him room. He watched her shift her position, gaze on her legs when she pulled her skirt down, but otherwise Ryder didn’t speak. The silence went on for so long that Reese tried ignoring it, resting her fingers against the keys as a distraction. “Any requests?”
“How about, ‘Thinking Bout You?’”
“Talking about anyone in particular?” She banged out the first chords of Pearl Jam’s “Come Back” and ignored the low snorting laugh he released. Her back straight, Reese leaned over the keys, playing the chord lower. “I did hear that your girlfriend was at the game. She still around?”
“Is Baker?”
Reese stopped playing, taking her fingers from the keys to turn toward Ryder. “You trying to imply something?”
“Big guy like that saving the day? Lot of women would be flattered.”
Reese tightened the muscles at her jaws, trying hard to control her mounting temper. “I wonder if you’d say that to Wilkens or any other kicker that was new to your team. You know…if they had a dick.”
“Careful, Noble. We’re just having a friendly chat about your potential plans with one of our teammates.”
She ignored him, returning her focus to the keyboard beneath her fingers, not caring that Ryder watched her, that he leaned closer as she played. He smelled of bourbon—and nothing like the good stuff Reese had brought for her new teammates that first night at Decadence.
“You were good,” he said, and Reese’s playing slowed, but she didn’t ask him to explain the compliment. After a few more chords, she didn’t have to ask him a thing. “The kicks were golden, and you handled the bullshit like a pro.”
“Careful, Glenn, you might be paying me a compliment on accident.”
“Accidentally on purpose,” he said, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, not looking at her. “I always thought Coach should have let you and Witherspoon run that fake back in school.”
Reese frowned, surprised that Ryder remembered the play. She and Witherspoon, the punter, had devised something sneaky that would have landed Duke an easy score because no one would expect Reese to do more than kick the ball. The first time they’d practiced it, Ryder had clapped, laughing like a fool at how quickly the play worked. Her father, on the other hand, hadn’t been impressed.
“Papa thought it was cheap.” Next to her she felt the bench move as Ryder looked up at her, still resting against his knees. She didn’t like his cool quietness or how the man kept staring at her like he expected something remarkable to happen. “He didn’t like fakes.”
“Yeah,” Ryder said, sitting up. He leaned so close to Reese now that she couldn’t play anything. “Like how you fake me out all the time?”
She jerked her attention to him, that dimming temper beginning to rise again. “The hell is that supposed to mean, cabrón?”
Ryder tilted his head, his breath hot, bourbon-soaked when he whispered against her mouth. “Kiss me and walk away. Tempt me and ignore everything between us.”
Reese leaned back, needing space. “You said there was no everything between us anymore. Remember that?”
“Maybe,” he continued, moving a hand to her face, pressing his palm against her cheek. “Maybe I changed my mind. Maybe I don’t like seeing you without me. Maybe I’m drunk and being an asshole.”
“Maybe,” she said, insides lit with something that liquefied her patience. “You should stop being such a selfish prick and remember that you left me. I owe you nothing, Ryder.” She pulled his hand from her face and stood up, grabbing her bag before she glared down at him. “Not one damn thing.”
There was relief as she walked away, that no one was there to witness one of America’s favorite quarterbacks acting like an ass. Reese knew Ryder was a good guy. Other than how things had ended with them, Ryder had always been a decent person who’d never intentionally hurt anyone.
He was just drunk, she told herself, hearing the click of her own heels as she walked toward the elevator. Drunk and stupid, for some reason, about shit that died a long time ago.
“No,” she said to no one in particular. “Damn that.”
Her temper now a blistering inferno, Reese weighed the wisdom of turning back to find Ryder and scream at him. She didn’t care if he was drunk. She didn’t care if he had trouble dealing with her being on his team and the memories of all the sins they’d committed together in the past.