Dating the Player, page 17
Monday was a lifetime away.
Chapter Fifteen
Eloise
Sipping my coffee, I eyed Dak over the mug, drinking him the sight of him along with the warm liquid. I would never get tired of the casual smile he wore, especially when it felt like it was just for me, like it did now.
We had slept in, then walked in the warm weather to a coffee shop for breakfast.
“Next weekend is a home game,” he said.
I nodded, because of course I knew the schedule. I set my coffee down. I didn’t want to be reminded of work, my real life, my lonely apartment.
“That means my Friday night is free for you.”
Dak was going to make this harder than I wanted it to be. I sighed. “Dak. What is the point of us seeing each other again?”
“What is the point? Are you fucking kidding me?” He looked… angry.
My heart started to race. “No, I wasn’t trying to be funny. It’s a serious question.”
Dak shook his head and rubbed his jaw. “The point is I want to date you, Eloise. I want to go to dinner with you and take you to the park and watch movies on the couch in your very small apartment and have sleepovers at my place where I cook you breakfast in the morning. I want to see where this can go, you and me. Have a relationship. I thought I was being obvious about that.”
For a second I thought I went blind, my vision blurred so dramatically. It was like getting flipped upside down on a roller coaster. Nothing but darkness and white spots behind my eyelids.
Once I could see again, I stared at him. He could not be serious. Dakota North, star quarterback, most eligible bachelor, with women throwing themselves (and their naked pictures) at him, wanted to date me? It made no sense.
Clearly, there was more to this. Either he was determined to prove me wrong that I wasn’t his type or prove his mother wrong when she’d told me he couldn’t commit. Or prove himself wrong that he wasn’t the kind who would have sex with a woman and stop speaking to her. Sure, I did believe he had a certain amount of affection for me, but there was something deeper going on.
Whatever it was, I couldn’t actually date him, obviously, because it would utterly destroy me to date Dak. It would last a hot minute, then his life would go on and I would be a puddle of emotion sobbing on my apartment floor, doing something weird like cuddling with a pair of his boxer shorts.
It would not be pretty.
I didn’t want to be around myself when that happened.
Nor did I think I could be nonchalant about women sending him naked pictures or constantly hitting on him. Or deal with people’s opinions and censure both during and after it ended. Even the most confident person would hate being trolled online by jealous women who wanted Dak for themselves. It was all too much.
“I don’t think you wanting to date was obvious to me,” I said, because it hadn’t been. Not to me. “I thought we were just, you know.”
“Just what? Fucking?” He definitely sounded annoyed. “Yes, we were. We did. We do. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t want to see you again. That I don’t want more. Because I do want more. A lot more.”
His words made me feel instantly panicked. He reached for my hand from across the table but I quickly dropped it down onto my lap, out of his reach.
“I can’t touch you?” he asked, sounding both frustrated and bewildered. “I don’t understand what’s wrong.”
“I’m sorry, I’m just freaking out.” I was. Completely. “Can you just clarify what you’re saying because it sounded like you were suggesting we actually have a relationship.” I almost choked on the word.
This couldn’t even be real life. Here I’d been worried about reality and this was what he was suggesting?
“Yes. I want to date you. Have a relationship. Be with you, forever, Kitty. Fucking forever.”
His words were so strong and so shocking, I could barely comprehend them.
Definitely not real life.
* * *
Dak
* * *
“Forever?” Eloise was just eyeing me with high suspicion. “Why?” she asked.
God, she could be exasperating in the most adorable way possible. “Because I find you annoying. Why do you think? I like you. Hell, I think I might love you.”
Her response was confusing the hell out of me.
She actually choked on her coffee. Her eyes watered and she thumped her chest. “You do?”
For being a smart girl, sometimes she asked questions that had very obvious answers. “Yes. I do. Is that so hard to believe?”
“Frankly, yes. I’m not your type.”
This conversation was not going the way I had envisioned it. I had thought, oh, I don’t know, a little enthusiasm might be displayed. Not wariness. I had also thought we were way past the whole concept of me having a type.
“So? What does that have to do with now?”
“I think you’re feeling guilty because of what I said about you having sex with women and then not talking to them. It’s okay, Dak. I’ve had a great time. You don’t owe me anything else.”
I was determined not to get annoyed. “Eloise. Don’t tell me how I feel. Today isn’t dependent on repeating everything I did in the past, you know what I’m saying? Maybe I want to date you because you’re not my type. I never really dated what you’re calling my type. I had casual sex. Big difference.”
There was. No other woman in recent memory had made me want to deal with this kind of crap. This was what relationships got you. Complications. I had wanted straightforward, easy, with all those other women.
With Eloise, I was willing to have “talks” because I fucking wanted to spend time with her. I wanted to be her guy. I wanted to wake up next to her on a regular basis. How ironic was it that the one woman I wanted to be with was the one woman who wasn’t jumping at the chance?
“That’s a valid point,” she said.
“Thank you,” I said, ridiculously pleased that she had acknowledged I was right. “Now can you stop worrying about what the hell I’m thinking and feeling and tell me how you feel?” It would be nice to hear she had the hots for me, at least. I knew she didn’t have a ton of respect for me. Yet. I planned to prove to her that I was worthy of her love.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
God, she was killing me. “Do you like me?”
I was one hundred percent certain I hadn’t asked a girl that since the first grade. Jesus, what she did to me.
“Yes.”
This was like pulling teeth. I felt like banging my head against the brick wall she was sitting in front of. “So… can we have more sex, date? Be a thing?”
She shook her head. “No.”
Wrong answer.
She continued. “I like you, Dak. I think you’re a good man and I’m obviously very physically attracted to you, but nothing else has changed. I don’t want to lose my job and I can’t handle dating a man like you.”
A man like me? I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what that meant. It didn’t sound like a compliment. “Just give it a shot. We’ll never know unless we try.”
Tears formed in her eyes. “Please. Don’t. This is hard enough for me.”
That both alarmed me and made me feel like a dick. I sat back quickly, instinctively giving her more physical space. I didn’t understand what was really going on in her head. “Hey, I’m sorry. Don’t cry.”
I didn’t even know what the fuck I was apologizing for. I also fought the urge to reach for her, but I didn’t want to witness her shrinking away from me.
“No, don’t be sorry,” she said, staring at the table and fingering the cloth napkin. “This is a me issue, not a you issue.”
“Am I not intelligent enough for you?” I asked, trying to root out what she was really feeling.
“What? No. It has nothing to do with anything like that.”
“Then what is it?” I asked, frustrated. “I don’t get it.” I stood up and moved my chair to the side of the table, so I was right next to her. “Let me kiss you.”
Eloise didn’t resist when I erased the distance between us and covered her lips with mine.
She kissed me back, sweetly. “Dak,” she breathed. “I want to give in so much…”
That was all I needed to hear. “Just so you know, Kitty. I didn’t get where I am in life by giving up.” I brushed her hair back off of her cheek and tucked it behind her ear. “I’ll leave this alone for right now, but you need to know I’m falling in love with you.”
So much for me retreating. Or leaving it alone. But God, the way she looked at me… the way my gut twisted when I stared into those brown eyes. The way her lips felt beneath mine. I was in love with her. With her serious, amusing, sexy ass self.
“No,” she said. “No, don’t say that.”
That wasn’t quite the response I was hoping for either. Epic fucking fail.
“What do you mean, no?” I asked, not understanding. No, she didn’t love me in return or no, she refused to accept what I was saying?
She pushed her glasses up and shifted away from me. “You’re just saying that to get what you want. You don’t mean that.”
That pissed me off like nothing else. “I swear to God, Kitty, you need to stop telling me how I feel. I’m a grown ass man. I mean what I say. I am falling in love with you.” I was. She’d somehow managed to wrap me around her neurotic little finger in no time flat.
I wanted Eloise by my side. I wanted, hell, I needed to see what it would be like to be with her, because I had a feeling it would be everything I’d never known I wanted.
“Okay,” Eloise said. She pushed her glasses up and raised her coffee mug to her lips.
That was it? That was all she was going to say?
Apparently it was.
The silence drew out.
“Does that mean I can see you Friday night?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I can’t.”
“Do you have plans?”
“No. I just… can’t.” She gave me a pleading, stubborn look. “It’s called self-preservation.”
I thought about everything she was saying. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to be with me, she was just afraid of what might happen. I could live with that.
Well. I wasn’t going to live with it, but I could understand it as the reason for being rejected. For now. Because frankly, it pissed me off. It meant she didn’t trust me and I wanted her to trust me.
I realized that if I wanted her to trust me, I had to be totally honest. “Because I want to do this right, I need to tell you that it was my idea for you to be here this weekend.”
“What do you mean?” Her brow furrowed.
“I mean it wasn’t Jeff’s idea to send you here. I actually asked him to tell you he needed you to babysit me because I wanted you here.”
Her jaw dropped. “You asked Mr. Dimarco to send me here? Dak! Do you realize how embarrassing that is for me? Oh, my God, he must think I’m such an idiot. Plus now he knows we’re having sex.”
It didn’t really sound that great when she put it like that. “He thinks that you’re good for me, that’s why he agreed.”
But Eloise shoved her chair back and stood up, grabbing her purse from where it was resting on the floor. “I can’t believe you would humiliate me like that. I need to be alone.”
Her cheeks were bright pink and she looked like she was fighting back tears. “I… Eloise. Wait.” Was she seriously just going to leave? Was it really that big of a deal? “I didn’t even have to tell you, you know. You would have never known. I was trying to be honest.”
She paused and looked at me, her lips pursed. “I appreciate the honesty. But this isn’t a game. This is my life.”
That pissed me off. “It’s my life too.”
But she just shook her head and left the coffee shop. What the actual fuck? How had that all gone so south? I had never imagined when I confessed my love to the woman I wanted to spend my life with, she would tell me no and walk away from me.
Sitting there staring at a bagel I no longer wanted to eat, I wondered what the hell I was supposed to do now. I called my mother. “Hey, Mama, I have a question for you.”
“Yes? Are you behaving yourself in New Orleans? Nice of you to mention you were spending the weekend there with Eloise.”
That was sarcasm. I pretended not to notice. “It was a last minute thing. What do you think about her?”
There was a pause. “Is that the question you wanted to ask?”
“Yes.”
“She seems very smart and sweet.”
“Anything else?”
“What are you really asking, Dakota?” My mother sounded curious and a little suspicious.
“What I’m really asking is if you have any advice for me on how to convince Eloise that I’m serious about wanting to be with her.”
“Are you?”
That threw me off. “Am I what?”
“Serious about wanting to be with her?”
“Yes, or I wouldn’t be asking.” Why did no one fucking believe me?
“I’m just checking. I can’t have you stringing that girl along. She’s too genuine for you to do that to her.”
That really annoyed me. “Why can’t anyone seem to think I could actually be in love? I have you and Eloise both doubting me every step of the way.”
“You’re in love with her?”
“Yes.” I drummed my thumb impatiently on the table. I felt impatient with everything. I was in love, damn it, and no one believed me.
Her tone changed, grew warmer. “In that case, I couldn’t be happier. She’s a perfect fit for you and our family.”
“She doesn’t seem to think so. She thinks I’m just saying I have feelings to get what I want.”
My mother actually laughed.
“Mama, that isn’t funny. I’m dying here. She just walked out on me in a coffee shop and said she wants to be alone.”
She sobered up. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. Just give her time. Be patient, be true to her. Let her see that you’re serious, that you’re loyal. That you won’t pout and flirt with other women to rush her along, like some idiotic men do.”
It wasn’t bad advice, I just didn’t like it.
Being patient sucked.
Especially when I got back to the hotel and found out she’d left, as in went home, with nothing but a short note on my pillow that she would talk to me soon. I debated chasing her down at the airport. She couldn’t have even had time to change her flight yet. I could easily run her to ground.
But that wasn’t being patient, giving her the space she needed.
So instead I called Train, went to his apartment, and got a little bit drunk at noon.
“Maybe I should buy her a ring,” I said to him, my whiskey-soaked brain striving to find methods to convince Eloise she had to be with me. “Or a house.”
He shook his head. “No. Stop. You can’t buy her off. Leave it alone like your mother said. Give her a minute to miss you.”
“But I can send flowers, right? And a diamond bracelet?”
“Are you even listening?” Train was still in his pajamas, his short hair spiked up from sleep. He looked like he’d stayed out all night. “Just chill the fuck out. Eloise does not seem like a woman who cares about a diamond bracelet.”
“What do you know?” I said, belligerent.
“I know she’s afraid to get hurt. And I get that. I really fucking get that.”
“I would never hurt Eloise,” I said. I meant that, with all my heart.
“Not on purpose. But you just being you is going to hurt Eloise,” he said. “Being a star quarterback comes with unwanted attention sometimes and being your girlfriend makes Eloise a target.” He gestured to his phone. “There’s already nasty comments on social media about her singing last night. Bitchy questions about how a girl like her scored you. Eloise is a kind person and that kind of stuff will upset her.”
I sat up straighter, digging my phone out. I’d been tagged in both a video and some photos of us out the night before and Train was right. There were rude ass comments. Along the lines of what the woman in the airport flying to Knoxville had said. That Eloise wasn’t “hot enough” for a guy like me. Showed them what they knew. Eloise was the hottest biscuit this side of the gravy boat. That body… the way she looked at me. Smoking-ass hot.
“People suck,” I said.
“That they do.”
“You know I don’t give a shit what people think or say. I’ve never cared about that. But this pisses me off.”
“I think you can agree it’s fair of Eloise to want to take it slow with you. She needs to decide if she wants this crap in her life or not and you need to let her.” His phone buzzed and he picked it up to look at the screen. He laughed. “That chick from last night has been texting JJ all morning, while he’s with another woman. Now they’re both mad at him. That’s funny.”
“Hilarious.” I could care less about JJ’s lady troubles.
“He says he can meet us for lunch in twenty.” Train looked up and eyed me. “You need to stop drinking and eat something.”
“I should just go to the airport and go home.” I didn’t feel like hanging out with the guys. Or anyone. I wanted to be alone in my apartment, plotting a strategy to convince Eloise we could work. That I could protect her from haters. That I was worth dealing with the bullshit.
“Stop it. You’re not going home.”
“Then I’m at least going to tell these losers to suck my dick.” I scrolled through my phone, debating who I wanted to call out first.
“Not a great idea,” Train said.
But I barely heard him because I got a text from Eloise.
I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left like that. You’ve been really good to me.
It’s okay. I understand you’re afraid. But you don’t have to be. And I’m sorry about talking to Dimarco.
I watched and waited but nothing.
No response.
Patience was not my virtue. Neither was thinking ahead.
