Vegas Aces: The Wide Receiver Complete Series

CHAPTER 16 TRISTAN

God, she’s beautiful.

She’s the same girl who would skip down to the river hand-in-hand with me. It’s the same girl whose hand I held when my grandmother died, the same girl whose arms were the most comforting place I could find, the one who would cheer the loudest at every Falcons game—home or away.

The same girl who holds all of my most important firsts.

But she’s a woman now. Her hair is longer than she wore it back then, and it’s a slightly different color, too, streaked with something lighter than the darker tones underneath. I can’t stop staring at her. I can’t stop noting everything that’s exactly the same while new differences hit me.

And the ring. My eyes zeroed in on her right hand when she hugged my mother. She’s wearing the promise ring I gave her, and I can’t help but wonder whether she still wears it all the time or if she slipped it on for the occasion today.

I haven’t had a chance to stop at my parents’ house yet—the home where I lived from the time I was born until the time I left for college. But somehow I doubt I’d feel any more at home there than I do staring into Tessa Taylor’s eyes for the first time in nearly seven years.

I lean toward her and slip my arm around her waist as I draw her in closer to me and it’s like a fucking sensory overload. She still smells of jasmine mixed with crisp autumn air, and my chest aches with regret.

What the fuck happened between us that so much time has gone by without this?

She links her arms around my neck the same way she did when we were teenagers, and I hold her a beat longer than I should.

I bury my face in her neck as I cling on a little more tightly to her. I can practically taste her skin, the delicate porcelain that always beckoned to me.

There’s so much I want to say, so much I need to say, and yet…

I can’t seem to form the words.

This hug, it’s getting too long. I know it is. But time seems to be standing still as I hold her in my arms. The world tilts back on its axis after it’s been out of sync for far too long.

I feel someone’s hand on my bicep, a gentle tap, and I realize it’s my dad trying to move me along. I finally pull back.

I clear my throat as I try to force away the emotion lumped there. “It’s good to see you.” My voice is hoarse. “Sorry about your dad.”

She shakes her head a little and snags her bottom lip between her teeth for a second. Her eyes glisten, and she brushes away a tear that spills onto her cheek. “It’s good to see you, too,” she murmurs with a tremble to her voice. “Are you in town long?”

I shake my head. “I need to get back to Vegas tonight. I have a plane to catch in a few hours.”

She nods as she averts her gaze to the ground.

I duck down to try to catch her eye again, and hers soften when they fall upon me. “I’m sorry. I wish I could stay.”

“Thank you for coming. It means…” She lifts a shoulder as she clears her throat. “It means a lot.”

I reach down and squeeze her hand. “I wouldn’t have missed it.”

Another tear escapes her lid, and I brush it away with my thumb. My heart breaks for what she’s going through right now even though we don’t have the time to talk about it.

I still love her.

God, those feelings still burn bright. They never went away, and seeing her standing here in front of me only reminds me of how some things in this life never fade away.

My dad taps my arm again, and we both look at the line behind me.

“I need to let you get to everybody else, but…well, here.” I hand her my mother’s receipt, and I close her hand over the paper. “Use it.”

Her brows dip in confusion. I lean in and press my lips to her cheek. I have to. I need to taste her again, to feel my mouth on her any way I can get it, and a harmless kiss on the cheek seems most appropriate for a church funeral.

Except it’s not harmless.

It does me far more harm than good to have that simple little taste, and as I move past her, I can still taste her on my lips, still smell her in my nostrils, still feel her body as it pressed to mine in what was far too short an embrace.

“Tristan, thank you for coming,” Janet says next, and I hug Tessa’s mother as I express my condolences.

And that’s it. My parents trail behind me as we exit the church. They’ll go to the cemetery for the burial in another hour, and I’ll go back to Chicago to catch my flight back home to Vegas and my career and my wife , and then Tessa and I will be separated once again by seventeen hundred miles and secrets, lies, and misunderstandings.

It’s a fight to get back to my rental truck in the parking lot.

Lauren Matthews gets to me first. Kayla Price isn’t far behind. Then Tiffany and Nicole, Jamie, Jen, Shannon…it’s everyone I left behind when I said goodbye to this small town, all the girls who tried but never had a shot with me before I left because only one of them ever held even an ounce of my interest—even the one I had a brief encounter with that I’d rather keep buried in the past.

All the girls who think I can get them out of here, like because we went to high school together they have some stake in me that will give them their happily ever after.

But none of these will do.

My dad rides with me in the truck back to their house, and my mom fixes us her famous walnut chicken salad sandwiches before I have to hit the road.

“How’s everything going with Savannah?” my mom asks as I dig into my first bite.

“Still awful,” I say.

She squeezes my arm with sympathy. “I’m so sorry, honey. What’s she doing now?”

“She switched lawyers again,” I say. “Did I tell you that?”

My dad snorts. “So the proceedings begin completely over again?”

I nod. “And it’s not just that. I didn’t want to mention this over the phone, but she’s got some stuff on me that I can’t allow to get out.”

“What stuff?” my dad asks.

I blow out a breath. “It’s a long story. But suffice it to say I’d be dealing with a fine and a suspension if it got out, so I’m stuck.”

“She’s blackmailing you?” my mom asks, her voice incredulous. “But that’s illegal!”

“She’s not exactly known for taking the moral high ground, Mom.” I take another bite of my sandwich.

My mom shakes her head. “They don’t make them like that around here, right, Russ?”

I laugh. No, they don’t. Instead, they make them like Shannon and Lauren and Wendy. Tiffany and Jamie and Kayla. Girls who still live in Fallon Ridge, who waitress or bartend at one of the few watering holes in town or who work for the town in some other capacity. Girls who never left to spread their wings and are stuck in the same mentality we were all stuck in ten years ago.

And then there’s the girls like Tessa Taylor—not those who disappeared without a trace, but those who did take flight and who escaped this small town for something more. Something better.

I wound up in the NFL. My situation is certainly better…for the most part. Minus the whole Savannah debacle.

But is Tessa’s situation better?

I wish I had a minute to talk to her to find out…and maybe that time will come.