An issue was brought up in a review and I want to address it here. Yes, Stephanie is older than Carlos by seven years, she talked about that in chapter 1. Ms. Plum is 39 and our wounded tight end is 32. She could hardly have been through college, law school and have become established in her career enough to be entrusted with nabbing a Heisman winner and future superstar within the age gap I'm writing, let alone have her being closer in age to him. The labeling of her as a "cougar", as one reviewer put it, I find abhorrent and indicative of the deeply rooted misogyny in our culture. Equating a woman with a type of predatory animal that typically tears its prey to shreds simply because she is interested in or is seeing a younger man is, I think, repugnant. Would anyone have an issue if he were seven years older than she? More than likely, not. But, if anyone can't handle that, they are quite welcome to bow out and not read on. For the readers that are digging the changeup in ages, I am too, as is the wonderful lady this was written for. It's allowing me to write a conflict I haven't sunk my teeth into yet. And, my hubby is a year and three months younger than I ;-p

Technically these characters belong to JE, but this plot is all mine.

SPOV

Waking up with my head on Carlos' rock hard thigh with his big warm hand resting on the side of my neck, and seeing the surprised faces of Maria and Juan in front of us was incredibly disconcerting. I'd never felt awkward in front of his family or his teammates before. The increase in intimacy over the last couple of days had changed things though, for me at least. There was a tension there now and I couldn't decide if I liked it or not.It wasn't uncomfortable per se, but a couple of times yesterday, he'd looked at me in a way that made it the tiniest bit hard to breathe. All I knew was that I could beat a hasty retreat now because my relief nurses were here.

Hopping up, I fixed my sweater from where it had ridden up and hugged a silent Maria, "I'm sorry you guys had to cut your vacation short." I backed up and hugged Juan. "Where are your bags?" I saw them over his shoulder and moved to get them. "You guys must be so tired! Here let me get these in the guest room and I'll hit the road."

Yes, I'm aware this made two times in one day that I'd fled from pretty much the same scenario.

I was already down the hallway, suitcases in hand by the time Carlos got up from the couch. He stopped me as I reemerged from the guest room and tried to dodge past him to make my exit. The sheer size of him blocking my path. "Where are you going?" He asked, his voice gravelly from sleep.

"Home."

He didn't seem to like that. "Why?"

"Your parents are here." I looked over his shoulder, but they must've gone into the kitchen. "You don't need me anymore."

He sighed deeply. "Look, just stay tonight. It's late."

I laughed, "I'll be fine, I'm a big girl. My car is still at the practice facility from the other day. I'll uber home and text you when I get there."

He stepped a little closer, there goes that ability to breathe again, "If you do that, then I'll have to go with you."

"Don't be ridiculous. You need to rest!"

He raised his eyebrows, a smirk tugging the corners of his mouth up. "Then don't make me. Stay here." The smirk fell and that big-eyed, sad look appeared.

Fuck. Manipulative little shit.

"Fine, ugh." He battled with his face for a second, but the triumphant grin won out. "I am taking custody of your bathroom for a few though. That's my fee for allowing you to badger me, non-negotiable."

"It's yours." He backed up a bit. "Take as long as you need."

Maria walked towards us and hugged him. "Your dad and I are going to bed. I've lost track of the last time we've slept. Do you need help with anything?"

"I'm good, Mama." He ducked so she could kiss his cheek.

"We'll talk in the morning," she told him and turned to me. "You're not going home now are you?"

I shook my head. "I'll go in the morning."

She kissed my cheek too. "Good, it's freezing out. I want to talk to you too."

Ugh, I wonder what about.

Half an hour later found us having a whispered argument about sleeping arrangements. He was being a moron, insisting that I take his bed. I was having none of it, I could handle that couch under the window again. He had been wincing every time he moved all day and was being a butthead about taking his pain meds, claiming that it didn't hurt all that much. Big, strong guy or not, having your leg broken in six different places, cut open, two plates inserted, and a total of twelve screws holding the shards together had to be freaking excruciating. When he offered to share the bed, I wavered for a second. But the immediate image of me kicking his leg in the middle of the night, sprung to mind. There were a few other images that popped up too, but it's probably best not to think about those.

He wasn't in any condition for that right now anyway.

By the time I finally closed my eyes, he was in his bed, alone, and by the dim light of the skyline from across the Hudson, still pouting. He may have my number as far as getting me to give in to something I secretly wanted anyway, but I did have some self-control.

I'll admit that I thought about ducking out in the morning, but he gave me that face again and I ended up helping him wash up again. I know, poor me, right? You'd think helping him the other day would've made me a little immune to his, well, everything. Turns out that he isn't something you can become inured to. Not when that smile of his was accompanied by the intelligence in his eyes un-dulled by pain meds and post-op exhaustion. When the owner of that incredible intellect looked like Carlos did stripped down to his boxer briefs, water droplets and soap dripping down beautifully defined muscles; ugh, there wasn't a woman alive that wouldn't be drooling.

Sexy bastard.

The "talk" started out walking his parents through his injury and surgery. Maria got teary when she heard that the prognosis was not certain and when I showed her some of the pictures I had taken of his x-rays.

It got awkward though, sure enough. Maria cleared her throat and looked from me to her son after all the minutiae of his leg had been discussed, "so, I got a phone call yesterday." Carlos looked down and rubbed his forehead. "Your girlfriend…"

"Ex-girlfriend," he interrupted.

"Thank god for small mercies," she continued. "She called me yesterday, saying that she thought that you were doing something… inappropriate with Stephanie."

"What did you say?" He asked.

His father piped in, "That you would never do something so disrespectful to our Stephanie."

I had to bite my lip to not burst into laughter. Of course Juan would be protective of me and not her.

Carlos wasn't as successful. "Ha! What did she say to that?"

"She started cursing and yelling so I hung up on her," Maria said. "Honestly sweetheart, I never liked her, you know that. What did she think? I know she surrounds herself with people who worship her and agree with her every word, but did she think cursing you out was going to get me on her side? Idiot." She shook her head in disgust. "But then we got here last night and you two were on the couch like that. Is there something going on?"

Whoa!

No one could cut through bullshit like Maria. I cleared my throat to respond but he beat me to it.

"Steph's been taking care of me, Mama. That's it." She looked at him closely, a look on her face that was mirrored on her husband's, skepticism mixed with hopefulness. That, more than anything, warmed me. I had known that his parents liked me, it was evident in their insistence that I be invited to various family functions over the years. But that hope was a slightly watered down version of my own mother's every time she asked me about my love life.

"Yes, well your brothers have been sending me links to some articles on line that say to the contrary."

Shiiiiiiiiiit.

I hopped up and grabbed my phone from the dining room table. My stomach doing a freefall through my abdomen. I had three emails from the CEO of Kratos overnight and two from Connie. I knew that this whole thing wouldn't blow over immediately like I had made Carlos think, but if Andrew was emailing me at 3 am on a Sunday morning, I had a big problem.

"Steph?"

I looked up at him, "Um, I should probably get going. Take care of this." I wiggled my phone in his direction.

I opened the first email and felt a bit sick. My boss was pissed about the rumors swirling and wanted to see me first thing tomorrow morning. Fucking Jeanne. If it wasn't for her celebrity status, people wouldn't care less who was here taking care of Carlos.

This was going to be a nightmare to clean up. I'd been through PR disasters with clients before, but never with Carlos and never directly involving me.

The first email from Connie was an official assurance that her client had no intention of going public with her suspicions because she had warned her the negative consequences of her total failure to show any concern at all about him being injured might outweigh any sympathy that she was hoping to garner.

Her second was a much more Connie-ish rant about the ridiculousness she has to deal with on a daily basis while babysitting whiny famous people.

Yes, poor mega-movie star off minding her own business skiing with her groupies regardless of her professional athlete boyfriend sustaining a most-likely career ending injury. Shouldn't he have had the decency to languish at home all alone and suffer in silence till she deigns to get her bony ass on a plane and come see him? Should the willing and able friend and agent who had a vested interest in him regaining his health, not have volunteered to see to him until a family member was able to take over? And now, because I'm a woman, we have to be fucking according to the media. Because no one of the opposite sex can possibly be in the same room without having lascivious thoughts and be incapable of not acting on them, even if one of those people was ridiculously gorgeous.

"…Steph!" He was right next to me and I hadn't even noticed, I'd been so caught up in my mental rant.

"What?"

"I called your name four times. I've never seen you turn that color before. Are you okay?" He nodded me out of earshot of his parents in the kitchen. "I'm sorry that you got dragged into this," he told me as he collapsed into a chair by the window. "I just looked online. It's a lot of rumors, but from what I've seen they're just floating around bullshit. They're not flat out saying that we're up here banging each other's brains out. She'll be dating some other poor schmuck by next week and they'll start following them around instead."

"With any luck. Andrew needs to see me first thing tomorrow. He's not happy."

"Wait, you're not in trouble, right? I'll go with you. You can't be in trouble just l because I begged you to stay with me, Steph." He grabbed my hand and tugged until I was sitting on the arm of the chair next to him.

"I can handle Andrew." I paused for a second, unsure if it was wise to voice what I was really concerned about. I would feel like I was lying if I didn't though. "What I won't be able to handle, though, is if… if I'm looked at differently professionally."

He squeezed my hand. "What do you mean?"

I sighed deeply. "How many women do you work with?"

He raised his eyebrows and thought for a beat. "Not many, I have you, and there's a few ladies in the front office. They hired that new trainer last month. That's pretty much it as far as work with. But there's more women getting involved each season, announcing, analyzing, reffing, and coaching."

"Carlos, you have no idea how hard it was for me to break into this business. If any one of those women even gave the appearance of fraternizing with a player, she'd be vilified by the people that railed against her being hired in the first place." I stood to go, but he held me there, as much by the distress in his eyes as his grip on my hand.

"Steph, I…"

"Stop. You don't need to apologize. I'm here because I want to be. No amount of begging would've made me stay if I didn't want to. I am going to go though. See what I can do about all this. If I stay any longer, who knows what those idiots will put out there."

He looked like he was going to argue, but only nodded silently, finally letting go of my hand.

I'm not going to lie; I didn't want to leave.

I grabbed my things, hugged his parents goodbye and turned to go, surprised when he followed me down the hallway to the door. "Go, and sit, you're moving around too much. I'll let you know what happens tomorrow."

He ignored me and clomped the rest of the way, stopping only when he was partially blocking the front door. "I'm going with you tomorrow."

"No you're not."

He shook his head and leaned back against the door. "I'm going because Andrew needs to… look, I'm your client. I never would've used Kratos if it weren't for you. He needs to know that. I also think he needs to see this." He chin nodded his cast. "If I was going to try to get you into my bed, I'd at least wait until this thing wasn't still attached to me."

I wish I could've laughed that little joke off, but the way he'd dropped his voice so his mother didn't hear him made it hard to make any sound at all.

Holy shit, were my cheeks on fire?

He set his crutches against the hall table and pulled me into him. And there we were again, like yesterday morning in the kitchen, sandwiched together. Parts of him against parts of me that liked those parts way more than they had a right to. "It's the least I could do, Steph," he said quietly, his chin on the top of my head. I looked up at him with every intention to tell him that he didn't owe me anything. The words died before I could get them out. He was looking at me like that again. He saw my capitulation, but didn't get cocky. "Thank-you," he whispered instead. "For being here, and for letting me go tomorrow." He lowered his face, and for one heart-stopping second I thought he was going to kiss me, but he went slightly right and kissed my cheek instead. This was no air kiss though, this was a full-lipped, soft, lingering kiss that really got things thumping again in my chest.

I knew that I had a problem when I could still feel his lips on me in the cab all the way to get my car and then all the way home. Even as I tried to coax some hot water out of my old shower head, he was still there.

My only comfort, knowing that like any other one sided crush, it would eventually go away now that I wouldn't be constantly around him anymore.

Hope you liked it! Let me know what you thought, pretty please?

Thanks for reading,

Love,

EA xoxo