My shrug is jerky. “Before I was a sandwich girl, I was an entrepreneur of businesses I didn’t take the time to understand.” It takes me a moment to find my voice again, but oddly, I meet Banks’s eyes briefly across the pitch and that bolt of solidarity helps me continue, along with Tobias’s protective and encouraging arm around my shoulder. “Like I told you guys, I’m…afraid to start anything long term because it’ll go away before I reach the end, so I try and skip right to the end. Like serving turkey sandwiches in the hopes that I can charm the editor of the Gotham Times into letting me be a reporter. My parents used to support my go-getter attitude, but now I think they just…I think they’ve given up on me.”
“That’s not possible, Elise. I won’t believe that.”
“Lately, yeah.” My voice cracks a little. “I think it’s possible.”
Tobias draws me closer, his thumb beginning to brush up and down on my arm. “Have you been happy lately?” I’m not expecting the question and I don’t understand the relevance, so I turn to him with a raised eyebrow. “Parents can sense that kind of thing. When their child isn’t happy. They were proud of you when you were off trying all manner of professions, because you were happy. It wasn’t contingent on your succeeding. Maybe they just see you’re losing hope and they don’t know how to help.”
“No.” As much as I want to believe him, I shake my head adamantly. “I…”
“Hmm?”
“A week ago, I couldn’t picture myself spilling my guts to you.”
He winks at me. “Maybe it makes perfect sense. I made a living being at my most vulnerable on camera. Therefore, you probably feel safe being vulnerable with me.” His throat works through a shifting pattern of muscle, his attention dropping to my mouth and flaring. “Although, fuck me. I’m not sure I’ve been as vulnerable with anyone as I am with you, Elise.”
I gravitate closer to him, the warmth of his expensive scent making me dizzy, every nerve ending on my body sparking. “Enlisting was always in my back pocket. If I couldn’t make my parents or myself proud any other way, I could do this. I could follow in my dad’s footsteps. But I couldn’t even do that.”
It takes him a while to process that. “Did you really want to?”
“I don’t know,” I say honestly, only somewhat surprised by his astuteness. His ability to listen. “I’m too afraid to hope for anything.”
“Love,” he grates, sounding pained for me. “Maybe we start thinking differently.” His fingers thread through my hair, his thumb tracing the curve of my jawline. “Maybe we stop bending to fit. Forcing things. Because something is out there hoping for you. Hoping you’ll arrive exactly as you are. That’s a fact.”
I’m almost as surprised by the passion in his voice as I’m affected by it. How it makes me want to confide more and more. “I want to write. It’s my favorite part of everything I’ve tried. I keep coming back to it.”
He presses his forehead to mine, looking me in the eye. “Then write.”
Our mouths are a millimeter away from each other and suddenly I’m thinking about Edward from Twilight having perfect breath to lure prey. Is Tobias a vampire? Because his warm exhale is minty with a hint of chocolate and promise of bliss. I almost lean back to check if he’s sparkling. But I can’t move away. Not when his lips coast over mine and he’s looking so deeply into my eyes it’s like he’s trying to read my mind. In the back of my head, I can already hear myself moaning. Begging. What is he doing to me?
A whistle blows on the field and I flinch back, breathing hard.
Tobias hasn’t moved. Hasn’t stopped staring at me, his chest heaving.
It takes serious willpower to stop devouring the sight of him up close, his engine clearly revved, but I remind myself I came to the game for Banks. Sure, he sent Tobias with me, but I doubt he planned for us to make out in the front row. I release a long breath and cross my legs, earning a raspy chuckle from Tobias, and do my best to focus on the match.
And honestly, watching rugby is far from the equivalent of a cold shower. All these men piling on top of each other with their mountain warrior thighs and short shorts? Banks pressed and confident in his suit, that deep boom of a voice carrying all the way across the field? Tobias stroking my thigh with a lazy but attentive knuckle?
Yowza.
At the end of a time out, before play resumes, Banks and I lock eyes across the expanse of green and something passes between us. Warmth and gratitude and yearning. Maybe a combination of the three? I don’t know, but I can barely breathe afterward.