You Promised Me Forever

  Could it, though? Could it, really?

  I stare at my phone screen for way too long. Long after the shower shuts off and I can hear Amanda open and close drawers, catch the sound of a muttered curse from behind her bathroom door. I smile, wishing I could barge in there and rip her towel off. Plop her sexy butt onto the edge of the counter and kiss her until she melts into me, lets me touch her, lets me…

  My fingers fly over the keyboard without thought.

  I’ve met someone else, Mia. Take care.

  I was too anxious about taking the shower. As in, I forgot to bring in clothes to change into. I’m just a girl standing in front of a mirror completely naked, a towel barely wrapped around me, my hair done, my makeup done, and no clean clothes to put on. Not even a pair of panties.

  Talk about awkward.

  One of the drawbacks of living in my studio apartment is I don’t have any real closet space. So I have to get creative. Like, my dresser/armoire is sitting out in the living area. Where Jordan is. How am I supposed to walk out there and tell him, hey, don’t mind me! I need to grab some undies and an outfit to change into!

  I want to wear a dress. I want to wear a sexy pair of panties and a lacy bralette and I wanted to come out of the bathroom smelling good and looking good, and instead I have to exit the bathroom wearing only a towel and burning with embarrassment while I grab my sexy undies and my dress and tell him to ignore me as I dash back into the bathroom.

  This sucks.

  So bad.

  My phone is sitting on the counter, taunting me. I could just…send him a text. That’s lame, though, right? How am I supposed to go about this?

  Grabbing my phone, I open up our conversation and start typing. I have a question to ask you.

  He answers in seconds. What?

  I have no clothes to wear.

  This time he takes a little longer to respond. You literally have nothing to wear tonight?

  I smile despite my embarrassment. I have clothes to wear. But they’re out in the living room. In the dresser sitting against the wall on the right.

  A photo is my reply, and it’s of my armoire. You mean this?

  Yes, I tell him. So maybe you could go out onto the patio for a minute? Or five?

  He takes literally two minutes to respond, and his lack of a response is making me anxious. When he finally answers, I’m relieved. How about I pick out your outfit?

  Um, nooooo. No way. I unlock the bathroom door and peek my head out, ready to yell a response when he magically appears, clutching a dress on a hanger—the very dress I wanted to wear—in his left hand and a delicate pair of lacy panties dangling from his right hand. He stops short when he sees me, and winces.

  “You think this is creepy,” he says.

  I burst out laughing, ducking my head as I lean against the bathroom door. Kind of creepy, kind of sweet. Really sweet, actually. “That’s the dress I wanted to wear,” I admit once I lift my head, our gazes meeting.

  He takes a few steps until he’s standing directly in front of me, his gaze dropping to my chest, probably wishing he could mentally undo my towel. It’s slipping, I can feel it, and I tighten my arms, trying my best to keep the towel from falling. “I guess I still know what you like, huh?”

  In more ways than one, I want to tell him. “You didn’t get me a bra, though.”

  This conversation is sort of embarrassing, but I’m a grown ass woman, he’s a grown ass man, and we were in a relationship for a little over a year. As in, we had lots of sex and adult discussions and he’s seen me naked before. Plenty of times. He’s helped me pick out an outfit before too.

  “Don’t wear one.” He hands over the dress and I take it, the door swinging open, revealing me completely, standing there in just the towel. He has the panties clutched in his fingers, and he starts to hand them over, then hesitates. “Maybe you shouldn’t wear these either.”

  Oh God. My knees wobble, and I’m thankful I’m still holding onto the doorknob. Otherwise I’d melt to the floor. “Jordan…”

  He quirks an eyebrow. “Too soon?”

  I laugh again, and so does he. This is the most non-awkward awkward conversation I’ve ever had. “What are we doing?”

  “I don’t know,” he answers truthfully. I can feel the honesty in his words, the way he looks at me. “Tell me to stop, and I’ll stop.”

  “Don’t stop,” I immediately answer.

  He smiles, and his face—God—he is the sexiest thing alive. “Tell me to go, and I’ll go.”

  Our gazes lock. Hold. “Please don’t go,” I whisper.

  Jordan takes the panties and holds them behind his back, that smile still on his face. “Put that dress on, Mandy, and then let’s go to dinner.”

  “Okay.” I nod frantically, excitement bubbling up inside of me like a shaken-up soda can, ready to explode and fizz everywhere. All we can do is look at each other like two dopes with matching goofy smiles.

  We are ridiculous.

  “Shut the door and put on that dress,” he commands me, his smile fading, his voice deathly serious, “before I tear that towel off you and we end up staying in tonight.”

  Oh. That sounds like a better option…

  I slam the door in his face instead.

  I am in Jordan’s fancy Range Rover, sitting on the passenger seat with a black, floral-print dress on that I love, wearing no bra and no panties. Oh, and I have on my only pair of stiletto sandals, shoes I rarely wear because I always feel like a too-tall amazon in them.

  But not with Jordan. Not when he’s six-foot-three and those shoes increase my height to five-eleven. Standing next to Jordan in these heels makes me feel downright dainty.

  God, I forgot how much I love a big, tall man.

  The interior of his car is like a Jordan Tuttle trap. As in, it smells like him. As if he rolled all over the leather seats, the dash, the center console, and imprinted his scent permanently. I try my best to be discreet as I inhale his essence. The forest on a warm summer day. A sunny morning by the beach. That mysterious spicy drink my grandmother serves every Christmas. These are all the things I think of when I breathe in the fragrance of Jordan’s car.

  “Are you okay?” he asks, and the amusement in his voice makes me want to sink into my leather chair and pretend I don’t exist. I’m clearly losing my mind.

  “I’m fine,” I assure him with the most normal sounding voice I can muster, but inside, I am shaken and stirred. We are sitting dangerously close to one another. He just picked out my outfit for me to wear on this date. I threw a denim jacket over it so I wouldn’t freeze to death, but otherwise I am only wearing the clothing Jordan chose for me.

  Is that weird? Maybe it’s a little weird, but deep down I like it. His behavior is so very…primal.

  Going on this date sans underwear is by far the most scandalous thing I’ve ever done, which proves I haven’t done very many scandalous things. It’s hard to be daring when you’re going to school, working endless nowhere jobs just to get a paycheck so ultimately you can find that job you love one day. That’s been me the last few years, before I graduated college and finally got my dream job. My mom told me I was lucky to find it, but my dad pulled me aside that Thanksgiving after I started working at Atlas and I went home for the holiday. He told me how proud he was, what a hard worker I’ve proven to be.

  Just hearing those words made my eyes well up with tears. Mom has been a solid support, but Dad has always believed in me, even when I failed and made mistakes and seemed hopeless.

  “You’re awfully quiet,” Jordan says, interrupting my nostalgic, vaguely melancholy thoughts.

  No way am I telling him what’s going on in my brain. I need to focus on the sexy times that might happen tonight.

  “Where are you taking me?” I ask.

  “Have you ever been to Santana Row?”

  “Once. Went to dinner at one of the restaurants there.” With a date. Not that I want to mention that particular part.

  “I made a re
servation at a steakhouse there,” he says, pausing for a moment before he adds, “I live there too.”

  “But I thought you had a house in the wine country.” Oh God, I sound stupid. Like a fangirl whose information was wrong. Like a stalker who’s been scoping him out on the Interwebz.

  “I do, but I also have a townhouse here. It’s not far from the stadium, and it’s pretty private. Lots of guys from the team live there,” he explains.

  “Oh, that’s nice.”

  “Yeah.” He pauses. “Maybe I’ll take you there after dinner.”

  If I immediately say yes, does that make me look too eager?

  Probably.

  I don’t say yes. I don’t say no either. Instead, I totally change the subject. “Did you have practice today?”

  “We did, though it wasn’t as intense the day after a game. We fly out this weekend for an away game.”

  “Who are you playing?”

  “Tampa Bay.”

  “Really?” I think of the joke my dad used to tell us when we were kids. He still tells it now, though we all groan and beg him to stop when he asks the question.

  Where are your Buccaneers?

  On your Buccan-head!

  Totally cringe worthy.

  “Uh huh. We’re going to Florida,” Jordan comes to a stop at a red light and glances over at me. “Doing anything this weekend?”

  “Laundry,” I tell him jokingly. “Need to clean my apartment too.”

  He chuckles. “What does that take? Ten minutes?”

  “Are you mocking my fun-sized apartment?”

  “Definitely.” He shakes his head. “It’s so small, Mandy.”

  “It works for me.” I don’t like how defensive his words make me feel, or how what he said is almost like an accusation. I’ve never had the money or the privilege that comes with being Jordan Tuttle. I had a taste of it when I was his girlfriend, but I always felt like I didn’t belong in his world. That I was just pretending.

  He hated that. He hated it so much, he’d get mad at me when I said stuff like that. He knew it was a huge insecurity, my Achilles’ heel, yet he never understood why I felt like that. He worried he was the one making me feel that way, but it was never him.

  That was my personal complex.

  I’m starting to feel it now, as we head toward the upscale Santana Row, with its expensive, trendy restaurants and the even more expensive, mostly designer stores. Growing up, we didn’t have a lot of money. Our house was small—and my parents still live there. They will die there, I’m sure of it. We’re a simple family. We didn’t have a lot of extras or fancy vacations. We went to the beach. We went to the mountains. And only because we were so centrally located that the drive to the beach or the mountains didn’t take long. I knew from a young age that I had to find a career that would make me actual money, because my parents weren’t going to support me forever.

  And I did find a career that I not only love, but I make good money doing it too. I’d live like a freaking queen if I lived anywhere else but the Bay Area. I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished these last few years. Yet I still have that tiny bit of uncertainty nestled deep within me. That insecurity rears its ugly head whenever I feel less than. When I think I don’t measure up.

  Being with Jordan the first time around made that insecurity rise more often than I like to admit. I really don’t want to deal with it again. I’m older now. More confident. More capable of dealing with negative feelings and turning them around.

  At least, I hope I’m more capable.

  “I wasn’t making fun of your place,” he tells me once the light turns green and he starts driving again. “It just shocked me, how small it was.”

  “No surprise. I’d bet your bedroom is bigger than my entire apartment.” I’m joking, yet I’m also fairly certain that I speak the truth.

  “Yeah. For sure,” he says, hesitating for a moment. I realize we’re both being cautious around each other. “Don’t you want something bigger?”

  “I can afford where I’m living now without stretching my income too thin,” I explain. “I don’t want to live above my means. That’s something my parents taught me from a young age, and it’s always stuck with me.”

  “Smart move,” Jordan says. “Debt sucks.”

  Like he knows anything about being in debt.

  I keep my mouth shut. No way do I want to argue with Jordan on our first date as bona fide adults.

  Funny, though, how all those old worries and insecurities pop up when you’re with someone from your past. Maybe trying to resurrect an old relationship isn’t a smart move.

  But when I catch him smiling at me, his appreciative gaze dropping and lingering on my exposed thighs, knowing I’m not wearing any panties, I can’t help but think going out with Jordan again is the most fantastic idea I’ve ever had.

  I’m trying to impress Amanda by bringing her here, to the place where I live, to one of my favorite restaurants. Santana Row has a small, hip downtown neighborhood vibe, with plenty of shops and restaurants and bars. I’ve hung out here plenty of times, mainly with my teammates, sometimes out for a drink or a quick dinner with Mia, though I honestly can’t remember the last time I took her out. Most everyone leaves us athletes alone when we mingle here, because they know more than a few of us live here too.

  I like my house in Sonoma better. It’s huge and private, but I don’t spend much time there during football season. So my townhouse in the city will have to do.

  Amanda and I walk to the restaurant side by side, making idle chitchat. I’m tempted to grab hold of her hand, but I don’t. Probably moving too soon. She looks adorable in that floral print dress with the denim jacket over it, and those stiletto sandals make her legs look impossibly long.

  Impossibly sexy.

  She oohs and aahs over the stores as we pass them by, slowing her pace when we walk by Sephora or one of the many clothing stores. She practically presses her face against the window of the bakery, her eyes wide as she takes in the colorful rows of cupcakes.

  “I want one of those,” she tells me after I drag her away from the window. “Maybe after dinner?”

  “Sure,” I say easily. She’s the only woman I know who’ll readily indulge her love of sweets—of food in general. Every other woman I’ve been with watched their weight, watched what they ate carefully. Almost like they didn’t want to slip in front of me, or somehow make a mistake.

  Amanda’s always just been real. Something I’ve always appreciated.

  We arrive at the steakhouse and it’s packed, even for a Tuesday night. I place my hand at the small of Amanda’s back as we make our way to the hostess stand, my fingers tightening ever so slightly on the fabric of her dress. She glances over her shoulder and smiles at me, and seeing that smile is like getting a direct shock to my heart, making it pump wildly.

  Not over her. That’s the thought that keeps running through my head at having her so close, having her with me, going out with her like we do this sort of thing all the time. Like we’re still an actual couple.

  I’m not over her.

  The woman working behind the hostess stand blinks up at me in recognition, but she plays it cool as she leads us to our table, seating us in the more private area of the restaurant. Amanda is practically bouncing in her seat as she flips the pages of the menu, and I finally have to ask her why she seems so excited.

  “I haven’t had steak in forever.” She sends me an almost resigned look. “I go on dates, and they all want to feed me exotic food.”

  I hate hearing her talk about going on dates with other men, but I do my best to stuff my possessive feelings down deep. “What do you mean, exotic?”

  “Himalayan, Vietnamese, Brazilian, Ethiopian. One guy took me to a place that specializes in Russian cuisine.” She wrinkles her nose. “I think they’re trying to impress me, when really I’d rather have a steak. Or even pizza.”

  “Pizza?” I fucking love pizza. Who doesn’t?

  “Yeah, but I
get enough of that because it’s cheap, you know? I don’t indulge in steak dinners much.” She scans the menu, her expression giving me hungry vibes. Not of the food kind either. “Oh my God, it all sounds amazing. Look at the sauce options. And oh, they have lobster too!”

  Her excitement over the menu is cute. She’s cute. So damn cute. “Get whatever you want.”

  “Anything I want?” She raises her delicate brows, her tone, her entire being, flirtatious. “You sure about that, Tuttle?”

  She hasn’t called me Tuttle to my face yet—or via text, FaceTime, whatever. It feels…weird. I used to tell her to call me Jordan since no one else did. Only Amanda. “What exactly do you want?” I ask her, my question like a dare.

  “Whatever you’re willing to give me,” she answers, her voice soft.

  Damn. She keeps this up and I’ll give her the whole damn world. Anything she wants. Everything I have.

  Will be hers.

  Dinner is torture. He orders a very expensive wine and I drink a lot of it, though he doesn’t have a drop. I semi-sober up once my steak dinner finally arrives, and it is by far the most delicious meal I’ve ever had.

  Jordan watches me avidly as I eat, his gaze skimming my face, lingering on my lips. Emboldened by the wine, I moan a little every time I take a bite, letting him know just how much I’m enjoying myself without saying a word, and it’s turning him on. I can tell by how dark his eyes get as he continues to watch me, how tense his shoulders become. It’s a powerful feeling, knowing that I hold this man, this extremely gorgeous man who’s a freaking celebrity all over the country, maybe even the world, in complete thrall while I eat my dinner.

  Totally ridiculous, right? God, it’s the best feeling ever.

  I consume everything on my plate, leaning back in my chair once I’m finally finished, satisfaction running through my veins.

  “Best steak ever,” I declare.

  “You enjoyed it, hmm?” He lifts a brow, that same stupid sexy move he used to pull on me when we were eighteen and I was captivated by every single thing he said or did.