The Right Move: Chapter 8

Clearly Ryan doesn’t know me very well yet because I have an outfit for every possible life event.

Wedding guest? Check.

Funeral? Check.

Formal fundraiser with Chicago’s pro teams? Check.

An afternoon spent at a bookstore where I’m casually browsing the shelves, appearing effortless and academic. When all the sudden, a handsome man down the aisle makes eye contact, shyly smiles, then holds up the same book that’s in my hands. Specific, but yes, I have an outfit for that too.

I’d love to buy a new dress, but I’m working with a budget these days.

Oh God. What’s wrong now? My mind is racing with the endless possibilities. Something happened to Stevie. You need to move out. I found someone else I would rather have as my fake girlfriend.

That last one has crossed my mind more than a few times this week, that Ryan will change his mind and back out of our deal. Because if I’m being entirely honest with myself, I want this to work. I might even consider myself desperate for this to work thanks to the revolving thought of showing up stag to Maggie’s wedding and running into Alex with her on his arm.

My chest deflates with an odd sense of relief. He really is dramatic, but I’ll play into it.

My cheeks are sore from the splitting grin on my face. The idea of Ryan Shay, NBA superstar, leaving his apartment and facing the streets of Chicago to replace my flowers which he tried so hard to keep alive that he over watered them is beyond charming. As if I were a child whose parents wanted to protect my feelings and thought I wouldn’t recognize a new goldfish in my fish tank every week.

I pull my book off the nightstand, needing a fictional boyfriend to distract me from how much I liked hearing see you at home from my very real roommate.

This is the third book I’ve read this week and I couldn’t tell you what any of the heroes were supposed to look like because somewhere along the line, in my mind they all end up being 6’3”, with light brown skin, ocean eyes, and a particular knack for home organization.

I don’t know what’s going on. Yes, I’m attracted to Ryan. I’ve always been attracted to Ryan, but he’s infiltrated my mind this week more than he should.

Maybe it’s the prospect of pretending to be together or living side by side that’s causing these unrealistic fantasies to pop into my mind, but the likeliest culprit is that hug in the kitchen from last week when I felt what he’s packing down below.

He was hard. I was wrapped around him, and he was hard.

I’m just pent-up and frustrated that Alex is the last man I’ve been with. The only man I’ve been with. I haven’t gotten laid in almost seven months and that’s all this is. I’m living with a stunning man, athletic, tall, and knows his way around the kitchen. It would be stranger if I didn’t have these thoughts.

It’ll pass. I just need to figure out how the hell to disassociate sex from love. I’ve never done it before, but I am so depleted, so damaged still that my heart has nothing left to offer. All the while my body is reminding me something is wrong. That I’m twenty-seven years old and haven’t been able to orgasm in seven months. I feel broken, in more ways than one, and I’m almost desperate to prove to myself that I’m not.

A normal night game on the West Coast means a very late flight home for us tonight. Ryan is on the East Coast, so his game starts in fifteen minutes and suddenly the idea of watching sweat drip down his body on my television screen is the only possible solution to pass the time until I need to get off this bed and into my work uniform.

A quick search pulls it up on the TV in my room. Number five is in the corner of the court during warm-ups, two basketballs in his hold, each one bouncing against the hardwood with speed and accuracy. Slight flexes of his hands change their direction. Between his legs. Across one another. Behind his back. Long slender fingers rule every movement.

Precision. Power. Control.

The Ryan Shay wearing a Devils jersey is much like the one I live with. Governing of his space, not letting anyone close enough to affect him. But what if someone came along and swiped one of those balls out of his hand. It’d make no sense. He’s simply warming up on his own, away from any other players. But I wonder if he’d get upset at the loss of control, kind of like how he wanted to yell at me for switching his apartment up on him.

He was so wound up and frustrated, but I was able to calm him down. A jolt of victory flooded my veins as we sat and ate breakfast together, when he hugged me, when he offered to water my flowers while I travel for work. And at the end of it all, he let me leave a bit of color in his stark apartment and I’m almost positive he didn’t hate having me there.

Five minutes into his game and I can’t keep my eyes off him. I knew he was good from the reputation he carries, but he’s like a god to some of these fans. The Boston fans outweigh the Chicago ones, but the majority of those wearing red and black are sporting his last name.

He’s amazing. Graceful. Composed. Even when plays don’t go his way or calls aren’t made properly, he keeps his emotions locked in. He looks small on the screen, but his talent and ability tower over the competition.

It’s sexy as hell.

This is the type of control I like. Everyone on the court bends to him. He creates the plays. He makes the calls. He’s in charge and I can’t look away.

He’s fouled on a breakaway, but he still makes the layup, putting him at the free-throw line for one.

Calm, cool, and collected he makes his way to the free-throw line and when he lifts his jersey to wipe the sweat off his brow, I’m anything but calm, cool, or collected. His chest heaves as he regains his breath. Sweat drips down, cascading in ripples until they fall prey to the crevices of his taut ab muscles. A spattering of dark hair dusting under his navel directs my daydreams to imagine where it leads.

The way his stomach muscles contract, quick and sharp, I can’t help but picture the way they’d tighten, hovering over me. The way his arms might quiver as he held himself up. Would he be able to hold on to his precious control? Or would he let me take it from him, becoming wild and unruly?

My curtains are closed, my room is dark. The only light is the glow from the television. No one would know. Maybe one very much-needed release will get me to stop lusting over the man across the hall. Maybe the overwhelming attraction will go away as quickly as it came on.

Sliding my fingers down, I slip them under my cotton shorts. I’m hot already. My middle finger grazes my clit and it’s swollen and needy and I’m wet. So goddamn wet because of my roommate. Circling, I imagine my fingers are his. The ones that flex and move and have so much control he runs an entire game with those fingers. With those hands, commanding and powerful. The way they overwhelmed my body when he hugged me. The way I wished he would’ve slid them lower, cupping my ass. The way it would’ve felt for him to lift me up, my legs wrapping around him as he carried me to his bed. How heavy his body would be on top of mine. How solid his legs would feel, pinning my own to the mattress.

Oh God, this feels good.

His body, shining with sweat. His blue-green eyes dilated and dark, crazed. My hands running the length of his back, my fingers digging into his skin and into his hair. His blonde hair falling over his eyes, sticking to his forehead.

Wait. What?

Ocean eyes are replaced with brown ones. Calloused fingertips are replaced with soft hands that have never worked a day outside of an office. Blonde hair replaces Ryan’s chestnut fade, and my body is replaced with hers.

I’m no longer here. I’m standing in the doorway, reliving the worst day of my life. Him inside of her while on our bed. The way she cried his name—the name that belonged to me. His pace, his tempo, how lost he was in the moment that he didn’t hear the front door open, didn’t see me standing there watching him. How she fucking came and neither of them knew I was there. I was cemented in place, in shock and disbelief while I watched the only man I have ever loved make someone else come.

It’s gone. The moment has passed. There’s no possible way to get back in the right mindset to get myself off. He’s ruined this, just like he ruined us, our future, our history, and just how he’s ruined every orgasm I’ve chased over the last seven months.

Every time I’m close, that picture invades my imagination and I’m done. I can’t do it. It leaves as quickly as the moment comes and I haven’t gotten off in seven goddamn months because of him.