Off Season

Chapter Six

For another week and or so, life went by as normal. Woke up. Went to yoga, spin class, or the gym. Drove to work. Attended a Junior League general meeting. Got the oil changed in my Honda. Met my mother for a long lunch on Thursday that included one too many glasses of wine from her. Watched a few episodes of Girls.

Nothing major.

Saturday morning, after my usual spin class at SpinWheel in Hyde Park, I drove to Target bathed in sweat and in search of a decent present to give Meredith for her birthday. She liked to read, so I found myself wandering the double aisle of new releases and reprinted classics in the back of the store. I knew she’d read 50 Shades of Grey already,so I picked up a book with a dark green cover that reminded me of that book.

The title read Captivation, which appeared below a blurb from a New York Times bestselling author I had never heard of before. I opened the front cover and scanned the first two chapters of the book, and it turned out to be some kind of regency romance. Good enough.I knew she’d like it, so, satisfied, I tossed it in the basket I had hooked over my arm and meandered down aisle and into the young adult fiction section. I picked up the first book in front of me. It had a witch on the cover.

“A little light reading?”

I looked over in the direction of the voice. “Harrison.”

“Allison.”

“It’s Ally.”

“Ally.”

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

An awkward pause. I placed the book in my hand back on the shelf and prayed he didn’t notice it. Just my luck. Only I’d run into a guy like Harrison with a book in my hand meant for giggling twelve-year-old girls.

“What are you doing?” I sounded like an idiot. Like someone who didn’t know how to handle herself around famous people. Like a mealy-mouthed kid. I shut my eyes and gave my head a quick shake. “I mean here,” I said when I opened the again. “What are you doing at Target?”

Not much better, but it would have to do.

“I’m doing what everyone does here.” He gestured with the hand holding a re basket identical to mine. “Shopping.”

“Right.”

The whole conversation seemed headed on a train to nowhere, but it wasn’t just our lack of creative conversation that bothered me. Just being around this guy had an affect,and I took a step away from him because I didn’t want to get closer. There it was again, that familiar, delicious twist in the pit of my stomach that pulled at every cell in my body. Something about Harrison Shaw threw me off my axis in a way no one had in a long time. I liked it and I wanted more of it, the same way an addict wants another hit of cocaine. If I wasn’t careful, I’d get addicted to Harrison Shaw pretty fast.

“This Target’s near me,” he said. “Convenient. I live over on Observatory.”

Of course he did. Observatory Avenue in Cincinnati’s tony Hyde Park neighborhood had some of the largest and most notable mansions in the city. That part of town rivaled Robert Hill and Indian Hill in status, and people called it one of the most beautiful neighborhoods in the area. Tudors. Georgians. Homes with historic plaques. Overpriced import cars in the driveways. A place where old glamour collided with new trends.

In short, the perfect place for a professional football player.

“I’m over here, too,” I said. “I’ve got a condo in Mt. Adams.”

“One of those with a view of downtown?”

“Yes. With a view of downtown.”

And then,another awkward, staccato break in the conversation. Harrison and I didn’t have much in common beyond the fact that he and I lived in the same city and that I sometimes watched him on TV.