Taking a Shot at Love Read online

  “Hey, I have an idea. Why don’t you all come to my house for dinner next Saturday night and celebrate the end of the semester? We’ll have some drinks, listen to some music. What do you say?”

  They all agreed that that sounded like fun, and they all exchanged phone numbers at that time since they were becoming friends. Once they’d finished their drinks, they said good-byes and agreed to see each other the following Saturday.

  Later that night as Celeste was trying to fall asleep, she kept thinking about Lisa and Athena spending Christmas alone. Well, not exactly alone because they had each other, but she felt bad that they wouldn’t see their families. Of course, neither would she, but at least her parents would be coming out to stay with her in February so she’d see them soon enough. She turned over in bed and fluffed her pillow. And she’d see Lisa on Saturday night. Correction. Lisa, Athena, Olivia, and Carl. She finally drifted off to sleep after thinking about what their night together would entail.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Lisa knocked on the door to a gorgeous one-story Craftsman home that was popular in Old Town. When she’d parked in front of the house with the screened-in front porch, she let out a small, low whistle. She loved the architecture that inhabited the tree-lined streets near the college, but the prices of these homes were way out of her league even if she wanted to stay at Glassell University and buy her own home. The house that she and Athena lived in was university-owned and provided free of charge except for utilities. The house had been included in Lisa’s contract with the school, and it was a nice perk to have, especially since real estate was so high in this area. Her own place was only a little less than a mile away, four blocks south and six blocks east, but now that it was December, it was a little too chilly at night to walk. Besides, Lisa arrived with a nice bottle of wine and a bouquet of flowers she brought as a hostess gift.

  Celeste answered the door, looking amazing in a burnt orange colored V-neck sweater and brown slacks. She looked more relaxed than Lisa had ever seen her, and she wondered if it was due to finals being over. Lisa didn’t feel too underdressed—she was wearing black jeans, a white button-down shirt, and her black leather jacket. Athena would probably dress similarly to Lisa, and Olivia would probably dress similarly to Celeste. Lisa had noticed that they’d worn the same style of clothes. Lisa handed the flowers to Celeste who brought them to her nose and deeply inhaled.

  “They’re beautiful, Coach. Thank you.”

  Lisa checked her watch. She was a few minutes early, but she figured Olivia and her husband would be here by now. She didn’t know how long it would take to grab the flowers so she’d left her house a little early so she wouldn’t be late.

  “Athena isn’t with you?”

  “No, she was in San Diego today scouting a team for us. She should be here soon.”

  “Well, I guess it’ll just be us for a while then. Olivia called me this morning to say she woke with a fever and didn’t want to get the rest of us sick.”

  “That’s too bad. I hope she feels better soon.”

  “Come on in and make yourself comfortable.”

  Lisa handed over the bottle of wine that she’d brought for dinner. “I wasn’t sure what we were having for dinner so if this doesn’t go, you can save it for another time.”

  “I made a lasagna so this is perfect. Do you want a glass now or I have beer if you’d prefer?”

  “A beer would be great.” Lisa noticed Celeste pulled a bottle of her favorite beer out of the refrigerator and poured it in a glass she’d pulled out of the freezer. Lisa took a drink and set down her glass on the counter. “Perfect. My favorite.”

  “I know.”

  Lisa saw the blush that infused Celeste’s cheeks before she opened the oven to check on dinner. She knew what Lisa’s favorite beer was, huh? She’d been paying attention. Her phone buzzed in her front pocket and she pulled it out, seeing the name on the screen.

  “Hey, Athena. What’s your ETA? What? Are you serious? What about dinner? Okay. Be careful. Yeah, I’ll tell her. See you later.” Lisa put her phone back in her pocket and turned around to find Celeste staring at her. “Well, Athena is stuck in traffic. According to her traffic app, there was an overturned truck with a chemical spill. Freeway is shut down for the next few hours. She’s going to pull off the freeway and grab a bite to eat. I guess it’s just us tonight, or would you like to reschedule?”

  “No, dinner is almost done and I’d like for you to stay. I guess we won’t be playing any games tonight.”

  Lisa laughed and took another drink of her beer. “No, I guess not, but dinner smells terrific and I’m looking forward to tonight.”

  “I’m glad because I won’t be able to eat all this food.”

  Lisa and Celeste decided to plate their food in the kitchen buffet-style rather than bring all of the dishes out to the dining table. They took their seats and Lisa poured wine for them both. She held up her glass to Celeste’s. “To new friendship.”

  Celeste took a sip of her wine while holding Lisa’s gaze. Lisa cleared her throat, placed her glass down, then cut into her lasagna with her fork. When she swallowed the piece she’d eaten, she shook her head.

  “That’s so good, Celeste. I’m glad Olivia and Athena aren’t here. I’ll probably end up eating their share.” Lisa took another bite. “You know, I wonder if Athena and Olivia are in cahoots again to push us together.” Lisa pulled her cell phone out and opened the traffic app. “Nope. Freeway is shut down.”

  Celeste answered back. “Olivia sounded awful on the phone this morning so I didn’t have any doubt that she was truly sick.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s awful for me to think that. I just found it suspicious that both of them weren’t able to make it tonight.”

  “Yes, it would be easy to suspect those two, given their track record.” Celeste laughed and Lisa joined in. “It’ll give us a chance to know each other better.” A vision of Celeste and Lisa in the throes of passion assaulted Celeste’s mind, Lisa on top of her, exploring every inch of Celeste’s body with her mouth, her tongue, her hands. That wasn’t exactly what she meant when they could get to know each other, but maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing. They could be friends with benefits. Leave the love and feelings out of it and just have sex once in a while to relieve stress or scratch an itch. Celeste wondered if Lisa might be a willing participant in that idea, but Celeste had no idea, or the courage to ask Lisa.

  “What do you want to know?”

  Celeste’s musings came to a screeching stop. Did she say all of her thoughts out loud without knowing? “Pardon me?”

  “You said we could get to know each other better. What would you like to know?”

  “Oh, yes. Let me think.” Celeste took a moment to take a sip of wine and gather her thoughts. “What got you involved in basketball and coaching?”

  “Oh, so we’re starting off easy.” Lisa winked at Celeste and she nearly choked on her bite of food.

  “Well, I started playing on the playground during elementary school. I was tall so the captain always picked me first during recess. It helped that I came from an athletic background. Parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents…nearly all of them played some kind of sport and were good at it. I kept at it. Practiced basketball all the time. I studied it. Watched games. There wasn’t a lot of exposure to women playing basketball at that time, not like there is now. But my idols, Nancy Lieberman, Ann Donovan, Cheryl Miller, were the ones I wanted to be like. The early pioneers of the game. Am I boring you?”

  “God, no. I wasn’t really exposed to a lot of sports when I was growing up because my parents weren’t athletes. I want to know more about basketball.”

  “Okay.” Lisa took a bite of food and Celeste watched Lisa’s mouth cover the fork. She looked down at her own plate so she wouldn’t get worked up again.

  “I got a scholarship to play basketball on the East Coast, and that’s where I met Athena. We became good friends from the very beginning, which our
teammates found amusing because we were so different from each other.”

  “Different how?”

  “Well, I’m sure you’ve noticed by now that I’m a pretty laid-back person outside of basketball and Athena has a lot of energy. She’s always on the go, always moving.”

  Celeste laughed and held her index finger and thumb close together.

  “Right. But our work ethic was the same when we played, but I think we also balance each other out.”

  “Did you two ever get together?” Celeste wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer to that question, but her curiosity made her ask anyways.

  “God, no. Neither one of us was attracted to the other. We’ve always been like sisters.”

  The relief Celeste felt was almost palpable, and she felt a small weight release from her body. She didn’t think there’d been anything between them because they didn’t act like lovers—or former lovers. They acted like buddies. That was the best word she could find to describe it. Celeste wouldn’t exactly call Lisa and Athena butch. Well, maybe soft butches with athleticism thrown in. Lisa had medium length hair, and when she wore it down, it gave her a little more softness and that smidge of femininity. When it was up, her athletic butch side came out. Athena had short hair and always had her athletic butchness. She was nice and extremely funny, but there was nothing soft about her that Celeste had seen. Not that it wasn’t there, but Celeste didn’t know Athena that well yet.

  Lisa continued with her basketball history. “After college, I played professionally in Europe for a few years, but I sustained a couple of serious injuries. My body started breaking down on me, and I wanted to come back to the United States. I called my college coach who had just been hired at a school in Chicago and she hired me on as an assistant. After five more years, she decided to retire and recommended me for the head coaching job. I had a few mediocre seasons, then a few winning seasons, and I was offered the head coaching job at a school that had a history of making the NCAA tournament every year, and they had standards they wanted to uphold after their coach left to coach in the WNBA. They hired me, I took Athena with me, and I had four years with them, but I failed to take the team to the national tournament the last two years so they fired me.”

  “How awful that they did that to you.”

  Lisa shrugged. “Eh, not really. Coaching is a business, and at that level, you either produce championships or they’ll find somebody who will. Shortly after I got fired, I was approached for assistant jobs, but I only wanted to be head coach. I applied to Glassell University, and fortunately they hired me, so here I am.”

  “But you don’t want to stay here.” It was said as a comment, not a question. Lisa had already told Celeste that she was hoping to coach at a large university.

  “Don’t get me wrong, Celeste. I like GU. I like the campus, I like the friends I’ve made here, I love the community, but it can’t give me what a Division I university can give me.”

  “And what’s that?” Celeste was truly interested because she felt the exact opposite. She felt GU, being a small, private university, was able to give her what the larger universities couldn’t—smaller class sizes; chancellors and deans who weren’t completely driven by politics; a small gorgeous campus with grassy knolls, stone and metal sculptures, fountains, and mature trees that made it look more like a park rather than an academic institution. And despite it being such a small school, they were ranked in the top ten universities in the United States.

  “More money, state-of-the-art facilities, better athletes,” Lisa ticked each thing off her fingers, “and maybe an opportunity to coach at a professional level.”

  “Wow.” Celeste shook her head and placed her fork on her plate, suddenly losing her appetite. “That sounds really…” What was the word she was looking for? “Selfish.”

  Lisa backed away from the table against the chair back like she’d been slapped. Celeste knew that might have been harsh, but Lisa basically disrespected GU, and Celeste wouldn’t stand for it.

  “Selfish? How is it selfish for me to want to pursue my dreams? To want to be the best coach I can be?”

  “You don’t think you can be the best coach here?”

  “No, frankly, I don’t. At my previous job, some of our games were televised. High school star athletes knew me, knew my name, and wanted to play for me. We traveled by our school’s private plane, stayed in nice hotels, and the school paid for it. We didn’t have to do fundraisers. Here, there isn’t a lot of money to dish out to teams despite the fact that tuition costs over fifty thousand dollars a year. We fly on a cheap airline, stay in cheap motels, and eat at inexpensive restaurants. I’ve experienced it all, Celeste, and I don’t think it’s selfish at all to know what I want and how to get it. Thanks for dinner, but I’ve lost my appetite.” Lisa set her fork down and placed her napkin on the table before standing and heading toward the door.

  Celeste quickly followed, and when Lisa opened the door, Celeste closed it. Lisa turned around and looked so angry, so fired up, so hot. Celeste backed Lisa against it, grabbed her face, and kissed Lisa like there would be no tomorrow.

  Lisa was stunned. Celeste had called her selfish a minute ago and now she was kissing her like she’d never see her again. Lisa didn’t kiss her back. She broke her lips free from Celeste’s then looked into her brown eyes that were dark with arousal. Celeste’s face was flushed and her chest was heaving. Lust took over Lisa, and she turned them around until she had Celeste pinned up against the door, then kissed her hard.

  Celeste parted her lips and Lisa pushed her tongue into Celeste’s mouth, and Celeste moaned. Teeth clashed and lips pressed together. Lisa placed her hands on the door, on either side of Celeste’s face, and leaned her body into Celeste. A whimper emanated from Celeste as she grabbed Lisa’s hips and pulled her tight against her. God, how could Celeste drive Lisa so crazy one minute to the point where Lisa wanted to strangle her, to driving her so crazy the next where Lisa wanted to tear off Celeste’s clothes and fuck her until she screamed? Lisa placed her hands on Celeste’s sides and slid them up until she reached her full breasts and squeezed, feeling Celeste’s nipples harden against her palms. Lisa played with her nipples and rolled them between her thumbs and index fingers. Celeste pulled her mouth away, grabbed Lisa’s head, and pulled her hair.

  “Oh, God, Lisa. That feels so good. I want your hands all over me.”

  Lisa’s mouth moved to Celeste’s exposed neck and she kissed, licked, nibbled, and bit the soft skin, feeling her pulse thrum against her lips. Lisa stopped just long enough to pull Celeste’s sweater over her head and drop it to the floor. Celeste wore a cream-colored lacy bra that fully covered her breasts. Celeste reached behind her, unhooked her bra, and let it slide down her arms, where it joined her sweater on the floor. Lisa replaced her hands on Celeste’s breasts and kneaded them then brought her mouth over one of Celeste’s erect nipples and sucked on it hard. Celeste let go of Lisa’s hair and clumsily unbuttoned and unzipped her pants, and took one of Lisa’s hands and shoved it in her underwear. Lisa knew what to do from there, and she moved her fingers into Celeste’s wetness and spread it over her swollen clit. Celeste’s hips bucked and she screamed out.

  “Right there.” Celeste gasped and bucked her hips again.

  Lisa stroked her fingers up and down over Celeste’s clit until her breathing quickened, then she slid two fingers into her sex, pumped her fingers in and out, then used her thumb to stroke her clit simultaneously. Celeste’s body started shaking and Lisa wrapped one arm around her waist to prevent her from falling. Three more strokes had Celeste screaming out Lisa’s name followed by heavy breathing and panting.

  Holy hell. Lisa just had sex with Celeste Bouchard. Up against her front door. They were both breathing hard, and Celeste was slumped forward as Lisa held her up. Lisa was in awe of how responsive and passionate Celeste was. Damn! What the hell just happened? Lisa had never thought for a second that that would happen. Not that she didn’t wish or fantasi
ze about it, but she really didn’t have time to be in a relationship, and she didn’t figure Celeste to sleep with someone just for the sex. She and Celeste were friends. Lisa couldn’t think straight, and now that she’d caught her breath, she didn’t know what to do. Was she supposed to go back and finish dinner? Was she supposed to leave like she was going to do before they’d had sex? Was she supposed to take Celeste to bed and have more sex with her? She’d prefer the latter, but she wanted to know how Celeste was feeling first.

  “Are you okay?”

  Celeste nodded, still breathing a little heavy. “Oh, yeah. Wow. That was… Wow.”

  Lisa felt like puffing out her chest with pride. She’d guessed Celeste was satisfied. To be honest, it had been so long since Lisa had had sex with another woman, she wasn’t sure if she could satisfy Celeste, but it was like riding a bike.

  “Uh, What now?”

  Celeste looked at Lisa questioningly.

  “I mean, we agreed to be friends. That was a little more than what most friends do.”

  “How about this?” Celeste began unbuttoning Lisa’s shirt. “Why don’t we enjoy the rest of the night—and each other—and we can figure all this out later?” Celeste took Lisa’s hand and led her down the hall to her bedroom. Lisa barely had any time to look at the room before Celeste unbuttoned Lisa’s jeans and slid them down her legs. Celeste’s own pants were discarded near the front door where the night’s wild antics had begun. Lisa enjoyed the view from behind a naked Celeste, one she would never forget. But now she was lying on her back on Celeste’s bed, completely naked, watching Celeste crawl her way over to Lisa then straddling her hips. The view of this gorgeous woman straddling her nearly made Lisa’s head explode.

  “Come here.” Lisa ran her hands up Celeste’s back and pulled her down to kiss her. Celeste’s lips met Lisa’s and entered a slow, sensual kiss that might have lasted hours or seconds, but the only thing Lisa knew for sure was that was the best kiss she’d ever had. There was something—everything—about Celeste that Lisa could get lost in, and Celeste’s kisses were number one on that list. The small whimpers that came from Celeste as her hips started moving back and forth, spreading her wetness over Lisa’s mound drove her crazy with need.