Vegas Aces: The Wide Receiver Complete Series

CHAPTER 7 TESSA

It’s raining when I wake on Tuesday morning, and the weather takes me back to the first time Tristan kissed me just like storms always seem to do.

We moved to town when my dad was appointed as pastor of the United Methodist Church in Fallon Ridge the summer before I started seventh grade. I was anxious about moving to a town like Fallon Ridge. We were coming from a bigger town located in the Chicago suburbs, and to move to a town that didn’t even have a stoplight was quite the change for me.

And worse, I knew what happened in small towns. The kids at the middle school had all known each other since they were in kindergarten. I would immediately be labeled the new girl , and I was also a pastor’s daughter. That came with its own set of stereotypes that I’d worked hard to prove weren’t true back in Maple Park, and now I’d be starting from scratch.

And nothing proved stereotypes false about being the sweet and innocent preacher’s daughter more than befriending the cute boy next door.

He was playing basketball in his driveway when we pulled into our new driveway, and I still remember the first time I saw him.

He wore black shorts and a Fallon Ridge Middle School t-shirt with a baseball cap on his head…turned backward .

The boys in Maple Park didn’t wear their hats backwards.

It was different and hot . Butterflies didn’t just flap around my belly—no, they flapped a little lower. He was the first boy who did that to me, who made my body respond in a new and different way, and it made me feel at twelve like I was growing up.

He stopped shooting the ball when we got out of our cars, and he walked right up to my dad with the ball tucked between his left arm and his torso.

“Hi, I’m Tristan. Are you moving in here?”

My dad nodded as he eyed the boy. “We’re the Taylors.” He nodded toward the house next door. “You live here?”

Tristan nodded.

“How old are you?” my dad asked.

“Twelve,” he told my dad.

My dad nodded. “Thought you were about the same age as my little girl. Tessa?” he called, and I hopped out of the car and over to his side. “This boy is our neighbor, Tristan. He’s your age.”

Tristan’s eyes held mine for a beat, and it felt like heat was surging between us. It had to just be my nerves about starting a new school and meeting my first potential friend.

“Nice to meet you, Tessa. I’ll show you around and introduce you to everybody,” he promised.

And he did.

He introduced me to every friend who came over to his house during the summer. He invited me to come along with him to the park, or to walk downtown, or to go on a bike ride. He showed me around town and took me everywhere he went. We walked into the market together. We rode swings at the park together. We walked past the scenic overlook together. We walked past all the little shops downtown—the ones our parents liked to shop in but us preteens wouldn’t be caught dead in. We rode bikes from one end of town to the other.

It was magic. Pure and simple.

He didn’t leave my side on the first day of school even though it felt like I already knew everybody since I’d spent all summer with them. He made sure I felt comfortable. He was popular, and instead of walking in as the weird new girl, I was walking in as a popular boy’s best friend.

It made a world of difference, and from the moment we met, well, we became inseparable.

After we made our way into our new house and my mom showed me to what would be my new bedroom, I glanced out the window once I was alone. He was standing there in his window, and our eyes connected across the space for the very first time. I waved, and he waved back with his lopsided smile—a smile he grew into, eventually, and that straightened with a couple years of braces.

His mom invited us to dinner the night we moved in. Our moms hit it off right away.

A few nights later, I walked over to close my blinds before I went to bed, and I saw Tristan motioning for me to open my window.

I glanced at the clock. It was nine fifty-seven.

I knew I needed to get some rest, but I ignored that little thought as a thrill of excitement pulsed up my spine. He was sitting on his windowsill, leaning on the wall and stretching his legs out in front of him. I opened my window and mirrored his position on my own windowsill, but I sat in the opposite direction so we could look at each other while we talked.

“What’s it like moving to a new town?” he asked me, and that was the start of our nightly meetings before bed.

Our first kiss wasn’t that summer. It wasn’t the next summer, either.

It wasn’t until our sophomore year of high school. We weren’t officially a couple until he asked me to the homecoming dance our sophomore year as we sat on a bench at the scenic overlook on the east side of town. The Mississippi River flowed gently along as his voice trembled when he asked.

He tried asking me my freshman year, but my dad said I was too young to go despite my respectful yet rage-fueled tears. I was terrified Tristan was going to find someone else and ditch me. It was the worst case of FOMO I’ve ever experienced, but I should have known he wouldn’t just ditch me. We were too close for that.

My mom must’ve talked my dad into letting me go sophomore year because, well, I went.

The dance was underwhelming as those types of high school events tend to be. It was midway through the dance when Tristan took my hand and pulled me out a side door when the chaperones weren’t watching. It was raining outside, and he took me down to the football field—the place where he felt most at home.

He had taken me there before, and we’d even held hands…but it was never anything more than that. The night of our sophomore year homecoming, something changed. Something felt different, and I knew going forward our relationship wasn’t going to be the same anymore.

I was right.

That was the night when friendship transcended everything we thought we built over the prior few years. It was the first time I felt like this was the boy I was going to marry.

You hear it all the time in these small towns, right? Boy meets girl. Boy and girl fall for each other at a young age. Boy and girl end up together forever.

It’s a dream or, in my case, a fantasy—but it was a fantasy I felt with every fiber of my being. I was sure it was going to become our reality.

He walked me to the middle of the field, and we stood over the Fallon Falcons logo. Neither of us cared that it was raining. For some reason that only intensified the romance of it. Even at fifteen, I knew that there was something inherently magical about kissing in the rain.

He stared into my eyes for a beat and then his palm came up to cup my cheek.

“I think I fell in love with you the moment you moved in next door to me,” he whispered.

The tears that fell from my eyes at his words mingled with the rain. I didn’t know where my tears ended and the rain began.

His lips dropped down to mine, and it was so tender and sweet that my first kiss with a boy was also my first kiss with Tristan. The butterflies that always seem to flap around in my stomach around him seemed to be flying everywhere in that moment. Buzzing around my chest. Down between my legs. Even my knees were shaky.

I pulled my lips from his only to say, “I love you, too,” and then my mouth collided with his again.

I felt his tongue at the seam of my lips. At first it tickled and felt a little funny that he was using his tongue to kiss me, but because I had seen it in movies or at Jennifer Blakely’s house when Jen and Chris made out, I knew this was how it was done. I’d just never experienced it for myself until that moment.

I always thought it would be kind of weird or gross, but it was none of those things. It was sweet and it was romantic and it was intimate and it was sexy and it was the first of countless times we would do this.

We did it so many times, in fact, that I never thought there would be an end to the number of kisses we shared.

And then, one day…there was.

I blow out a breath as I walk into Lakeshore Pediatrics, glad it’s Tuesday as the rain mingles with the lone tear that escaped my lid.

I’m glad Dr. Foster is not in today. The last thing I want today is his strange flirtations that only confuse me when I am feeling a little down and nostalgic because it’s raining today.

I play off the tear like it’s the rainwater, deep down knowing the truth that it’s that memory of his lips on mine. I need to remember that it’s just a part of my past—a part I’ll never get back.

Imagine my surprise when I walk past Dr. Foster’s office and find the door open and the light on. He sits behind the desk studying some papers as he sees me walk by.

“A little late this morning,” he comments.

I blow out a breath and don’t respond. Chicago traffic without rain is a beast, but with rain it’s unbearable.

I left in plenty of time so I won’t be late for my patients, though I am a little late for grabbing a cup of coffee for myself from the break room. That feels extra unfortunate since for some reason Cam is in today.

I see my first two patients of the day before I run into him again.

“Do you have a minute?” he asks, surprising me as I’m filling out some charts.

I glance up at him, and I’m about to reply with something snarky when I stop myself. Maybe this is about Logan.

I follow him into his office. “Aren’t you supposed to be at the hospital today?” I ask.

“My first appointment is at nine-thirty, so I decided to stop by here first and review Logan’s test results.”

“And?” I ask, my heart leaping up into my throat as I await the answer.

He closes the door behind me and draws in a deep breath. “It’s not leukemia. I need more results, but my gut says it’s anemia,” he says, and relief courses through me.

“Oh thank God,” I breathe, and without even thinking about it, I toss my arms around Dr. Foster’s neck.

I realize what I’m doing a moment too late, but as I move to pull back, he shocks me by slipping an arm around my waist and drawing me in a little closer. It’s almost as if he needs the hug, too, after the fear that it was going to be something much worse for our sweet little patient.

More tears slip down my cheeks, and he pulls back to look me in the eyes.

“Are you okay?” he asks softly. He runs a knuckle along my jawline as he looks at me with something akin to tenderness.

I nod. I’m about to whisper, “Yeah, I’m fine,” or something along those lines when his lips drop down to mine.

I stand rooted to the spot, unable to move as his lips press to mine. He smells of the spicy cologne he uses, and it’s strong and deep and really, really sexy at this proximity. It’s soft and tender and wrong.

So, so wrong even though it feels right. I tighten my arms around his neck, and his arm tightens around my waist at the same time.

It’s when I feel his lips parting that I realize we shouldn’t be doing this right now. I have patients waiting, and intensifying this kiss right here, right now…it’s just wrong.

I force myself away first even though it’s the last thing I want to do in this moment. “I…I…” I stammer as I try to come up with some words—any words—in this alternate reality. “I thought you hated me.”

“Oh, sweet, sweet nurse,” he says, his voice low and sexy. “I never hated you.”

“Then why are you always so mean to me?”

He chuckles. “The attraction between us is strong, Tessa,” he murmurs, marking the first time he’s ever used my first name in a conversation. The way he says it in that deep, sultry tone causes an ache to pulse between my legs. “I knew it would be wrong to make a move, so I was trying to keep my distance. But I just don’t think I can do that anymore.”

I open my mouth to reply when a knock sounds at the door beside us.

My eyes widen as I feel like we’re caught. He chuckles and lets me go, nodding toward the chairs by his desk as if to tell me to sit in one of them so we don’t look guilty. I practically run around him to get to one and slide into the chair, and he opens the door.

“Paul, what can I do for you?” he says, and my face burns as my boss stands there, nearly having caught me kissing Dr. Foster during work hours.

Oh my God.

I just kissed Dr. Foster.

And I want to do it again.