The Game by Vi Keeland by Vi Keeland

“Do you ever do it now?”

Bella shook her head. “The campground closed a few years back.”

I nodded. “What about riding on a track? The stadium obviously has one. It’s paved and outdoors. Lots of people from corporate use it before and after practice.”

“Maybe I’ll try that. Though I’d need to get a bike first, and there is definitely no place to store it in my apartment.”

“I’m sure the equipment manager would be happy to store it for you, and I can take you to pick one up, if you want.”

The waitress brought our desserts. Bella eyed the tiramisu, and her tongue peeked out to wet her full lips. What I wouldn’t give to run my tongue along those, suck on the bottom one like she does when she’s nervous, bite down, and tug... I bet she’d like that.

Bella picked up a spoon and debated what to try first before settling on the tiramisu. She stopped after scooping up a heaping pile of the cake and looked at me. “Aren’t you going to have some?”

I planned to, but right now I was too focused on watching her slip that into her mouth and enjoy the fuck out of it. “I’m going to let you be the guinea pig and see if they’re any good first.”

“Gee, thanks.”

I couldn’t peel my eyes from her mouth as she opened it and slid the mound of cake in. Some whipped cream stuck to her top lip, and when she swiped at it with her tongue, I had to shift in my seat to accommodate the tightening in my pants. Christ, this woman was going to make me hard watching her eat. She made me feel like I was in sixth grade again, unable to control my dick when I saw a girl’s nipples through her shirt when we came in from the cold after recess. Bella closed her eyes as she swallowed, and I couldn’t stop myself from imagining it was my dick she was enjoying. It’s a good thing we’d ordered three desserts, because it was going to take a while for my body to come back from this.

She opened her eyes and smiled. “It’s sooo good.”

I couldn’t agree more.

When I still made no attempt to pick up a spoon and join her, Bella cocked her head. “I gave it my seal of approval. Aren’t you going to try some?”

I held her eyes and opened my mouth in response.

“You trust me to feed you?” She scooped up an enormous amount of cake. I’m not kidding, it was like three quarters of the big slice wobbling on that spoon. “Lord knows you have a big enough mouth,” she said. “You should be able to handle this.”

While my mouth was still full, Bella grinned. “What? No I-can-handle-anything-you-give-me comment?”

I pointed to my cheeks and spoke with my mouth full. “You gotta give a guy a chance for a comeback.”

She giggled, and we spent the next half hour eating desserts and forgetting all about the fact that she’d been on a date with another guy an hour ago. At one point, a family walked by our table—they happened to have a set of twin boys who were probably about thirteen or so. Bella looked over at them, then at me.

“What were you like as a teenager? I bet the kids in the halls parted like the sea when you walked by. Were you the most popular boy?”

I shrugged. “I had a lot of friends.”

“What about girls? I’m sure you were popular with them, too. I mean, you already told me about the twenty-three-year-old girl in Colorado you thought you had a shot with when you were fifteen. So your confidence must’ve come from something.”

I’d learned long ago that when women asked about my past with other women, they didn’t really want the answer, not in detail anyway. “I had a few girlfriends. Nothing too serious.”

“Did you bring them to your room filled with football trophies to seduce them?”

“Actually, I never brought a girl home. I didn’t really bring friends around much either.”

“How come?”

“I’ve mentioned my dad has a drinking problem. Think I skipped that he’s an angry drunk. I never knew what kind of a mood he would be in, so I avoided the house as much as possible and hid that he was an alcoholic from most of my friends.”

Bella frowned. “I’m sorry.”

“Thank you. But it worked out for me. Not wanting to be home made me put in extra time with football in high school. That gave me the edge I needed to get noticed by colleges. Well, that and Coach gave me an advantage. He used to meet me after regular practice ended, and we’d run drills and throw the ball around until it got dark.”

“I’m so glad I’ve had the chance to know him. He really seems like a good man.”

“He’s the best.” For the first time, I looked for a resemblance to Coach in Bella—or John Barrett even. Not finding one, I asked, “Do you look like your mom?”

She nodded. “When I was little, people used to tell me I was the spitting image of her, but I couldn’t see it. Recently, though, I was looking for some papers and came across old photos of her. I thought they were of me at first.”

The light above caught the gold flecks in Bella’s eyes. At risk of sounding like a clichéd Hallmark movie, I could really get lost in those things. “Did she have two-color eyes, too?”

She shook her head. “No, did my dad?”

I thought about what John Barrett looked like. “I’m not sure. I didn’t spend a lot of time gazing into them.”