Page 34 of Off the Mark
“Don’t look at me, I’ve got no clue. Though Dean and Tabitha have been together for two years now, and they both worship the ground that the other walks on.”
She tapped her fingers on the bar. “Even when I’ve had boyfriends, I don’t think they ever…” She waved her hand through the air. “If you did that, it should cover our bases.”
“Worship the ground you walk on?”
She swallowed. “Fake it, obviously. For the public. And the cameras.”
My hand was back to gripping the glass again. “I can fake it. But you have to do the same for me, Maddox.”
A teasing grin slid up one side of her face. “I’ll try my best, O’Callaghan, but don’t go getting a big head about it.”
I had a million filthy ideas about how to worship this woman the only way I knew how. The way I knewbest.
And every one of them involved bringing down those stubborn walls of hers, one by one.
Because if Ievergot Charlie Maddox in my bed, we could finally drop the act.
Drop the game.
Exist solely in a place of desperate lust, fucking each other with the same hot, sexual energy that always simmered between us, through every teasing word and charged glance.
At least, that’s how I’d always felt.
“It sounds like we’ve been together two months then,” I said roughly.
She hummed her agreement. “And is there anyone you’ve slept with during that time that would be shocked to learn via social media that you’ve been dating me?”
I balked, thought of Carla and a few other women I’d been with. “Yeah. A handful of women from the last couple months might be surprised. Might not, given my reputation.” A muscle in my jaw ticked. “I’ll, uh…keep an eye on things and let you know if it’s gonna be a problem for our story.”
Wariness hovered on her face. I lowered my voice. “It’s highly unlikely it’ll become one, but if it does, I promise I’ll talk to them and handle it.”
Her shoulders loosened. “We can work with that.”
“Where were you two months ago? I’m assuming we’ve been dating long distance.”
She glanced up at the ceiling. “Let’s see… I was out in California for a few weeks, in races up and down the coast. Then in Colorado, Idaho, and Wyoming, also racing. I was staying back home in Sweetwater right before this though, working on my dad’s track with my trainer.”
“Is that where you stay in the off-season?” I asked.
“I’ll crash with Dad and Penny if I’m too wiped out from training and don’t want to drive home. But I rent a studio apartment in town that I sublet when I’m gone for long stretches. Which is most of the time. Maybe you drove up to see me in Sweetwater from Philly?”
I traced deliberate circles around the top of my half-empty glass. “There’d be nomaybeabout it. If we were dating like this for real, and you were driving distance from me, I’d happily break the speed limit to get to you. Hell, I’d make it to Colorado if I had to.”
Desire flickered in those pretty green eyes of hers—usually so enigmatic, but I recognized that heat. “All those miles just to worship me?”
“Pretty sure that’s the definition of the word, Charlie.”
She shifted forward on her stool, chin in her hand, strands of hair falling around her face. There was an openness to her expression I hadn’t seen much of before. At least not since the night of my shoulder injury when I’d called her from the hospital in absolute agony.
I’d joked my way through the efforts to stabilize me when I first arrived, gritting my teeth and awash in excruciating pain. Charlie got it though, got that my entire world had just ended on a single pitch.
When it was time for her to head back to Syracuse, she’d crouched on the edge of my bed with hollow cheeks and lines bracketing her mouth. Then she’d brushed a strand of hair from my forehead with so much tenderness it cracked me wide open.
I’d completely lost it, curling forward to cry against her chest as she held me close and whispered my name. She didn’t try and sugarcoat a damn thing. Didn’t feed me a bunch of lies about silver linings and things happening for a reason.
I was an orphan by the age of four—I wasn’t a stranger to the fake, fluffy platitudes people trotted out when the worst happened. Charlie hadn’t done any of that, and I’d never forgotten it. Never got to fully thank her either, since after that day I went back home to a baseball career in tatters while she promptly went off and won her first X Games.
The gulf between us stretched wide again, neither of us seemingly willing to get too close. In the end, it was easier to keep our infrequent text exchanges friendly and surface-level.
