Power Play

Davis reared back. “Why? I mean, she’s only a girlfriend, she’s got nothing to do with football. What’s up with your numb-brain readers? You’re not a gossip columnist, you’re a sportswriter.”

She laughed at him. “I guess I’m a little of both.” She walked back to the sofa and plunked herself down, put her booted feet up on the coffee table next to his. A copy of Sports Illustrated slid onto the floor. She said, “I was wondering if I should even be going in that direction, but, Davis, I had that photo. What was I supposed to do? Ignore it? My boss would have kicked me out of his office window if I had.” She leaned forward and rubbed a smudge of dirt off her boot. “Right now in the off-season, all the readers want to hear about is Tebow and his girlfriend.”

“Everyone is wondering if they’ve had sex.”

“That, too, but I won’t touch that unless Bennett John shoves me to the edge of the abyss.”

Davis leaned over and kissed her. She looked at him from less than an inch away, not moving, not speaking. “Well,” he said, “that wasn’t half bad until I saw you looking like a deer in the headlights.”

She laughed, grabbed his face between her hands, and kissed him hard. She jumped to her feet. “Enough of that, even though it felt pretty good—well, close to great, maybe. No, no, don’t you move, I’m going to bed.”

His eyes lit up like a beacon.

“You’re such a guy. I’ll get your blankets.”

He said from behind her, “Is it that idiot Day Abbott?”

That stopped her in her tracks. “Day is not an idiot. He’s sweet, like a brother to me.” He saw the lie perching on the end of her nose.

“Nah, a brother wouldn’t want to put my lights out for talking with you. You went out to a fancy restaurant, you were wearing a sexy dress and stilts. You don’t do that for a brother.”

He had a point, but she shook her head. Would he believe it was simply a habit, since you never knew who you’d see at a fancy place like L’Aubergine, and she didn’t ever want to look like a dog on Day’s arm?

He was looking at her, arms crossed over his chest, waiting. “Oh, all right,” and she decided to come clean. “Day asked me to marry him, if you must know, but I turned him down. It was all a major surprise to me, like who wants to marry their brother? Then I felt so guilty because I hadn’t realized—no, that isn’t quite true. I did know—” She stopped, started rubbing her temples, then, of all things, she grinned at him. “Geez, I get a kiss from you. I don’t suppose you want to marry me, too? I’ll break a record. I swear I’ll post it if it happens, with full details.”

He almost said she should start the blog off with him, but instead he gathered his brain and said, “I forgot to tell you. I’m invited for dinner tomorrow at Sherlock and Savich’s house. Will you come with me?”

She nodded and left the living room. She soon reappeared with two blankets and a pillow in her arms. “You can have the bathroom in ten minutes, okay?”

“Yeah, sure. Hey, Perry?”

She paused in the doorway, looked back at him.

“About that kiss—”

“I know, you didn’t mean it. Like I said, you’re a guy, and like every guy, when you’re close to a female of the species, you lose it, then you get it back real fast.”

“What’s ‘it’?”

“Your sense of self-preservation.”

He gave her a long look, slowly nodded. “Close enough, but I was talking about Day Abbott kissing you.”

“Go to sleep.”

She fell asleep listening to a branch of a big oak tree outside her bedroom window bang against the side of her condo in the late night wind.

She was jerked awake by a soft sound from close by. Her eyes flew open and her heart started to pound, but she stayed still and listened. The bedroom door slowly opened, quiet as could be. She was reaching for the Kimber at her bedside when she realized from the dim outline in the doorway that it was Davis. And she realized, too, that she recognized his scent, and wasn’t that odd? Sort of musky mixed with the soft fragrance of her lavender soap. She came up on her elbows, whispered, “What is it? What’s wrong?”

She saw him put his finger to his lips. He whispered back, “Stay put. No matter what you hear, stay put.”

He didn’t close the bedroom door, but he was gone in the next instant. She grabbed her Kimber from atop the bedside table, saw it was going on midnight, held the gun under her pillow to kill any sound, and racked the slide. She slipped out of bed and eased into the hall before she stopped to listen. She heard it then—someone at the front door, trying to get in. Then she heard the door slowly open. She readied for the alarm, but there was silence. Why hadn’t it blasted out loud enough to wake the neighborhood? She had the best alarm system available, that’s what the security guy had told her when he’d installed it. She heard breathing. She pressed her back to the wall, taking baby steps over the cold wooden floor.