WREN

Tatum grinned as he toweled off. His thick pectorals shook with each swipe of the terrycloth. He stood behind me at the bathroom mirror as I combed through my wet hair.

We had rinsed off together, and I thanked him properly for my trio of orgasms with a blow job. Tatum kissed my bare shoulder, lapping at the droplets of water that speckled my skin. He reached under the towel wrapped around my body and cupped my sex in his hand. “How do you feel?”

I laughed under my breath as I dropped the comb in the sink. “Sore.”

He pecked the side of my neck. “Good. Then you’ll have a reminder of who makes you come.”

I went weak in the knees, and he scooped me up. Tatum’s towel fell away from his hips as he carried me back to my bedroom. I wanted to keep living in this little bubble of endless orgasms and a sexy man carrying me, naked, around the apartment. But reality lurked right outside and threatened to ruin everything.

We cuddled under the covers as if it were the most natural thing in the world. His hard length pressed against my stomach as I rested in his arms. “What’s on your mind, Little Bird?” he murmured as he pressed a soft kiss to my temple.

I breathed out, choosing to release my stress and anxiety over the unknown, and laid with him. “I wish we could do this more often.”

Tatum buried his nose in my damp hair. “Do what?”

“Sleep together. Or just be together. I don’t need fancy. I need you and it sucks. This sucks. I hate having to sneak around.”

“We could sleep together tonight.”

“Tatum.”

“I’ll get up before the vultures and run back to my place.”

“Your place is nicer than mine,” I said into the swell of his pectorals. “My bed will throw your back out.”

His skin buzzed with the vibration from his chuckle. “But it has you in it.”

Fear and insecurity pricked at the back of my mind. “Do you like the way I redid your place?” After everything that had gone down on the field, I never got to do my big reveal for him, and he never said much about it when everything settled. It left me feeling unsteady.

“It’s perfect, Wren,” he said gently. Laughing, he added, “I don’t know how you did it, but it feels like me.”

There was something he wasn’t saying, an undertone of dissatisfaction. “But?”

Tatum tipped my chin up. “It’s beautiful, but it’s empty. Only a fool would choose a vacant castle over the place where his heart lies.” He tightened his arms around me. “I’m a lot of things, but a fool isn’t one of them.”

I rested silently, lulled by the steady rhythm of his breathing. When I couldn’t stay silent any longer, I asked, “Do you ever feel alone even when you’re surrounded by people?”

“Then when you're truly alone, it amplifies the solitude,” he said.

I tilted my head up and rested my cheek on my hands. “Yeah.” I closed my eyes. “You get it. Whenever I’ve said that to someone else, they don’t get it.”

Tatum twisted and pulled me over his body until my legs straddled his stomach, giving him a clear view of my face. “I get you, Little Bird.” He pushed damp strands of hair behind my ears and cupped my cheek. “I would rather have four quarters than a hundred pennies. They total the same, but a quarter is far more valuable on its own than a penny. If you judge a piggy bank based on weight alone, you’d think someone with a hundred pennies is richer. People measure fullness differently, but love equalizes. It shows us the few things in life that are really worth it. And I think this is what love looks like.”

My skin turned cold. I clammed up. Had he just said… “What… What do you mean?”

Tatum pulled the edge of the blanket up to my shoulders and brought my body back down to his side. I leaned into his warmth, into his confidence. “You know exactly what I mean. Don’t pretend like you don’t, and don’t disrespect my feelings toward you by pretending they’re not real. We’re either all in, or it's not worth doing at all.”

I closed my eyes. “I just got out of a bad relationship. It’s too soon.”

“Listen to me, Wren.” He drew me in with a slow, sultry kiss. “Love is choosing to be with someone even when no easy route exists. Even when the odds are against you.” He kissed me again. “If this isn’t love, then what is it?”

“I could lose everything.”

“Or you could gain something more valuable than what you have.” He stroked my cheek with a tenderness that shoved my heart straight through a paper shredder. Only ribbons of cardiovascular confetti remained. “What does fullness look like to you? Do you want a full schedule or a full life? Because those are very different things.” He kissed my forehead. “We both know that football isn’t forever. If you left the Reds today, what would be next?”

Instead of addressing the L-O-V-E elephant in the room, I thought about what I’d be doing if I weren’t dancing. I didn’t want to admit it, but after being benched for a week while on concussion protocol, I had thought about it more than once. I had already planned to make this my fifth and final season. I didn’t know how many more weeks of kicklines and jump splits my knee could take. But what would happen in February when I slid my red boots on for the last time?

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