Give Me You (28 page)

I
need a drink. Or ten.

Anything to drown out any memory of the past twenty-four hours. What I thought would be the beginning of something real, Corin saw as the end.

God it fucking hurt to say goodbye to her, but not as much as hearing her say all she wanted to do was be friends.

A year ago I wanted two things.

A professional soccer career and an endless string of women in my bed to keep me entertained.

Now I only want one thing.

Corin.

I wanted her to be mine, to say that we could do this, to believe in me and us and what we had. But as the miles grow between us, I start to wonder who the hell I was trying to kid. I’ve already been down this road—tried to be boyfriend of the year with Fallon. But Corin was different, so different from anyone I’d ever known. I thought our story would end differently. No, I thought it would never end.

But it’s over now and I need to accept it. Maybe the Brazil United team did me a favor—pulling me out of there before I spent the next four years wasting my time trying to be someone I never could.

The stewardess gives me a lingering smile as she hands over my fourth or fifth rum and Coke. I don’t even know if there’s soda in it anymore. I don’t care. I smile back and say thank you with a wink.

I know what she sees. Athletic guy wearing expensive clothes and a watch that costs what she makes in a year.

That guy, the one I thought I could be for Corin, he’s a weak bitch I have no interest in revisiting. But this guy, the one about to rejoin the mile-high club with a sexy stewardess? Him I recognize. Him I can be.

I’ve known him my entire life.

Four weeks into practicing as an official member of Brazil United and I now know exactly why Landen O’Brien played with so much intensity.

Pent up pissed off wreaks havoc on a man’s mind, but it does wonders for his game.

The entire coaching staff showers me with praise and approval. Most of the guys on the team are fairly welcoming and a hell of a lot more mature than the Blackburn types were at SoCal.

I never sent Corin my schedule and she stopped asking for it weeks ago. She sends the occasional text to check in and I keep responses to a minimum. We need a clean break but I can’t bring myself to hurt her like that. It’s not her fault that I wanted more than friendship and she doesn’t owe me anything. I care about her and I always will, but she was right. Reality trumps the fairytale and it is what it is.

This was the life I was supposed to be living. SoCal was just some weird mind-fuck of a detour.

There’s a party for the team at a swanky local bar and I’m one of the last to arrive. There are four goalies on the team and I’ve made nice with one. Tall and lanky, Sebastian Stevens is a no-bullshit type from Canada and he can drink like no one I’ve ever seen.

We’re pounding them back while the rest of the guys practically molest women on the dance floor when a mirage appears in my periphery.

She’s wearing a tight green dress that barely covers her thighs and there’s not a man in the bar who hasn’t registered her presence on some level.

“Fuck me running,” Sebastian mutters between shots. “Where the hell has she been all my life?”

I stare at her in disbelief until she smiles at me. It is her, then. Her hair is longer and darker than I remember, but it’s her.

“Trust me, you don’t want to know,” I tell him. He gapes at me like I’m fucking with him.

“Skylar,” she says once she’s within earshot, her full pouty lips wrapping seductively around my name. “I heard you might be here.”

Sebastian shakes his head. “Lucky bastard,” he mutters under his breath.

“Fallon,” I say evenly. “Fancy meeting you here.”

S
omeone must’ve jumped me outside the bar. Someone with a sledgehammer.

My entire body hurts in a way I can’t fully comprehend. My skin hurts. Even my teeth hurt. I groan as I attempt to sit up and my rib cage screams in protest.

“What the hell?” I rub my neck in an attempt to loosen the sore muscles and that’s when I see her.

Fallon. Naked. In bed beside me.

No.
No, no, please God no.

What have I done?

My subconscious answers my question. Parts of it are coming back. Fallon telling me she was in town for work and contacted my mom to see what area I lived in. Her and her model friend drinking with us. Taking them to the field where Sebastian and I played one on one until we were falling down fucked up. Sebastian fucking her friend on the field. Fallon helping me back to her hotel room because I couldn’t remember where I lived.

Jesus.

I close my eyes to block out the sun and there’s more. Pizza, we ordered pizza that only I ate. We talked, or I talked, about Corin mostly.

Fallon on her knees trying to make me feel better.

Fallon on my dick trying to make us both feel something.

I place my head in my hands and try to erase it all. I can’t.

The longer my eyes remain closed the more her face becomes clear behind them.

Corin.

Regardless of what we are or aren’t, this would hurt her. Badly.

Which is why, no matter what happens, she can never, ever know.

T
he day I finish my last summer semester final, I board a plane to Brazil and prepare to see Skylar in eighteen hours. It took all semester to save up enough money for the ticket, but it was worth it. I have a two-hour layover in Columbia and I plan to use that time to freshen up and figure out how I’m going to tell him what I need to.

These past three months have been barely tolerable without him, made worse by the way we left things.

I love him. I am in love with him. I was wrong about not being able to focus on school if we were more than friends. Whatever we label it, my feelings for him are as constant and real as my desire to get an education. He was right—what we have isn’t geographical. I was afraid and I made excuses but I’m done with that.

I sleep as much as I can on both flights, but I’m practically bouncing in my seat by the time we land. Thanks to tips, I didn’t even have to put this trip on the credit card Skylar gave me. Though if I need a hotel room and can’t stay with him, I’ll need to put that on there.

So much time has passed. So much could go wrong. A feeling of doubt creeps into my mind like a slow-moving fog.

What if he doesn’t miss me? What if he doesn’t feel the same way?

He’s been busy with the team and our texts have been short. Our conversations have been nearly non-existent due to international fees. I shake the worries off the best I can and call the car service the travel agent gave me the number to. I have about an hour until Skylar’s first game and I need to clean up a little more and put some makeup on so I make my way to the ladies room.

Once I look like a human being again, I locate the black sedan that’s waiting for me out front. On the way to the stadium, the driver talks about the team, the game, and the players that he’s familiar with. I text Skylar a good luck message even though I don’t know if he’ll get any playing time this early on. He mentioned before that he might just be training for a while before they actually put him in, which was why he never bothered to send me the official schedule. But I have faith in him and faith that the team will see how valuable an asset he is, so I found it online myself.

When we arrive, the driver helps me with my overnight bag and I do my best to straighten my loose-fitting black halter top and smooth out my jeans. It’s warm here so I tie my gray wrap around my waist. It was cold on the plane so I needed it but now, not so much. I wait in line with my ticket and am in awe of how grand the stadium is. It makes the one at SoCal look like a youth league field.