regularity while linemen try to mow you down wears on the body?”

I smile. “But it’s nothing a beer and an ice pack won’t cure. Do you want a white wine?”

She says yes, so I grab a bottle I think she’ll like, then a glass. As I unscrew the cork our eyes meet. Hers glitter with something—anticipation, maybe? I don’t know what’s happening, but I also know exactly what’s happening.

Something.

That’s what my gut tells me. That’s what my instincts say. And those are the tools I rely on when I’m in the zone. I let them guide me now.

Something’s been crackling between us for the last week, ever since she won me. Since I visited her salon, invited her to the game, and texted. Since she sent that photo.

As she leans her hip against my island kitchen counter, looking like she belongs here, wearing her number sixteen jersey with a smudge of dirt streaked across it from when I hugged her after the game, my mind narrows in on one thing—her body.

How she reacts to the way I stare at her. How her lips part. How her cheeks grow pinker.

“You’re almost in the playoffs,” she says, her voice wobbling more than usual, as if she’s a bit nervous.

“Almost being the operative word.” I crack open a beer, hand her the wine, and toast. “To almosts,” I say, my voice echoing in my quiet home.

“To almosts,” she replies, and the air between us crackles and hums.

I turn on some music on my phone, and even though I’m tempted to crank up my favorite rock anthems, I find something that better sets the tone. Then I want to smack myself for going for mood music.

“Are you trying to put me to sleep?” she asks, laughing.

I wink. “Just making sure you’re paying attention.”

“Put on the good stuff,” she says, and I switch to a playlist that starts with “Rolling in the Deep” by Adele.

“I love this song,” she says, her face animated as she taps her foot against the floor.

“I know. That’s why I picked it.”

I adjust the ice pack as she sings the first few lines, then I join in for the chorus, using the beer bottle to sing into, while she cranks up the volume courtesy of her wineglass turned microphone.

“We would kill it in a karaoke duet.”

“But I insist we sing ‘Islands in the Stream.’”

“I accept your insistence,” I say, as I refill her wine and grab a second beer.

We make our way to the living room. Violet tips her chin at the Christmas tree in the bay window. Red ribbons and silver ornaments hang from the plastic branches, along with ceramic candy canes and green felt mini-stockings. Blue and white lights flicker on and off, set on a timer for the evenings. “You set up your tree. It’s adorable.”

I give her a look. “Violet, how long have you known me?”

“Twenty years. Why?”

I gesture to the perfectly appointed tree. “Do you really think I pulled that off? Lined up ornaments with that kind of pinpoint precision?”

“Let me guess. Mama Armstrong did it?”

I laugh. “You guessed correctly. The whole nine yards.”

“Tell Mama Armstrong she’s a masterful decorator. Oh wait, I’ll tell her myself when she comes by for her color.”

“Speaking of, did Maxine schedule a hair appointment?”

“She did. For next week. But if I could handle the players’ wives, I can handle Maxine.”

“Damn, you’re tough,” I say, then eye my shoulder. “Unlike me. I can barely handle three-hundred-pound linemen slamming into me.”

“Ha. Yeah, you’re the very definition of tough.”

I flop on the couch, adjusting the ice pack.

Violet kicks off her shoes and joins me, tucking her feet under her. “Does it hurt still?”

“Not really.”

She arches a brow as she takes another drink of her wine. “Not even a little?”

I hold up my finger and thumb as the music shifts to “Wonderwall.” “Okay. A smidge.”

She puts her wineglass on the coffee table and waggles her fingers. “Let me help.”

I put my beer on the table, too. “Ooh, is this where we play quarterback and physical therapist?”

She rolls her eyes. “Is the team’s PT your fake girlfriend?”

I shudder, thinking of the lean and lanky physical therapist the club hired—the very male PT.

Violet cracks her knuckles, sets a hand on my shoulder, and tells me to face the other way. I turn so I’m looking at the stark white wall and the framed prints of Italy and Spain, New Zealand, and Australia, all the places I want to go someday. I release the ice pack, letting it fall to the floor. Her hands curl over my shoulders, and my reaction to her touch is instant.