supposed to be here for, right?
I mean, not really. I was here for work. But for today, I was on the beach rather than in the practice arena or the gym to try to get some peace and quiet. And preferably some peace of mind.
After about twenty seconds of trying to fall asleep, though, I opened my eyes again and stared out at the turquoise water in front of me. Barcelona. A city full of romance—or something like that. A city full of history and art, most certainly, and some of the most amazing wine I’d ever experienced. Okay, sure, great food as well. A city where tourists came to take in the sights, relax, and maybe even fall in love.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t here for any of that. As a member of the United States national volleyball team—a traveling team between Olympic years, when we went out on the road and played against other teams, to keep ourselves sharp and bring in money for the program—I was here to work. We’d come to Barcelona to play in a tournament against other national volleyball teams—both local and from overseas—and had been given an extra day after the tournament ended for rest and relaxation.
A treat, our coach had told us, to keep us fresh. Keep us excited about the sport, blah, blah, blah.
I hadn’t wanted to tell him that I would have needed a whole lot more than one day to feel any better about life or the sport of volleyball. Hell, they could have given me an entire week and it wouldn’t have been enough for the reset I needed. A month? Yeah, maybe that would have worked.
Though three months would have been better.
Unfortunately—or fortunately, depending on how you looked at it—we had won game after game, and eventually the entire tournament, which meant we’d played right up until the end of it and had only gotten the one day of freedom. Which led to me sitting here on the beach in front of a resort I would never be able to afford, doing my best to keep everyone else away from me with my best resting bitch face and trying like mad for some relaxation before I had to head home.
I let my eyes go unfocused on the gorgeous expanse of blue in front of me and dug my toes further into the sand, trying to ground myself there. My mind, though, was busy turning all its usual tricks on me. Presenting all the problems, and then flat-out refusing to give me anything that looked even remotely like answers. And the list of problems was long. A lot longer than I would have liked, that was for sure. But it all came down to a pretty cut-and-dried situation. I didn’t have enough money.
And I had too many responsibilities.
I’d gone to a top-notch university, on a volleyball scholarship, obviously, but the scholarship hadn’t covered all of my tuition, and my parents had been struggling themselves. I hadn’t wanted to ask them to help with the out-of-state costs for college or the money I needed to, you know, live. So I’d taken on student loans. Lots of them. Which I was deeply regretting, now that I was older, wiser, and utterly broke. On top of that, my younger brother had multiple sclerosis and was unable to work full-time, so was living almost entirely on my dime these days.
Because my parents weren’t in any position to help him. They were struggling, themselves. They didn’t even have jobs right now, which meant I was also making their mortgage payments. Plus my own rent. Plus the rent on Todd’s place, since neither of us had thought it was a good idea for him to move in with me or our parents.
In short, I was paying for three full households. And professional volleyball doesn’t pay as much as you might think. To say I was underwater would be to really, really undersell the situation.
To say I was overwhelmed almost beyond belief would have been the understatement of the freaking century.
I was a professional athlete. A woman who was supposed to have it all: the fame, the money, the good life. And instead, I was more broke now than I’d ever been in my life.
I was also woman enough to admit that I was going out of my way not to ask for help. Because I’d always been the one in charge of everything, and admitting that I couldn’t do this on my own… wasn’t an option. Not even a little bit.
“Jeez, adulting sucks,” I breathed, closing my eyes and deciding to try for a nap again.
Yes, the waiter was theoretically on his way back with my drink, but I trusted that he’d leave it on the table for me to discover when I woke up. And if I was asleep, I could at least forget about everything and just… be.
“It does,” a voice suddenly answered, breaking right through my inner monologue and attempt at sleep and bringing me directly up to a sitting position.
I glared up at the person standing next to me—who was conveniently standing right in front of the sun, so that I couldn’t quite see him.
“Excuse me?” I said.
“Adulting sucks,” he repeated. “I was agreeing with you on that point.”
“And listening in on my private conversations,” I noted, squinting against the sun and trying to figure out who the hell this guy was.
“You often have private conversations with yourself?” he asked.
I would have been a fool not to notice the smile in his voice. But I didn’t let that sway me. I’d been trying to nap on the beach in peace—on my one and only day off in Barcelona—and this guy had interrupted me.
“Aren’t private conversations most private when you’re the only person taking part in them?” I replied.
Yeah, so there was a little bit of flirtation in my voice. Because as annoyed as I was that the guy had woken me up, I’d also managed to look through the sun’s glare enough to see that he was not only tall, but also extremely well-built.
With a pair of flashing eyes that were already laughing at me.
And not even my worst day could eliminate my deep appreciation for a handsome man. Even if I didn’t actually feel like flirting with the guy for long.
When he walked around to a spot where he wasn’t up against the sun, though, my position on that idea changed quite a bit. Because he wasn’t just handsome. He was probably the most gorgeous man I’d ever laid eyes on. Dark brown, almost black hair, and sparkling green eyes that looked like they would turn to blue under the right circumstances. A chiseled jaw and a nose to match. Cheekbones that most women would have paid thousands of dollars to get.
My God, he was a real live Prince Charming. Like seriously, the physical incarnation of the man the illustrators had given to Cinderella. Or was it Sleeping Beauty?
Oh, who cared?
“Do you mind if I share your towel?” he asked. “I don’t have one, and the sand is too hot to sit on without something underneath you.”
Well, shit.
I’d wanted to be by myself, as I said, and I’d been using every tool in my arsenal to make sure that happened. But when a guy who could have been a Greek god in some other life comes up and asks you to share your towel with him…
“Sure,” I muttered, already wondering if I was going to regret it.
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