Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 83461 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 417(@200wpm)___ 334(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83461 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 417(@200wpm)___ 334(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
“You don’t have to do that.” Before I left this morning, we had a bit of a make-out session in the kitchen, and when we came up for air, I asked her to dinner as well as to stay the night again. “I was going to take you out somewhere fancy.”
“Who needs fancy when I’m going to make my spaghetti and jarred tomato sauce?” she says with a laugh.
Who needs fancy indeed? Ava has repetitively shunned the spotlight and perks of dating a wealthy, famous man. It’s another thing that has set her apart from the women I’ve dated in the past.
“How about we compromise and stay in, watch a movie, and order Italian to be delivered?” I suggest.
“Deal,” she says. “Do you mind if I use your washing machine? I hadn’t planned on staying tonight, and I’d like clean panties for tomorrow.”
A thought strikes, even though I know it’s contrary to the carefully laid boundaries we’ve established.
“Why don’t you run home and grab enough to stay until our away trip on Thursday?” I didn’t ask Ava to go on that trip, so I wouldn’t mind having her in my bed at least for the next three nights.
She doesn’t respond right away, and I can practically hear the gears in her head clicking as she runs through all the reasons why she should decline. This is my fault, of course, since I made things a little stilted with the open and honest discussion about how my wife hated the demands of my career and how it ultimately killed our relationship.
I scrub my hand through my hair and wish to fuck I hadn’t even gone there with her.
Ava’s reply is tentative. “I guess I could do that. If you’re sure—”
“I wouldn’t have asked if I wasn’t sure,” I say, although I’m a bit irritated—at myself—that I have to reassure her.
“Okay then, I’ll do that.”
I lean forward and glance at my iPad with my list of today’s meetings. “I can be home around seven tonight. I’ll have food delivered around eight, if that works.”
“That works fine, and as soon as I get my first paycheck, I’m going to buy the ingredients to make you my famous chicken and spinach stuffed shells.”
I wince that she can’t even afford to go to the grocery store to buy food to cook for me, and I practically have to bite my tongue off to keep from offering her money or my credit card. She wouldn’t accept, and it would probably piss her off.
So I merely say, “That sounds really good. I can’t wait.”
“It is good. You’ll love it.”
“I have to get going,” I say, pulling my legs off the desk and lowering my voice. “If you greet me at the door naked, it will be very much worth eating cold Italian that will be left in the hallway since we’ll be too busy to answer the knock.”
Ava laughs, low and sexy, and it punches straight through to my dick. “We’ll have to see about that. See you tonight.”
She hangs up, and it’s a hardship not to make some excuse to go home right now and fuck her. I don’t have the time. I’d have to cancel meetings, but I could talk myself into it.
It’s a struggle, but instead I grab my laptop and head out of my office, intent on hitting up our video coach a little earlier than planned, if for nothing more than to get my mind off Ava.
CHAPTER 23
Ava
“This toast is to Cannon,” Jenna says, holding up her champagne flute. “For being the greatest coach for the Titans and for getting us a limo so we don’t have to drive tonight.”
“Cheers,” I agree, tapping my glass to hers as Sophie clinks hers too.
I take a sip and settle back into the booth. Jenna and Sophie sit across from me, their cheeks flushed and eyes sparkling from the champagne. I’m sure I look much the same way, but I’m also riding high on more than the bubbly.
Cannon is on a road trip with a game yesterday in Florida and another tomorrow in Atlanta before he comes home. I chose to stay here so I could really dive into my new job, and also because I can’t have him buying tickets for me to fly around the country with him. It speaks to the independence I need after Derek fucked up my head.
And while I stick by my decision not to go, it doesn’t mean I don’t miss him. Other than the away games, there hasn’t been a day when we haven’t seen each other since we started dating. Granted, it’s often those stolen moments, as he likes to call them, usually in the form of a late-night dinner, mind-blowing sex, and cuddling in his bed. And honestly, I can live with that. He’s busy and is setting aside time for me. With me starting this new job, I’m busy as well, and I’m also fulfilled by the work I’m doing. If this is how my life is going to go for the foreseeable future, I’m all in. And if something more grows with Cannon, even better.