Fair Play (42 page)

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I say.

“You most definitely will.”

I make my way silently across the floor, but he doesn’t follow. I turn when I reach the door and see him standing where I left him. He has one arm crossed over his chest and the other propped on top of it vertically, stroking his beard like he’s burning the image of my backside into his memory.

“Are you leaving? The next class is ballet for four-year-old girls. You might want to escape while you can.”

Slowly, he lowers his hand from his face and strolls across the floor. His eyes never leave mine, and when he takes the door and opens it for me, he whispers in my ear,

“I adore children.”

I fiddle with the string on my sweatshirt and silently pray for strength to resist this seemingly perfect man who has made it a point to tell me he adores children. It’s like he is the key master who holds the key that winds my maternal clock. Those three words whispered seductively in my ear have me considering a family, but only for a second. I skip past him and down the hall in the opposite direction of the front doors, where I know he is going.

Catastrophe avoided. For now.

Chapter Four

River

I thought I was done with women for a while until I saw an Angel. I was less than enthusiastic about prancing around for forty-five minutes in a ballet studio. I followed my teammates into room 112, and right away, my eyes were drawn to the perfect ass of a professional dancer.

Her leotard had an open back, exposing her flawless latte skin all the way to the top curve of that perky ass, and her long, silky black hair was scooped into a messy knot at the base of her neck. The sight of her made my cock twitch and the tips of my fingers tingle. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt anything like that when looking at a woman, and that was only the beginning. She hadn’t even turned around yet.

When she did turn, she moved like silk, flowing across the floor, and I thought of what coach said about learning to be graceful. If anyone is going to teach these knuckleheads about grace, it would be her.

Her beauty is unconventional, her physique unlike most dancers. She isn’t the tall, willowy kind of ballet instructor I had imagined—far from it. Muscular and toned in all the right places, she looks more like a runner than a dancer, and she’s shorter than the professional dancers I’ve seen at the ballet, and yes, I’ve been to the ballet. I had a girlfriend who was obsessed with becoming a dancer. Unfortunately, she had two left feet, straying eyes, and only a couple of functioning brain cells in her pretty head. She didn’t last long. None of them do.

When I’m interested in something, I study it, and I am very interested in Angel. Our eyes met the second she addressed the class, but only for a moment. I saw a flicker of interest, but she stayed focused on the class. I like that. No special treatment, no fawning over the players like a lovesick puppy. She was a true professional from start to finish.

And the sass and confidence she exhibited were a total turn on. She handled a room full of back-talking, sexual innuendo-slinging NFA players like nobody’s business.

I wanted to ask her to dinner . . . or coffee, or even the end of the hall to the vending machine for a bottle of water—anywhere—but I didn’t. She was skittish, but I know she felt something when we shook hands. There was a spark that passed between us, but her quick escape when I mentioned loving kids was guarded, a lot like me.

I need to get to my brother’s house. I promised I would be there for dinner tonight, but the dance thing pushed our off-season workouts back two hours, and I’m running behind.

When I turn onto Noah’s street, it occurs to me that I could have asked Angel to dinner here tonight, with my family. It would have been a risky first date, meeting the family and all, but after watching her with the guys today, I think she would have handled it fine.

In the driveway, I squeeze my car in behind my dad’s Tahoe. I hate parking next to other cars, but these cars all belong to my family, and they are respectful of other people’s belongings, unlike the rest of the world.

My head hasn’t even cleared the door, and three beautiful eleven-year-old girls are pulling at my arms and hugging me like I just came home from war. The Sparks are in the off-season, though, and my nieces know this is when to get their loving in.

“Uncle River, I missed you so much. Did you know Marta is coming tonight? And Grandma and Grandpa and—”

“Whoa, little lady,” I say, picking her up and swinging her around like a rag doll. Salina squeals, and her sisters laugh as I take turns spinning them around in the front yard.

“So everybody’s here tonight, huh?” I say when we walk into the house, all of us out of breath from laughing.

“Yes, that’s what I was trying to tell you,” Salina says, dramatically dragging out the word,
trying
, with an eye roll. Pre-teen girls are nothing if not dramatic.

“So what’s the big deal?” I ask.

Marisol steps in to answer, “Uncle David is here.”

Ah, okay, that explains the hurried greeting and dramatic tone. Uncle David has been having marital trouble for the past year, and he’s been keeping his distance. I wonder what’s gotten him to a family dinner all of a sudden.

“Well that’s cool. Are Aunt Misty and the kids here too?” David has a five-year-old son and a seven-year-old daughter, and we’ve been missing them a lot over the past year. I wasn’t lying when I told Angel I love kids. I’m crazy about them. I spend as much time in the off-season with my seventeen nieces and nephews as possible. Last year, I somehow orchestrated a trip for all of us to Disney World. It wasn’t easy, but we got it done, and I was in heaven the entire time.

“No, he brought his girlfriend,” Alicia whispers just before we enter my brother, Noah, and his wife, Maria’s, living room.

Girlfriend? That motherfucker left his wife and kids? And he dares to bring a girlfriend to our family dinner after skipping out on us for the past twelve months?

Every family has a black sheep, and David is ours. Always into trouble as a teenager, he didn’t get good grades and never earned any scholarships to help him get into college. We weren’t surprised when he disappeared for a couple of years after he miraculously graduated high school. He had always talked about being in a band, so we figured he was following his dream.

Then one day, he turned up with his pregnant wife, Misty, and he seemed to finally have his shit together. We were all skeptical at first, but when they had Conner and then two years later, Carmon, and bought a house, we wiped the sweat from our proverbial brows and figured he had settled down.

“Hola, mi hermano,” Maria says, taking my face and pulling me down so she can kiss me on both cheeks. My brother met Maria on a trip to Spain when he was studying abroad in college. She’s a gorgeous woman, and he’s a smart man for keeping in contact with her until he finished law school. He brought her to California for a vacation, and she never left. They have been married thirteen years, and aside from my parents, they are the best role models for a great marriage that I could have.

“Hola, Maria.” I return her kisses with my eyes on David and his guest, who are standing on the patio, looking out at the ocean.

“What the hell is that?” I say and jut my chin toward the patio.

“Oh, River, please don’t kill him before dinner. I worked all day cooking, and I can’t stand to waste food.” Maria places her warm brown hand on my chest over my heart, and I snort at her attempt at a joke.

“Where’s Misty? Where are the kids?” I ask.

“He says she left him and took them with her. He doesn’t know where any of them are.”

“When?”

“Three months ago.”

“And he never bothered to tell us what was going on? Looks like he bounced back pretty easily.”

“I know, but he isn’t being a dick, and she seems to be . . .”

“Seems to be what?” I ask.

“I think Noah calls it skanky. Yes, that’s right. She’s not skanky.”

Maria speaks fluent English, but slang still stumps her at times. The girls scattered as soon as we entered the room, anticipating an argument between David and me. Even eleven-year-old girls know it’s stupid to do what David is doing.

“I will take the high road tonight, just for you, Maria, because I love you and don’t want you to waste food,” I say, smiling down at my petite five foot two sister-in-law.

“Ah, gracias, River. You’re a good boy. Why don’t you bring a nice girl home for dinner sometime? You’re so handsome and kind. Are there no more good girls left for you?”

“Someday, Maria. I’ll find a good girl someday, I promise.”

She smiles, making the tiny crow’s feet around her almond eyes more pronounced. Maria just gets more beautiful with age. I love her as much as my sisters, and I plan on keeping the promise I just made to her. I think I’ve already found a good girl to bring home to dinner. I just have to figure out how to ask her without scaring her.

Chapter Five

Angel

“Cat, hey, come here,” I say, gesturing toward myself from across the coffee shop where she works. It’s late, and I’ve been practicing for hours, but I had to see her, and a cup of coffee wouldn’t kill me right about now either.

She rolls her eyes and mouths,
I can’t. I’m working
. I sigh. They never give her a damn break in this place. I sink into a comfy chair and wait for the line to die down. Why do so many people want coffee at nine o’clock at night?

I slide my phone from the outside pocket of my duffle bag and scroll through the newsfeed of Facebook. A few funny videos and a couple of TMI posts about people’s poor health and relationship problems later, Cat plops down across from me holding a large iced café Americano.

“Here,” she says, thrusting it at me. “What are you doing here so late? Don’t you have to practice in the morning?”

“I just left the studio. You’ll never guess what Miss Valentina made me do today.” It’s quiet while I take a long drink of the cold, strong coffee and wait for her to guess.

“Well, aren’t you going to try and guess?” I ask.

“No, you said I’d never guess,” she says with a deadpanned face.

“True, you wouldn’t.”

“Damn, woman, I only have a ten-minute break before we clean up and close. Tell me what the wicked witch made you do?”

“I had to teach ballet to the San Francisco Sparks this afternoon.”

Cat’s mouth drops open, and I swear I see stars in her eyes. She loves football more than any female I’ve ever met, and not because of the hot players and their tight ends—pun intended. She loves the game. With three older brothers, she was predisposed to being a fan. All of her brothers played in high school, and one even went on to play for the Washington Redkings.

“Oh my God, all of them, in one class? You taught them ballet? Why?”

She fires the questions at me in quick succession with only a couple of minutes left in her break.

“Not all of them. I had three classes today, with six guys in each.”

“Did they behave? Jesse says the guys on his team are crass, and he would never set me up with any of them.”

Jesse is her very overprotective brother who plays for the Redkings. Prince Charming could be one of his teammates, and he wouldn’t set her up with him.

“There were a couple of jokers and one or two who tested me, but I handled them pretty well, I think.”

“Did any of them ask you out?”

I knew this was coming. Cat is always on me about having more fun and meeting guys. She just doesn’t understand how much work it takes to prepare for an audition or how important it is to me. Nobody does.

“No. There was this one, though . . .”

Cat sits up on the edge of her seat with wide eyes. Her boss calls out that her break is over, but she waves her hand absently in his direction, keeping her eyes on me.

“Be there in a minute,” she answers. “Go on. There was this one guy . . .?”

“He was incredibly handsome, and he had the bluest eyes I’ve ever—”

“River Kelly? You taught ballet to
the
River Kelly? Oh my God, he is the best quarterback the Sparks have ever had, and he’s gorgeous.”

“How did you know it was him?”

“His eyes are famous. He even did a contact lens commercial a few years ago for Acuvue, and he’s done some photo shoots for a modeling company. The hottest ones are of him in a pool with his eyes just above the surface. Women fall all over themselves for him, but he doesn’t date much. I used to think he was gay, but Jesse says no. So what happened?”

“Cat, we need to close up. Come on, break’s over,” her scrawny man-boy boss calls from behind the counter.

Cat huffs and stands up, pointing at me. “You. Do. Not. Move. I’m not done with you.”

“Yes, Ma’am. I’ll sit here and drink my coffee, Scout’s honor,” I say, holding up my three middle fingers.

She narrows her eyes. “You were never a Girl Scout.”

“Was too, for six months in the fourth grade, until it interfered with my dance classes.”

“Cat!”

“I’m coming!” she shouts and stomps away.

Behind the counter, I can hear banging and clattering as she breaks down the espresso machine and stores the baked goods in a freezer for another day. All of the customers are gone. If there had been any left, she would be scaring them off with this little rant. I cringe when she storms past the man-boy boss, who jumps out of her way, pressing his back against the wall to avoid injury.

That woman has a fiery temper, which is the reason she’s twenty-two years old and still working in a coffee shop. She went to college and even graduated a year early, but she can’t get through an interview without pissing someone off to save her life.

I love her, though. She may be a little crazy, but she’s hella loyal, and that is what is most important to me.

Outside in the hot evening summer air, Cat and I walk down the street to my apartment. I’m buzzing from the caffeine bolusboost, and I’m excited to tell Cat about River. It’s not like I’m going to act on that electrical feeling I had when I held his hand today, but that doesn’t mean I can’t dream out loud about it.

“So he stayed after class?”

“Yep, and he introduced himself and shook my hand.”

“He shook your hand? Was it like a quick shake and drop, or a lingering, slow, hand holding shake?”

“You’re really into the details of this, aren’t you?”

“Uh, hell yes. You never talk about men. It's always dancing this and practice that and auditions and Miss Valentina. I’m jonesing for some man talk.”

“Well, it was a lingering, hand-holding sort of handshake, if you must know.”

“I must. So, did you feel anything? Like was there chemistry or electricity when you touched?”

“You read too many romance novels.”

“Yeah, so what’s your point? Zap or no?”

A slow smile spreads across her face when she sees me squirm.

“There was, you felt a zap! Hot damn, finally, you’re interested in somebody.”

“It’s not like it matters, though. I have to audition next week. It couldn’t be worse timing.”

“Angel, did it ever occur to you that you could have more than one thing in your life? Why do you think every second of your time needs to be spent on dancing? You’re a shoo-in for the company, can’t you see that? I think that Miss Valentina has been filling your head with doubts all these years.”

“Dancing is the only thing I want to have in my life, and Miss Valentina is constructively critical. She’s helping me, not planting doubt.”

“Okay, so say you make the company, which we both know you will, and you become a prima ballerina and travel all over the world and become famous. Doesn’t all that end in your early thirties? What then? Do you plan on being an old maid dance instructor in a little musty studio in Russia or what? I don’t think you see the whole picture here, and I know you don't give yourself enough credit. You can dance and be in a relationship. It might be hard, but if you find a great guy, it’ll be worth it.”

“Wow, you’ve been thinking about this a lot, haven’t you?”

“Eh, yeah, a little. I just never bothered to say anything because you refuse to put yourself out there to meet somebody. You’re always holed up in that studio. Now the good Lord has decided to deliver the perfect man right to your studio, and you’re going to mess it up because you’re so narrow-minded about your goals.”

“You think I’m narrow-minded?”

“What do you think about when you open your eyes in the morning?”

“Dance.”

“What do you think about doing tomorrow, this weekend, next week, next year?”

“Dance.”

“I rest my case. Open your mind. Broaden your horizons. I’m not saying go off and get married in Vegas or quit ballet and become a stripper. But if this guy asks you out and you think he’s attractive and nice, say yes.”

Maybe she’s right. Maybe I am too focused on one thing. Can a person be too dedicated to their dreams?

“If he asks me out, I’ll think about it. I’m not making any promises, but I won’t shoot him down right away. I swear.”

Cat stops dead in her tracks in the middle of the sidewalk and turns to face me.

“Did I just convince you to stray from the beaten and battered path to dance fame?”

I tilt my head to the side, looking up and then back at her.

“Yep, I think so.”

Cat picks me up and squeezes me tight. I giggle, and she drops me with an
oomph
.

“Damn, you’re heavy for such a little thing.”

“It’s all muscle, baby,” I say and flex my biceps.

“Aren’t you supposed to be a skinny little waif that’s easy to lift and toss around?”

“Yeah, but black girls don’t have skinny asses, and I don’t want to be a skinny waif. I like my curves and my muscles. They make me different, special. I’m cool with me.”

We continue to walk in a comfortable silence until we reach my building. She leans her hip on the railing outside my door and looks at me thoughtfully.

“I’m proud of you, Angel. You’re doing what you love, and you're a genius at it. Nobody is more kind and down to earth than you are, and you have a high self-esteem to boot. People don’t compliment each other enough these days, ya know?”

My eyes well with tears. Cat has never spoken so seriously to me before, and she’s right. People don’t lift each other up anymore. It’s all about tearing down the competitor even if they aren’t competing against you.

I hug her again and pull away to brush the tears from my cheeks.

“Thanks, that means a lot. You’re pretty awesome yourself, you know?”

“I know. Thanks, though.”

She’s always sassy and self-confident, so I don’t need to reassure her, but like she said, we don’t say it enough.

“So are you teaching another class tomorrow?”

“Yeah, three every afternoon, all week.”

“And if River asks you out, what are you going to say?”

“I’ll say maybe.”

“Angel, please don’t tell me you’re going to ignore my pep talk.”

“Okay, if it feels right, I’ll say yes.”

She smiles an I-got-what-I-wanted smile and pecks me on me cheek before heading down the street to her car.

I have a strong feeling it’s going to feel more than right, and that’s what I’m afraid of.