30
MATCHMAKER
Gabe
A Few weeks later
Best training camp ever. The guys are sharp. The rookies don’t act like privileged jackasses. Coach has me work closely with a couple of the new receivers and they learn the routes quickly, then play tight, intense football.
The way it should be.
By the end of training camp, we already feel like a well-oiled machine.
As I head off the grass on our final day at the San Diego facility, Coach calls me over. “Clements, nice job the last few weeks. I appreciate you stepping it up to help the kids.”
“Happy to do it.”
“You bring focus and talent and you give one hundred percent to every game.”
“That’s what the game deserves,” I say. No point in playing half-assed. Ever.
“Are you sure this is your last season?” he asks, with a hopeful note in his voice.
I laugh. I had a feeling he was buttering me up for something—in this case, to get me to stay beyond my last year. “I’m pretty sure.”
“But you’ve hardly had any injuries your whole career,” he says, in a leading the witness tone. “And you’re looking sturdy and fast as a fox.”
I peer around, hunting for wood to knock, but of course finding none. “That’s how I’d like to go out, sir. Injury free.”
He nods, exhaling deeply, perhaps in understanding. “Fair enough. Just glad we’ve got you for the last season.”
“Me too.”
I trot the rest of the way off the field, catching up with Drew in the corridor. “That was a great training camp,” I remark.
“What a difference a year makes,” he seconds. Last year at this time, he was still playing on the Los Angeles Devil Sharks. The Mercenaries traded for him right around the same time they traded for me.
“But I sure won’t miss seeing you for the next few days,” I add as we near the locker room.
He laughs. “Fucking won’t miss seeing you either.”
“Don’t break the speed limit on your rush back to LA,” I joke.
“Same to you,” he says. And it’s unsaid, but understood, why we’re both eager to return to Los Angeles. He’ll want to see his fiancée, Brooke, and I’m climbing the walls to see Ellie.
A little later, I’m heading to my car in the parking lot at the same time he is. Even though I don’t want to waste a second before I see my woman, I also want to do something for her. I clear my throat. “So you want to grab a bite sometime when we’re back in LA? You and Brooke and Ellie and me?”
As Drew tosses the keys to his Tesla up and down in his palm, he shoots me a cocky grin. “Aww. I thought you didn’t want to see me and now you do.”
I roll my eyes. “It’s for Ellie, asshole. I know Ellie would like to meet Brooke. And I bet they’d hit if off.”
Drew doesn’t give me shit this time when he says, “She will. Brooke’s awesome and so is Ellie. Let’s do it.”
Three hours later, I’m pulling up to Ellie’s place. Before I even cut the engine, the front door flies open and my brunette beauty rushes across the lawn and out to the driveway. My heart soars, right along with my dick. Package deal, those two.
I step out of the car and close the distance in a heartbeat, hauling her into my arms. Right where she belongs. “I missed you,” she says.
“You have no idea how much I missed you,” I say, savoring the smell of her, the feel of her.
We head inside. Where someone else, evidently, missed me too. In the front hallway, Gigi does the dog greeting dance, jumping up and down, shouting my name in Dog. So I pick her up and kiss her little nose.
“You are the cutest,” Ellie says.
Then I set down the little lady, and I spend a good long time kissing the woman I missed. The woman who was my fake real girlfriend. Now she’s mine for always and that’s exactly what I want.
Later, after we reconnect properly—or improperly as the case may be since Ellie turned out to be a very naughty student and I had to put her over my knee as her professor—we pore over dinner options in the kitchen. Once we choose Korean, I ask her if she wants to go out with Drew and Brooke sometime.
She lights up. “I would love that.”
I drop a kiss to her forehead. “I had a feeling you would. I know you said you wanted to make friends in LA, and I think you and Brooke would get along.”
“Look at you! You’re like a friend matchmaker.”
“I just want to make you happy,” I tell her.
She smiles. “News flash. You do.”
31
A COUPLE OF WORD DEVOURERS
Ellie
A few days later, on Sunday morning, Gabe and I walk along Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica, savoring the late summer sun as we make our way to The Tree House.
I squeeze his hand tighter. “It’s kind of wild that I’ve only been in town for a month and we’re already doing this,” I muse.
“Having brunch on a Sunday,” he says. “Just like everyone else.”
“Nobody would know what we did last night,” I tease.
“Not a single soul has any idea,” he says in a dirty whisper.
We went to a hotel along the beach. We met at the bar. I was a businesswoman in town for a conference. He happened to be going to the same conference but had to catch a late flight back to New York. We didn’t know each other. But he still had his hotel room for another hour, so he took me back to his room, tied my wrists with his tie, then bent me over the edge of the bed. Stranger sex with the man you’re crazy for is absolutely fantastic.
But I put it out of my mind as we head into the cute café, looking for his friends.
Gabe nods toward the booth in the corner. “There they are,” he says, a touch of excitement in his gravelly voice. It’s sweet how he wants to do this for me.
As we head toward the table, bits of their conversation drift into my ears. Brooke and Drew are debating—from the sound of it—what baseball flick to watch that afternoon.
I smile when we arrive. “Hey there. I’m Ellie.”
“Hey Ellie. So good to meet you,” Brooke says warmly, then pops up to give me a hug.
I like her already. “I’m so excited to meet you.”
After Gabe makes quick intros to Drew, we sit down and I slide right into the conversation. “So the debate is Sweet Spot, Ace and what was the other movie?”
Drew clears his throat. “High and Tight,” he says in a serious tone.
My spidey senses tingle. I arch a brow. “High and Tight? I feel like that’s a trick name,” I say and Brooke cracks up.
Drew laughs too. “I made it up,” Drew says, with a casual shrug. “But it sounds plausible.”
Gabe shakes his head in amusement, then stage whispers. “He’s such a clown.”
Brooke nods in agreement. “Drew is the biggest clown,” she says.
“Also, I think High and Tight’s probably a different kind of movie,” I offer.