Page 1 of The Progressions

Chapter 1

“Ihate it.”

I looked over at the woman, the one wearing a fur hat even though it was July and July was usually hot in northern Michigan. No, it wasn’t dripping like a greenhouse or burning like the interior of a volcano, but you definitely didn’t need anything like fur to keep you cozy.

“It’s not bad,” the man with her countered. He wore a larger version of that same hat so that they were twinning, but it didn’t work as well for him. She looked cute in a very weather-inappropriate way. Her hat perched up there jauntily and she kept her head steady, like a queen, so that it didn’t move. But he’d already had to adjust his own several times, and we’d hardly covered much distance. He also looked uncomfortable and hot as it slid around on top of his dark blonde hair, and watching him had reminded me of someone trying to balance a bowling ball on his skull.

Not a lot of people would attempt that activity, but you could imagine. And yet, he still looked extremely handsome, even with all that going against him. I could appreciate his appearance despite the fact that I hadn’t been overwhelmed by his personality. When they had shown up at the leasing office, he had refused to speak, leaving all communication to her (and she had been downright rude). But in terms of looks, yes, he was set: tall, broad-shouldered, muscular, and all-over appealing. It wasn’t for nothing that he’d had so many endorsement deals for so many different products, from razors to phones to mattresses to underwear.

And by the way? That underwear commercial was really something if you paused it at the right places. Stunning.

He’d even had a part in a movie that had come out the summer before. I’d gone to see it, but the theater had been mostly empty besides me, and the reviews for his acting hadn’t been too flattering. I’d enjoyed it a lot but I did acknowledge that my standards were low. The popcorn had tasted great and there was air conditioning, so I’d been very happy with my afternoon.

“This would only be temporary for us,” he continued to tell her, and she sniffed. “Let’s look at it while we’re both here. You’re going home soon.”

“But then I’ll have to come back. We’ll have to live here,” she said. “For the whole season!” Her voice had risen to a slight whine, but she self-corrected as he frowned in her direction. “All right. I’ll go in,” she told him in a normal voice, but she also stuck out her lower lip and pouted in a way that was really attractive, although it should have been childish and dumb. IfI’d tried that look, it probably would have seemed as if I’d gotten hit in the mouth or stung by a bee, or someone would have wondered aloud why I was acting like a baby. He didn’t voice that question and neither did I.

She smoothed her hair, a thick, light brown curtain, to make sure that it hung sleekly over her shoulders, and then she seemed to notice that the sulky stuff wasn’t going over well, either. So she slowly tugged her lips into a smile as she looked up at him through her eyelashes. “I’ll do it for you, big boy. I’ll do anything you want,” she said softly, and he lost the frown.

I thought that I could really learn a lot from this woman. That had been so well done, just like watching a quarterback on the football field. Those guys went through their progressions, quickly checking the eligible receivers and looking for a play that would gain yardage (or not lose it). Similarly, she had cycled through her emotional repertoire until she’d found a play that gained positive attention from him. She obviously had him wrapped around her finger (and she had such a good manicure).

Who wouldn’t have fallen for that shiny hair, those big brown eyes, and her pretty pout? Also, her body…good grief. If there was any flaw, I couldn’t see it—and I would have been able to, because she was clothed in a tight bodysuit that went down to her ankles, below which she wore fur boots that matched the hat. There was no way to miss anything about her figure, and I thought it was perfect. He must have agreed, although he wasn’t actually drooling like the maintenance guy we’d walked past in the parking lot. Someone could have drowned in the puddlethat had dripped out of Oren’s mouth as he’d watched her sway across the asphalt.

Anyway, it seemed like they were ready to go inside, so I walked up the steps to the front door and punched in the code to unlock it. “This is a four-bedroom unit, one of our largest,” I intoned. “It also has a basement that’s the perfect space to set up a gym. That’s what some of the other Woodsmen players have done in the past when they’ve been with us.” The keypad made an angry sound, letting me know that the code I’d entered hadn’t worked. I tried again. “Lots of guys from the team have lived here because it’s such a great location.” No, it still wasn’t working. “We’re close to the stadium, and the practice facility isn’t too far from—”

“Can we go in or what?” the woman asked. She tapped the toe of her fur boot impatiently.

“Um, yeah, I’m just…just a second.” No, the door code wasn’t functioning but fortunately for me, there was a trick to all these locks. Once I’d pushed the little button under the keypad and jiggled the handle, it finally beeped happily and I heard the bolt slide back. “Please, after you,” I said. There was hardly any space on the small stoop so I descended to the path and watched them enter in front of me.

It really was a nice place. Kind of weird, because the windows all looked out in different directions in a way that made me feel a little disoriented, but the finishes were totally modern and new. They were also expensive, which I was aware of because I’d seen the invoices. After the former tenant had moved out, it had been totally revamped from the ceilings down. They’d had to starthigh since he’d installed all kinds of extra ductwork that hung everywhere, and because of that, he had forfeited his security deposit. Of course, that tenant had been a professional football player so I was pretty sure that he hadn’t been overly worried about losing the money.

And the guy in the fur hat was a football player, too. The terms of his new contract were public knowledge and so were estimates of his income from his many endorsements. I was aware that he was doing extremely well for himself, making more in a season than I could imagine having in my entire lifetime.

I watched him and his girlfriend explore—at least, she did, but he mostly stared at his phone. All of the rooms were decorated because we used this as a model unit, and I thought it was gorgeous. Her lip curled as if she didn’t agree.

“Would you like to see the downstairs suite?” I suggested, and now she made a slight movement with her chin which didn’t dislodge the hat and which I assumed signaled her assent. I led the way to the bedroom with its high ceilings, ample square footage, and great closets, all of which I pointed out. But she sniffed a little as she looked around.

“This is so small,” she muttered as she continued her gliding queen walk into the adjoining bathroom. She looked at her reflection in the mirrors which covered the wall above the sinks, and her lower lip came back out. “The lighting is terrible. This whole place is small and terrible, everything about this stupid town.”

I thought I understood what she was talking about. She was from California, or that was where they’d been living no matter their original roots, because he had been playing for the Seals. In comparison to what I imagined her life was like out there…actually, no. Northern Michigan couldn’t compare to a place like that at all. There weren’t billion-dollar houses here, or at least there weren’t too many of them. There weren’t streets lined with fancy stores and restaurants whose menus didn’t list the prices because if you had to ask, well, you sucked. We certainly didn’t have bunches of famous people running around so that you could bump into them wherever you went and feel important by osmosis.

Except, we did have the Woodsmen. We had our professional football organization that was basically the heart of this whole area; my own heart was probably orange, the team’s primary color. Right now, it was very close to the Woodsmen Fan Day, when they opened the big stadium and we were allowed to tour it, to meet all the players, and to see the cheerleaders perform. It was, by far, the biggest event of the summer around here. I looked forward to it every year.

Fan Day was why these two people had flown in on a private jet late last night, after a party they’d had to attend in New York. I’d heard a lot about that because supposedly, the dry air of the plane had given the woman chapped lips and ruined her cuticles. I didn’t see evidence of either problem, but she was very concerned. Anyway, he’d had to show up because he was going to be introduced to the community as a starting player for the Woodsmen, the Pride of the Peninsulas. He would take overat tight end from one of the guys who had been amazing for years but who had retired after the previous season.

We’d had several veterans hang up their cleats and the offensive coordinator had gone to another team after accepting an offer to be the head coach, and I was going to miss them all. It felt like they were part of my family, more than just people I watched on TV, then watched on recordings on that TV, then read about on my phone, then searched for more information about on my phone and the laptop at work and read that, too.

“What do you think?”

The woman and I both turned to the newest Woodsmen. Tyler Hennessy stood in the doorway of the bedroom, legs planted, arms crossed, chin up. Maybe it was only to keep his hat steady, but I had to give him credit, too. It was a great pose. He looked strong, confident, and gorgeous.

His girlfriend also thought so, because she ogled him up and down and as her eyes assessed, the tip of her tongue snuck out and licked across her top lip. I couldn’t tell how she’d done it without disturbing the gloss there, but it was another move to learn from. I would definitely try to replicate it in my mirror when I got home, I decided.

“I think I like what I see,” she drawled, her voice throaty. I watched her glide across the just-like-wood floor (it wasn’t real wood, but I thought it looked great) and further decided that I should practice her walk, too. She was at least four or five inches taller than my five-six, and that height made her so regally sexy—I didn’t think I could pull it off. Her head was steady as she swung her hips, twitched her butt, and made her breasts…

Oh. She’d pressed those breasts against him and from my spot across the room, I heard her whisper, “Hi, big boy. What do you think we’ll do in this bedroom?” She slid her hands up his chest and again, I admired her nails. I’d never seen anyone’s look so good painted in Woodsmen orange. She ran one along the cut edge of his jaw.

In old novels, I’d read about “smoldering looks.” Well, this was the day that I saw one, a real one. He gazed down and watched her rubbing herself on his body, and his eyes were enough to set her on fire!

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