HARDPRESSED (Ocean Falls Trilogy Book 1) Read online

  She had me drink some herbal tea, and it took all I had to keep my eyes from rolling to the back of my head when she massaged some kind of minty oil into my temples. She said it would help with the pounding going on in my head. She then brought me a tall glass of water and placed it on the nightstand. It was a great chaser to the hot tea. I wasn’t sure about the chunks of cucumber floating around, though.

  Once she was satisfied that she had covered all the bases, Presley made her way over to the double window and pulled the blackout curtains together. She stood for a moment, with her back to me. I thought that maybe she was taking a moment to let her eyes adjust to the sudden darkness, or worse, deciding to toss me out on my ass after all.

  Suddenly, she turned, took an audible breath, and spread a smile across her face. A smile that never quite reached her eyes. Could I see her clearly? No, not exactly, there was still some light seeping in from the hallway. That, and I could just feel it in my gut. Something was wrong, and I couldn’t help but want to ask and, in turn, do any and everything I could in order to make it right. I had told myself I wouldn’t leave until I had answers, closure, and suddenly, the fine line that had formed became quite blurry.

  “I just need to grab something from the nightstand real quick, and then I’ll leave you be. Want me to give your agent a call?” I croaked my response, letting her know I would simply shoot him a text.

  Even with my head pounding, I knew I had to take advantage when the opportunity presented itself. When she reached for her drawer, I took my shot. I caught her off guard, and when my hand wrapped around her wrist, she jerked in surprise. That, or maybe I was squeezing too hard? Fuck. Instead of letting go or offering a weak apology, my mind went blank. She stared at me, wide-eyed, and all I could muster was, “Hi.”

  Confusion and hesitation were painted clearly across her delicate face.

  “Hi,” she returned.

  “Stay? Just a couple of minutes?” I knew it was a long shot, a lot to ask, but she slowly nodded and sat at the very edge of the bed.

  This was my chance to not be an asshole.

  “Are you still in love with him?”

  Welp. There went that idea.

  Her response was swift. “Why are you here, Tack?”

  Clearly, I had hit a nerve, and her lack of sharing only made me want the answer that much more. It seemed she was thinking the exact same thing. Her piercing eyes bore deep into mine as though she were willing me to give her an answer. I would have, gladly, if only it were a guaranteed tit for tat. But the answer...I was still unsure.

  Her lips parted as though she had more to say but surprised me, the both of us actually, when she looked down at my hand still gripping her wrist. Instead of jerking away, she gently placed her other hand on top of mine.

  “Okay. You don’t have to answer that right this second. I’ll stay a couple of minutes until you start to doze off but no more loaded questions. Deal?”

  “Deal.”

  For the next few minutes, we lowered our walls and just talked, caught up. In the process, I learned she had avoided keeping up with what was going on in my life, just as I had avoided what was going on in hers. I so badly wanted to know how her four-year-old came to enjoy the game, let alone dub me as her favorite player. I knew better than to ask; it would have been a direct violation of our ‘no loaded questions’ deal. Presley would bolt, and I wasn’t quite ready for that. Not yet.

  We talked about her dancing and how she made ends meet by offering both group and private lessons. She asked me about the draft and if I had yet worked out for any teams in particular since the Combine. I didn’t mention that I could end up a lot closer to her than she may realize. If you believed the media hype, that is.

  I asked how she’d met Belle and if she were clinically insane. She laughed at that, even though I was dead serious. She, in turn, asked how I had come to hire Dax. I quickly realized that I wanted to know everything about her life, her every day, what she did for fun. I wanted to know if she still loved going to the beach and if she still twirled the ends of her hair when she started to get sleepy.

  Sleepy.

  I hadn’t realized I was dozing off until I felt her hand leave mine and her weight lift from the bed. I’d been running on just a couple hours of sleep a night for the past few months and had been just fine. Suddenly, I get knocked around a couple times and can no longer hold my own. I refused to believe it had anything to do with Presley. Being in her presence, surrounded by her things, her scent. She wasn’t my home, though. No, she couldn’t be. I forced my lids open in time to see her reach for my forehead, but she pulled away before she made contact.

  “Sleep,” she whispered, and then she was gone.

  Presley

  Greyson had always been able to draw strong reactions from me, good or bad. I went from wanting to strangle him to wanting to simply fix it. I hadn’t forgotten, nor had I forgiven, but in that moment, I just wanted to set everything aside and get him back to normal. Only I no longer knew what his normal was.

  He looked different to me. Even with the nasty bruises aside, he looked drained. This was a guy whose second sport, at which he fully excelled, was sleep. He would sleep a good ten hours, then wake with the birds to go train. Yet, the man before me looked like he was doing good to get that much sleep in one week, let alone one night. I didn’t know his life now, but I guessed it was pretty hectic, with the draft being right around the corner. The spark, the spark that always shown from his eyes, had dimmed, and I bit my tongue until I tasted iron in an effort to stop myself from asking him why.

  The idea of him sleeping in my bed stirred uncertainty in the pit of my stomach, but the truth of the matter was he obviously needed rest, to sleep it off, and that was partially my fault. What kind of person would I be if I were to make him sleep on a couch that couldn’t even support the length of him? Or worse, if I were to kick him out altogether. Nope, I wouldn’t give the neighbors the satisfaction, nor a reason to be any nosier than they already were.

  I had to laugh at myself for a moment. It was as though I had never had him in my bed before, or any man for that matter. My stomach was nervous, and I couldn’t seem to just stand still. I got the oils diffusing and then went to close the curtains to darken the room. He was never one for light when he tried to sleep. My mind continued with its nervous racing, and it dawned on me that it felt just like high school.

  Now if that wasn’t a mood killer, nothing was. That time in my life was best left where it belonged, in the past. I had no interest in revisiting it.

  I took a moment before turning back to him. I could feel his eyes burning against my back. I took a deep breath, and just as I suspected, when I turned, his eyes were on me. Damn it. A run, that’s what I needed. A couple rounds with the heavy bag maybe.

  I thought, for a split second, that I may make it out of the room without any additional awkwardness. Instead, he reached out and snagged me by the wrist. He wanted me to stay, and once again, my mind slipped back to our time in high school. Greyson always wanted me near when he was wound up and couldn’t sleep. His eyes were lazy, but that mind of his would fight him tooth and nail. Some things never changed, I guess.

  He didn’t say anything at first, and it took everything I had to maintain eye contact and a solid stance instead of melting into his touch. And then, he said, “Hi.”

  Asshole. The sorry bastard knew I had no defense whatsoever against his boyish charm. The room was darker, but I could have sworn I saw a trace of a smirk. Oh, no. Not this time, buddy.

  “Hi,” I returned and waited for his next move.

  Impulsive? Damn right, he was. Greyson was capable of God knows what. He’d always been known to just blurt out any and everything that may have crossed his mind. Especially when he was in any kind of altered state, be it drunk, sleepy, injured, or high. He blurted out a question that I had a hard time answering for
myself, let alone out loud to someone else.

  My relationship with Carter, both then and now, was complicated at best. We had found ourselves in a very adult situation when we were still kids, and nine months hadn’t been enough time for us to figure it all out. My own father had done the best he could to be supportive without pushing me to sway the many decisions that had to be made. Carter’s parents, however, were all over the map. They were happy, they were sad, even angry at times, and I tried my best not to take it too personally.

  Carter’s parents had his entire life planned out for him since before he was even born. They had such high hopes for him, and when the poor girl from across town ended up pregnant with his bastard child, they didn’t quite know how to handle it.

  It wasn’t their fault, and to this day, I don’t judge them for it or hold any kind of resentment. Back then, I even found myself sympathizing with them. I had my own future planned out as well. I knew what it was like to suddenly, out of nowhere, be rerouted. I knew what it was like to have to start all over and to leave that dream, that expectation behind.

  My daughter, she’s my everything, and now, I can’t imagine my life without her. Back then? Well, I was in a fog. My heart was shattered, and suddenly, I found myself torn between wanting to run after the boy who’d left me and running from the boy who stood before me with open arms.

  Carter never panicked. The second the pregnancy test revealed positive, he put his entire life on pause, and to be honest, it was all a bit overwhelming. He had it all planned out. He wanted us to be a family. A wedding, me in white, and a house on the hill. It was just the kind of person he was, so incredibly noble. He wasn’t blind to my relationship, my lingering feelings for Greyson. He simply chose to look ahead.

  It wasn’t that I didn’t love him. As my waistline expanded, I took an inventory of those who were in my life, those who continued to support me even during the whispers and stares. Many of my so-called friends quickly became distant acquaintances at best. At that point, I had to focus on my one and only constant, and at the end of the day, that was Carter.

  Maybe I had loved him at the wrong time, or in the wrong way. All these years later and I still can’t quite explain, I can’t find a label for us. The only thing I knew for sure was that I couldn’t imagine Carter not being a solid fixture both in my life and in my heart, despite him no longer being in my bed.

  Something told me that wasn’t the declaration Greyson would care to hear, and to my luck, by the looks of him, he would crash at any moment. Before I realized what I was doing, my fingers were just a whisper away from brushing his hair from his forehead. It was an old habit. It was time for me to go.

  A smile tugged at the corner of my lips as I cleared the table. Breakfast had been nice. A little too nice. And then, of course, he went and ruined it. Or had that been me? No matter. The moment, if you could even call it that, had passed.

  After everything had been put away and the table wiped down, I filled my water bottle at the sink. Eww. I needed a new filter, and of course, there wasn’t one to be found. I added it to my ever-growing grocery list on the fridge and headed for the garage.

  The light flickered, as it always did, as I made my way over to the small fan in the corner. I thought back to when I first told Belle I was converting my garage into a home gym. She thought I was nuts. Even more so when I refused to hire any contractors to help me complete the project. I was more than capable of doing it on my own, and so I did. It wasn’t much, but it was mine.

  With some coaxing and bribery, I even got Belle to lend a hand. The hardest part was the flooring. I had to choose carefully. Also, I needed room to work on choreography so that required top to bottom mirrors for one wall and appropriate flooring. A heavy bag hanging from the ceiling was also a necessity. I wasn’t one for a lot of equipment; I preferred the old school weights. Between dancing, Yoga, and unleashing on the bag when necessary, I was pretty much covered. A single treadmill, mats, free weights, and a couple of kettlebells. The basics.

  It was silly, but in the back of my mind, I wondered if there really was a possibility that there were photographers nearby. I couldn’t help but laugh at myself after I lifted the garage door just enough to allow the air circulate. If there were anyone actually watching, the most they would get would be a glimpse of my ankles.

  I checked my phone for any missed calls or messages before plugging in to start my playlist. Belle, of course.

  Belle: Girls night soon!

  Hmm. I found it interesting that she failed to mention Greyson at all. Her twenty questions would come soon enough. I was sure of it. I returned her text with a thumbs up and then hit play.

  I began with a light warm-up, just enough to loosen my muscles. Once Chris Cornell’s voice began to fill the space, I danced. Dance had always been my one and only way to fully release. I lived, breathed it. Hell, I could even taste it. Song after song, I would lose myself a little more.

  Given my limited square footage, it was nothing too spectacular. My favorite was to simply free flow and improv just depending on that very moment, that time in space. When alone, I preferred to dance with my eyes closed, total abandonment.

  It heightened my senses and allowed me to really feel the music pulsing through me. The next track took on a different tempo and carried me right along for the ride. The sultry cover added a rocker edge to the George Michaels classic. Without any warning, Greyson came to mind, the way we used to dance.

  It would always start with me joking that I would use him as a prop, yet it would finish as much, much more. Greyson, the big tree, had next to no rhythm nor flexibility when I first started working with him. Initially, he had resisted basic stretching and flat out shot down the idea of Yoga altogether. Eventually, he warmed up to the idea, and then some.

  The song continued to carry me along, and at some point, I let my hair down. It stuck to my dampened skin and left little chill bumps as it traveled along the back of my neck and along my back.

  With my head dropped forward and eyes closed, I stepped out wide and took a long, deliberate bend at my waist. The tips of my hair touched the floor before I wound myself back into an upright position only to feel his body step into mine, his fingers digging into my hip.

  Chapter 13

  Greyson

  When I opened my eyes, I found her scent all around me. I couldn’t help but bury my nose into her pillowcase, and when that became too much, I flipped onto my back. Hard as a fucking rock.

  Jesus. What the fuck was wrong with me? I adjusted in an attempt to get more comfortable, but if anything, it only made it worse. I had to get out of her bed, out of her home, and if that didn’t work, I could at least jerk one out once I got back to the hotel. Pathetic? Absolutely.

  I swung my legs off her bed, planted my feet on the floor, and rose slowly just to test my balance. When my head stayed level instead of spinning, I put one foot in front of the other and headed towards her bathroom. I carefully tucked myself away, cursing under my breath over my own body betraying me. Then I splashed cold water on my face and headed towards the kitchen.

  It took a minute to find a simple glass. Sure, I only wanted a swig of juice, but it wasn’t my house. The least I could do was drink from a glass like a normal person.

  I opened a cabinet that stored all the kid dishes. Purple and bright green, little forest creatures, and Disney characters stared back at me. Nope. I’d keep looking. Besides, if she were even half the spitfire her mama was, Paisley wouldn’t want me drinking from her Minion cup anyways.

  God. I still couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that Presley was a mom. Once upon a time, I had thought of her as my forever, yet even back then, kids hadn’t crossed my mind. The idea of her giving another man a child set my nerves on edge, though. Of all people, why him? Fucking karma.

  I settled for a plain coffee mug, had my fill, rinsed it, and placed it in the dishwasher.
Dirty dishes left in the sink was one of Presley’s pet peeves. Having a little kid in the house may have changed all that, but…I doubted it.

  The house itself was quiet, and the same went for her street, her neighborhood. No taxis or buses. No sirens to wake me in the middle of the night. It was nice, peaceful. I stepped away from her living room window and went in search of Pres.

  I figured she hadn’t left as her car was still in the driveway, yet she was nowhere to be found. My last check was the garage, and when I approached the partially opened door leading out, music filtered through the narrow space. Bingo.

  My intention was to say an awkward goodbye and see myself out. What played out before me, however, stopped me dead in my tracks.

  I’d been called a lot of things in my life, many of which were true. No one, however, had ever labeled me a creeper. Yet there I stood, hidden and speechless.

  Her garage had been turned into a small gym. A place where she could work out, dance. It wasn’t anything fancy, but it looked functional. I felt a tug at the corners of my mouth when I spied the heavy bag hanging in the corner of the room.

  The day we met—fuck, it had been a long time ago—was a day I would never forget. We still had the same taste in music, apparently, and I found the notion oddly comforting. Chris Cornell turned into Seether, and before my very eyes, her hair came loose, and she began to move.

  For years, I fought the memories. It had taken everything in my power to burn the images out of my mind. Every pill I tossed back, every bottle I tried to drown in, and all I wanted in return was to erase the memory of how she moves.

  I never learned as much as I should have about her craft. Some, okay, all of the terms she would throw around were foreign to me and being a selfish fuck, as long as she moved like that, I didn’t care what it was called.

  To watch her now, I could only hope for the opposite. That even on my deathbed, this image would still be with me.