SCORE (A Stepbrother Sports Romance)(90)
“That’s not what it looked like to me.”
“I know, and I’m sorry. I just wanted to go to bed by myself. They were waiting for me.” I paused to give her a chance to say something. I took her silence as permission to continue. “Look, I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I didn’t invite those girls into my room. I was tempted, but I couldn’t go through with it. They left really pissed off. Why do you think she showed you that video?”
“It didn’t look like you couldn’t go through with it,” she said quietly.
“If you’d watched for another few seconds, you’d have seen me walk out.”
The line was silent for a while. “How did she know to show it to me?” asked Summer eventually.
“I don’t know.” I really had no idea. “I told Suzi I couldn’t be with them because I thought I was in love with someone else, so maybe when you showed up looking for me, she put two and two together…”
“You think you’re in love with me?”
I didn’t want to have this conversation over the phone while I was doing ninety on the I-10.
“Listen, I’m heading back to California,” I told her. “I’ll be home in a couple of days. Can I fly you out there?”
There was another long pause. I had to fight to stay silent. “I don’t know, James. I have a lot to think about.”
“How about I call you when I get home?”
“I guess,” she said. She sounded so sad, and it hurt to hear that in her voice. She hung up, and I felt I should leave her alone for a while.
***
Ten or eleven hours later, I checked into the Ritz-Carlton overlooking Dove Mountain a few miles north of Tucson. I’ve always really enjoyed a good, long drive. I was worried that being able to think of nothing but Summer all the way here would be hard, but after our phone call, I felt much more optimistic. I knew she had a commitment phobia, and seeing me with those other girls couldn’t have helped, but she knew I suffered from the same thing. Additionally, I may have just accidentally said ‘I love you’ in a roundabout kind of way. That had to mean there was some hope for us, right?
So I spent the rest of the drive enjoying fond memories of Summer and planning ways to win her over. From my new hotel suite, I managed to get a hold of her office and the closest thing she had to an assistant. Of course, she wouldn’t give Summer’s address to me, but after I’d told her a wild, romanticized version of what happened this weekend, leaving out the al fresco sex and unplanned three-way, she agreed to help me. She sounded thrilled that Summer might finally begin a proper relationship, so I gave her the details of one of my credit cards and we planned some surprises.
The next day’s drive passed in a blur of excited thoughts about Summer, imagining her reactions and hoping I’d made the right decision. I hardly knew her. I knew she liked nice cars, expensive clothes, and good scotch. I knew she loved sex and got a kick out of not wearing underwear. I knew she hated racing and wasn’t keen on racers, but I didn’t know why. I hoped it would be fun to discover the answers to all these mysteries, but what if we weren’t compatible outside of a physical relationship? I got excited every time I thought about her, sure, but what about when the newness faded? What if she insisted, like I expected any girl to do, that I give up racing?
My hands began shaking on the steering wheel as I realized the depth of what we could be getting ourselves into and all the ways it could go wrong. It didn’t change my mind, but I was more nervous than ever.
Summer
Seeing James with those two sluts shouldn’t have upset me. From the start we’d talked about nothing but non-commitment, so why was I so broken up over him with someone else? It looked, too, that at about the same time he was with them, I was being disappointingly fucked by Derek. I think I’d call that being a hypocrite.
There were so many problems. It seemed so similar to how my father would have behaved, exactly how I would expect any man to behave. They were all capable of professing undying love and fidelity until some free pussy opened up right in front of them. I guess I shouldn’t have been upset.
It was just… I had never dared to dream I could be with someone. I never, ever considered letting my guard down with someone until James. And as soon as I did, look at what happened. Every expectation of being with an immature racer playboy was what I got. I felt foolish, stupid that I’d got my hopes up, an idiot for trusting someone, and that I had been right to keep myself at a distance from people all these years. Somehow, though, these realizations didn’t make me feel any better.
I called Geoffrey and told him I was suffering from something. I was sorry, blah, blah, blah, but the groundwork was laid for someone else to take on Dunlop. I needed to be away from that scene right now or I’d never be able to concentrate. A couple of days and they’d assign me another project, and then it would be business as usual. Back to my old, confident, fuck-me-and-get-out self.
My excuses to Geoffrey made, I decide to veg for the day. It had been a long time since I’d done that. Sure, I was likely to spend some of the time feeling sorry for myself or thinking about James, but the rest of the time I’d be eating chocolate, Skittles, or chips, drinking the occasional glass of Talisker eighteen-year-old, and binge-watching Game of Thrones.