Ellie

  By the next morning, I’m eighty-two percent unpacked. Efficiency is kind of my thing. The entertainment industry is chock-full of unknowns and uncertainty, so staying on top of my daily life is necessary for my sanity.

  Granted, I didn’t lug much stuff cross-country from New York for my relo, partly because I rented a furnished home here. When I left my cute walk-up in Greenwich Village, I gave away my beloved purple couch to my neighbor and bestie, Veronica, and my bed to an actress friend. Then I shipped most of my clothes and books. As well as sex toys, overnight and fully insured, of course. Then I flew to San Francisco with my little lady on my lap. Gigi insisted on first-class travel, and I would never deny her. Or me, to be fair. After visiting my brother in Pacific Heights for a few days, I picked up my new electric wheels at a custom car shop, then drove the rest of the way here.

  The little one-bedroom has plenty of space for Gigi and me, and I survey it happily. “I see you’ve already taken custody of the couch,” I tell my critter, who’s stretching out on the soft gray cushions. “You do know you were descended from wolves? Then you discovered couches.”

  She closes one eye, unamused. Chihuahuas were descended from royalty, not wolves, I imagine her saying.

  She makes a reasonable point.

  Everything looks good. I’m ready to hit the ground running. I have a slew of meetings later this week, with show production beginning next week. Today, though, I have all the time in the world to get to know my new hometown. The best part? Veronica is in LA for a client event, along with her sister, so I don’t have to go into friend withdrawal yet.

  After I shower and do my makeup, adding sparkly eye shadow because…why not, I tug on a little black cotton dress and lace up my pink Converse high-tops. Then I hop in my convertible to motor off to Santa Monica and meet my gal pals for breakfast.

  When I find Veronica and her sister, Hazel, at a sidewalk table at The Tree House, the Pacific Ocean crashing majestically far on the other side of the street, I greet them like it’s been years.

  “Don’t ever leave me again,” I tell Veronica, octopussing my arms around her.

  “Ahem. You left me,” Veronica corrects when we finally separate. “You revisionist historian, you.”

  “I’m the worst,” I agree, then I wrap Hazel in a hug too. “Maybe you should move to Los Angeles. Join me here, Hazel. Do it, do it, do it.”

  She shakes her head, her red locks swishing back and forth. “New York suits my cold, black heart.”

  “Truer words,” I say with a wink, then slide into the booth. After we order—tofu scramble for this aspiring vegan—I turn to my brunette bestie, squeezing Veronica’s hand. “For the record, it’s been less than a week and I miss you terribly. I don’t know how I’ll survive without living across the hall from you. I might start a GoFundMe to move you and Milo here to Los Angeles, ideally Venice Beach, and preferably to the house next to mine.”

  “You’ve already picked out a new home for them in Los Angeles?” Hazel asks with a huff. “Great. Just great. Now I’ll never see my sister again.”

  Veronica shoots me a curious smile. “Tell me more about this house next to yours. Does it have a balcony? A pool? Any other amenities that would lure me away from New York? Though, there is that little matter of Milo’s shop being in, you know, New York City.”

  Yeah, that’s the flaw in my plan—her beau’s burgeoning bike and flower shop located smack dab in Manhattan. “Then please consider learning teleportation. It would make my life easier. Or try to land as many Date Night for One parties in Los Angeles as possible,” I suggest, since I’m helpful like that. Plus, I’m a huge fan of Date Night for One’s subscription boxes for sex toys, since, well, I like toys.

  Veronica’s green eyes pop. “Oh! You should come to my party this week. The woman hosting it runs a jewelry shop in Venice Beach full of local female artists. Her name is Rachel, and she and some of the other women-owned businesses are throwing the party for their customers.”

  I wiggle a brow. “Girl, you had me at sex toys.”

  “Ellie’s easy like that,” Hazel chimes in drily as the server arrives with our coffees and teas.

  We thank him, and Veronica shifts moods shooting me a serious look. “How are you doing with the Fabio’s List news?”

  I cringe. “I was hoping to bury my head in the sand. But since I can’t, I’m doing okay. Though, Mama Snow hounded me hard about my dating habits yesterday. She wants to set me up with all her friends’ sons. She thinks that’ll help me”—I sketch air quotes—“break the bad boy habit.” Then I sigh, resigned. “She’s probably not wrong. Dexter is in prison.”

  Veronica smiles sympathetically. She’s too nice to agree, but her silence says I need to go to reform school. Then, she clears her throat. “Maybe you could turn over a new leaf in Los Angeles?” she suggests.

  Oh! And she’s not too nice after all! But I need a kick in the pants. “I know,” I admit, then take a sip of my coffee. “But how? How the hell do I just find a nice guy? It’s hard enough to date these days. The whole premise of my TV show is the games people play when dating.”

  Hazel hums, a sure sign the romance novelist is planning a plot twist for me. “I have an idea,” she says, sounding deliciously clever, which she is. “I was listening to a dating podcast, and it’s all about turbo-boosting your dating life with different challenges. It reminds me of your show a little bit. And one of the ideas is if you’re seeing someone, you try three dates where you come up with new places to go—pickling carrots, kite flying, candle sniffing.”

  Veronica arches a brow. “Candle sniffing is a thing?”

  “Everything is a thing,” Hazel says, then zooms on down Idea Lane. “And there are other challenges. Like, challenge yourself to swipe right on three guys who are out of your comfort zone.”

  “So, for me, that’d be a priest, a monk, and a missionary?”

  Veronica laughs. “Ellie, why do I suspect you’ve already defrocked a priest at some point in your life?”

  I knit my brow, cycling back through my past loves. “I wish. I’ve had some seriously hot priest fantasies,” I admit.

  Hazel gives me a look that says so not surprised then marches onward. “So the challenge for you, Ellie, would be to avoid hot priests, because that’s a recipe for trouble.” She nibbles on the corner of her lips, then her eyes twinkle. “I’ve got it! By the power vested in me as one of your girlfriends, I challenge you to go on one date with a good guy.”

  Ooh, I do love a challenge. “So this is the Good Guy Challenge?”

  “Yes, do it, Ellie,” Veronica urges.

  “But how do I find him?” I ask, instantly intrigued. I would like to change my fortune.

  “Is there someone you know? Maybe from high school or college?” Veronica suggests, then lifts her cup of chai tea and takes a drink.

  “I studied theater. Most of the guys were gay.”

  “Fair point,” Veronica says, then taps her chin. “And your actor friends?”

  “I don’t like to mix business and pleasure. It’s hard enough as a woman trying to make it in Hollywood,” I say. “That’s why I started scriptwriting. I didn’t want to face the inevitable invisibility that comes with turning thirty-five, watching roles dry up, except for the mom, the teacher, or the gay guy’s best female friend. On the flip side, a man can bang anyone as long as he’s still standing, even if he needs a cane or a walker.”

  “Amen,” Veronica agrees. “But back to the challenge. Who do you know outside of Hollywood?”

  “Hmm. I need someone I can take home to Mom,” I muse, picturing the birthday party coming up for Aunt Tilly. Hosted at my mom’s house—the home where I grew up.

  Oh!

  An image pops into my head.

  The guy who lived down the street from me growing up. He was older than me, and he used to help all the moms with yard work and chores. “I know! Gabe Clements,” I say.

  Hazel tilts her head. “The football player? As in, the receiver for the Los Angeles Mercenaries?”

  “Yes,” I say.

  “Oh, that’s right. When we watched that game last year, you said that’s my sexy next-door neighbor.”

  I sure did. I enjoyed the hell out of watching Gabe play football. Every time I saw him rip off his helmet, I had heart palpitations. His eyes made my stomach flip even through the TV screen.

  “Gabe’s perfect for the challenge,” I say, jazzed by this idea already. “He’s the consummate good guy. He helped all the moms. They always cooed about what a sweetheart he was, bringing their trash cans back from the street, mowing their lawns, and so on. My mom always went on and on about what a good guy he was.”

  “He sounds great then,” Hazel says.

  He sure does.

  But I have other memories of Gabe, more private ones. Ones I don’t share with my friends.

  Like when I was fifteen and home alone on a Saturday in May. My parents took my sister and brother to the Santa Barbara baseball tournament for the day. But the game went into extra innings, so they decided to snag a hotel room. They asked Ms. Clements to send her son to spend the night so I wouldn’t be alone in the house.

  That was the hardest and the hottest night ever. The sexy football star slept fully clothed on the living room couch downstairs while I tossed and turned under the covers in my second-floor bedroom, hot and bothered, imagining the then twenty-five-year-old stud stalking upstairs and fucking me into my twin bed.

  Of course, nothing of the sort happened. Gabe is, as advertised, a good guy.

  But it didn’t stop my younger lustful self from dreaming.

  I smile. Wickedly. Yes, I will definitely take the good-guy challenge for Gabe Clements.

  5

  FILL HER STOCKING

  Gabe

  The next morning, I work out with Drew at the Mercenaries stadium, running routes with my quarterback. As he rolls through the playbook, I am in the zone, focused on football only.

  That’s how I plan to be this season.

  Like when I haul in a beautiful spiral and take it to the end zone.

  When Drew catches up with me, I give a cocky shrug. “Guess we’re ready for the Super Bowl.”

  “’Course we are,” he says, then with the ball tucked under my arm, we head to the corridor.

  “What’s it like?” he adds. “To win one?”

  I smile at the glorious memory of a certain Sunday a few years ago. Even now, I get a chill. A good chill, just thinking of how it felt to claim the Lombardi trophy. “You know how great sex is?”

  Drew snorts, then laughs. “Yeah. I do.”

  “Imagine something one hundred times better than that,” I say.

  He whistles. “Damn.”

  “And then you’re maybe in the ballpark.”

  “You fucker,” he mutters.

  “You asked,” I toss back. Then, I clap him on the shoulder. “We’re gonna have a good year. It’s my personal mission to make a ring happen. I got your back.”

  “And I’ve got yours,” he says and then we head to the weight room inside the facility.

  While I work out, I try to focus on football only.

  With every chest press, I zoom in on the season I want to have, the plays I want to make, the stats I want to surpass.

  But somewhere between the squats and the lat raises, my mind returns to the vision from last night in a purple halter top and short shorts that revealed a hint of cheek.

  I’ve run into Ellie a few times over the past several years. Ellie’s grandma’s birthday extravaganza a year ago. Then last summer at the fortieth-anniversary party my brother and I threw our mom and dad. Ellie brought them a board game to celebrate the occasion because my parents met at a Monopoly tournament and have always loved their game nights.

  But my most vivid memory is when I saw Ellie under the mistletoe at my aunt Sarah’s eggnog-tasting party five years ago. Resisting kissing her was harder than catching a Hail Mary pass.

  Ellie was in college then, twenty or twenty-one, batting those big brown eyes at me and smiling up at the sprig of mistletoe. She was all sweet innocence with only a slash of red lipstick across her bee-stung mouth to hint at dirty deeds.

  “Merry Christmas, Gabe,” she’d said in her smoky, sexy voice. “Have you been a good boy this year?”

  No. I had not. Not one bit.

  “I always am,” I said. “What about you?”

  She shrugged coquettishly. “I skipped a seminar last week. I hope that doesn’t get me on the naughty list.”

  I’d like to get on that list with her.

  “That doesn’t seem like enough of a sin,” I said.

  “Oh,” she said, with a wicked glint in her eyes. “Maybe I should try harder.”

  I was harder.

  “Guess it depends if you want presents from Saint Nick,” I said, trying to be friendly, not flirty. I couldn’t tear myself away from her, even though I should have.

  “I do like gifts. Maybe Santa will understand. I sure hope he’ll fill both our stockings,” she’d said.

  Her stocking wasn’t what I wanted to fill. I’d balled my hands into fists, resisting my mom’s friend’s daughter and the urge to wipe off all that lipstick with a hard, punishing kiss.

  Especially when she waited, chin tipped up, under the mistletoe.

  I swallowed down the surge of lust. She was in college, for fuck’s sake.

  Then she smiled, bright and big. Sweet as cherry pie.

  I relaxed, seeing again the sweet girl next door. She wasn’t the Christmas vixen on the naughty list.

  “And to all a good night,” I said, then she rose onto her tiptoes and brushed a chaste kiss to my cheek.

  Then, thoroughly innocent, she walked straight to the eggnog bar and chatted with her mom.

  Innocent. Sweet. Friendly.

  That was who she was.

  That’s probably who she still is.

  Even though those words—naughty list—echo in my mind years later. Along with the way she flirted with me.

  She’s probably the consummate good girl. But…what if she’s not? What if her naughty list comment was a hint?

  The possibility is too enticing. I’ve got to know if that was even her last night. She was walking a dog, after all. You don’t usually walk a dog when you’re just visiting. Has she moved to Los Angeles from New York?

  No harm, no foul in finding out, right?

  I let go of the lat-raise bar, climb off the machine, and grab my water bottle. As I take a glug, I glance around. Drew’s lifting free weights, so I can snag a moment to check her out. I slip my phone from my shorts pocket, unlock it, and search for Ellie Snow.

  Her social media feed, full of pics, pops up right away.

  And so does my dick.

  Just look at those tits. Those lips. That stomach.

  She’s no longer the off-limits teenage girl down the street. She’s not the college beauty either. She’s all woman, and she has filled the fuck out in the rack department.

  Hips too.

  I could grip those hips hard. Grab a fistful of that chestnut hair. Devour those candy lips.

  Like a detective cracking the case, I tap the screen with a satisfied grin. Yup. She’s got a little blond dog, just like the gal strutting past The Happiest Hours.

  “I knew it,” I mutter, victorious.

  “Knew what?”

  Busted. Drew’s behind me, peering over my shoulder. I stuff my phone into my pocket right away. He stares as if he caught me red-handed, which he did. “So, it seems you aren’t so worried about non-football injuries,” he teases.

  I huff, rolling my eyes. “Just looking someone up. No big deal.” I nod to the StairMaster. “I need to hit the steps.”

  “Is that the only thing you need to hit?”

  I flip him the bird.

  No matter how appealing the idea of hot rebound sex is, I’m still reeling from the here’s your handcuffs moment.

  Sure, Ellie flirted her sweet ass off with me at a Christmas party a few years ago. But no way do I want to screen Ellie, or anyone, with questions like—so, want it rough, dirty and, maybe, bound?

  Best to stick to the football-only plan. I blast a hard-rock playlist as I sweat on the StairMaster.

  I don’t reach out to Ellie. Then I truly do my best to put her out of my mind.

  When I return home from the gym, the handcuffs on the entryway table catch my eye.

  Damn my ex.

  I pick them up and slide a finger across the shining metal, a latent irritation stirring inside me. I’m not annoyed that I didn’t get to use them. I’m annoyed that I didn’t even get a chance to talk to Brittany about why I wanted to. With the way she’d been needling me—unfairly—about other women, I wanted to show her she was the only one I thought of. That we could spice it up in the bedroom. Test some limits.

  But I didn’t even get to have that convo with her.

  Now I’m left with unused cuffs. Good cuffs. Be a real shame to toss them into the trash. Maybe I can donate them to a charity for so-called perverts in need.

  Or maybe…

  Cuffs in hand, I leave my pad and head down the hall to knock on Myrtle’s door. When she answers, her wise eyes widen. “Hey, handsome. It’s a good thing you came by. I need a tall drink of water to reach the suitcase on my highest shelf.”

  “Happy to help,” I say, then clear my throat, avoiding eye contact as I dangle the cuffs. “I was wondering if you might be able to give these a good home?”

  Her eyes spark, and she grabs them faster than I haul in footballs. “I most certainly can. And I will put them to good use this weekend. I have a retreat,” she says, leading me to her hall closet.

  “What kind of retreat?” I ask as I easily snag her roller bag from the top shelf.

  “A Whipper Retreat. It’s a kink workshop. You only live once, as they say,” she says.

  “Words to live by,” I reply.

  I return to my condo, considering Myrtle’s words of wisdom as I flop onto my couch. I return to Ellie’s social feed, curious, so damn curious, about this sexy beauty.