Vegas Aces: The Wide Receiver Complete Series

CHAPTER 2 TESSA

He's every bit as handsome as he was seven years ago times about eleven million. I already knew this, of course, since I just saw him a couple months ago. But it was so brief, and so many other things were going on that I didn’t get the chance to really focus on it.

Cam was there. We were sleeping together. He was married and I didn’t know. Paul was there, acting like the father I wish my dad had been to me. And then Tristan, out of the blue…married now, older, a little out of reach given his status, and still hot as hell—it was all too much to process at one time.

Now, though, it’s just the two of us sitting in our windows like we always did. I can’t see whether his dark hair is messy or neat beneath the backward baseball hat he’s wearing, which somehow makes him even hotter. His dark eyes are still captivating as he gazes at me. He’s bigger now, both in his physical size and in his presence. There’s something commanding about his presence in a room, a new quality he didn’t have before, like he gained extra confidence in our years apart.

Maybe most significant of all, he still looks at me like he did so long ago—like he would do anything for me, like he’d worship the very ground beneath my feet if he could.

“How long are you here?” he asks.

I shrug, averting my eyes. He’s still the same boy who knew me so well, and a lot of what simmers between the two of us is instinctual. I’m worried he might be able to read me as well as he used to, though we’ve both built up some pretty high walls since then. “I’m not sure yet. You?”

“Camp starts in July. Minicamp in April, OTAs in May.” He shrugs. “So sometime between April and July, probably.”

“OTAs?” I have no idea what he’s talking about.

“Organized Team Activities. They’re not mandatory, but they are strongly encouraged .” He glances down at his feet stretched out in front of him.

I offer a laugh. “Voluntold?” I ask.

In high school, our student council teacher couldn’t require us to stay after the dance to clean up. She called it voluntary, but since we were told we essentially had to be there, Tristan called it voluntold.

He chuckles at our old word. “Something like that. It looks better if you show up. Some of the older guys don’t bother with them, but us younger ones are expected to go. I’m getting to a point now where I’m somewhere in the middle.”

It’s hard to imagine being an older guy at the age of twenty-five.

“What’s it like playing pro football?” I ask.

It’s not what I want to ask.

Where’s your wife?

Is she pregnant?

Was it a mistake for me to come here?

These are the questions that plague my mind, but I’m too afraid to ask them.

He’s married. I know that much. Whether or not his marriage is in trouble or his wife is pregnant doesn’t really matter. The vow he made with another woman does, though.

After learning I was the other woman in my last relationship on top of learning what my father did in his spare time, I’m not in a place where I can get involved with somebody who has a wife.

“It’s incredible to get to play a game I love to play and get paid to do it. We run out on that field every week like little kids, giddy to play. Except we aren’t kids, and our bodies definitely feel it.”

“How?” My brows crinkle as I mirror his position, stretching my legs out in front of me.

“Remember that old hamstring injury I got my junior year?” he asks, and I nod. “You don’t get to sit for things like that. You need to be out there on the field, fighting for your place on the team with every single tick of the clock. As the saying goes, play hurt but not injured. It’s up to each man out there on that field to know the difference.”

“Have you ever played injured?” I kick my shoes off and they each thump onto the floor beside me.

He nods. “Yeah, the hammy. I shouldn’t have, and my trainer likes to remind me it’s why I hurt my ankle my rookie season.”

His rookie season. The season he got married. The same year he had a season-ending injury.

I feel like we have so much to catch up on, like I could sit right here in this windowsill all night, all week, all month, and still feel like we missed out on so much of each other’s lives. But now that he’s here, really here , and it’s not just some thirty second reunion that’s simply a taste of what I had to leave all those years ago, maybe we’ll have the time.

“What about you?” he asks. “You know what I’ve been doing. What have you been up to?”

The words since the last time we were together go unsaid, but we both know that’s what he means. I skip over the first few years. There’s a lot I’m just not ready to talk about, and there are other things that might be best left hidden in the past.

“I, uh, got my degree in nursing and have been working as a registered nurse at a private pediatrician’s office for the last few years. My boss is…um, was incredible, and I met some of my best friends working there.”

His brows dip. “Why’d you leave?”

I glance down at my stomach before I even realize I’m doing it, and I pray he doesn’t notice. The baby I’m carrying is another thing I’m not quite ready to tell him, but it’s not like I’ll be able to keep it from him very long.

“Long story,” I say. To avoid the inevitable questions that would follow him telling me he has nothing but the next few months to listen, I add, “My boss hired a new doctor. I didn’t get along well with him, and it was better for the practice if I left versus if he did.”

“That sucks,” he mutters.

“Yeah, it does.” I fold my hands in my lap and stare down at them. “But it’s fine. I’ve made my peace with it and I’m ready to figure out what comes next.”

“What do you think that’ll be?” he asks softly.

I glance over at him.

You .

I want to say it, but I stop myself.

We’re not there. At all. He’s married and I’m having a baby soon. This is simply two old friends catching up. Maybe over time we’ll forge our way down a path that might lead us back to each other, but there is way too much standing between us for me to even think about that yet.

“I have no idea,” I finally admit.