Hands sticky with sweat and heart racing at a horse's pace in my chest, I lingered in coach Bruins' study while waiting for Virginia and the other guests to arrive.

Upon first visit, he'd offered me a drink of whiskey or bourbon, but I immediately declined, which he approved of. It wasn't like I drank anyway, but knowing that it was a test for him and that I'd passed the first one I felt a bit more at ease, until I heard Virginia's soft and affecting voice outside in the hallway, that is.

After exchanging pleasantries with her family, I snuck into the kitchen where I could hear a glimpse of their conversation, and my ears perked up when someone asked Virginia if she'd met me.

And then I got a sudden ego boost when Virginia asked the girl how she knew about me in the first place.

"Are you serious? Your dad won't shut up about him. He's all, 'I've never seen anyone with his talent since I was on the court seven years ago' and all that. He says the NBA are going to draft him when May comes around, since he wasn't nineteen yet this May to be drafted."

"Yes, there was a surprise that I was going to make in just a few minutes, but...have you two already met?"

I held my breath, waiting for the inevitable.

"Yes, I met him, and then he proceeded to insult me in the very same breath. Don't get your hopes up about that one dad, he seems like a pretty boy dud to me."

Ouch. Okay, maybe I deserved that. Okay, I really deserved that, but standing in the kitchen hiding out and waiting for her dad to call me in, I was already growing embarrassed at the conclusions the family was already making of me.

"Ooh, you think he's pretty," the girl from earlier taunted her, and I imagined her being somewhere around thirteen years old. Did she have a younger sister?

"Oh, the guy's freaking gorgeous, but that doesn't help with his attitude problem."

I allowed Virginia's declaration to simmer in the air before a smile broke out across my features. That was not what I was expecting her to say in the slightest, but it did do my ego some good, not that I needed any more boosting in that department.

"What?!"

I was already laughing picturing the look on her face when her dad would call me out into the dining room from the kitchen but I didn't have to wait too long before that happened.

"Virginia, I was going to wait a few minutes until we got dinner out here, but there was someone that I wanted you to meet if you hadn't already. Eli?"

That was my cue.

Trying to make sure the trembling in my legs wasn't obvious, I strode through the kitchen's swinging doors and stood at the entrance to the dining room, mouth curled in a half smirk at Virginia's snarky remarks and crossed my feet at the ankles while leaning against the wall, soaking her in with excruciating detail.

A baby blue dress hugged her generous curves, her gorgeous chest on display and for a second I couldn't breathe, but I reigned it in before speaking.

"I didn't realize I'd made such a lasting impression on you, Virginia."

And I really hadn't, but I was ill prepared for the next words she threw my way.

"Yeah, well, when you insult someone and basically call them a wannabe groupie-"

"I never said groupie," I interrupted, glancing over at coach Bruins to make sure that hew wasn't already having second thoughts about mentoring me. He didn't know how much I needed this.

"Okay, then. 'Ball Chaser' was it? Neat little way of saying it so you can play all innocent around my dad."

The girl was more than I had given her credit for. More powerful, more intimidating, more...everything.

"Okay, then. 'Ball Chaser' was it? Neat little way of saying it so you can play all innocent around my dad."

I couldn't let her throw this all away for me, not when she had no idea the stakes that were riding on this one family dinner.

"Yeah, the dad you lied about having," I said, hoping to divert the attention away from my perceived misgivings when she tried to defend her actions but her father stepped in at just the right moment.

And then he asked me to sit next to her. Sit there, to her right.

It was a simple enough request, and it should have been even more simple to comply, but the thought of the two of us in such close quarters, leg to leg, almost touching, closer than we had ever been....

It was almost enough to send me running in the opposite direction, not because I didn't want to, but because I wanted to more than I should have. Way more.

So I took my seat, and held my breath, and when my heart didn't implode in on itself from her nearness I exhaled a deep breath and inhaled her sweet and heady perfume, a mixture of musk and sweet vanilla, the combination something so completely different that I found myself drowning in it, and wanting to know if she tasted just as good as she smelled...

Dinner was monotonous, but I learned a few things just by watching the interactions of the family.

So, for some reason that everyone was okay with (except Virginia of course...and suddenly me?) her cousin Sara and her ex boyfriend were dating and everyone acted like it wasn't a big deal. It was obvious how uncomfortable the Jared guy was, considering he barely spoke a word the entire night, but what really crawled under my skin was the fact that Virginia was so damn anxious she was about to crawl out of her own skin, and no one around her bothered to care.

That leg, bouncing up and down repeatedly, it was like she was trying to break a world record for the number of leg bounces in one minute.

There was a moment when our legs touched, however, and the zap of chemistry that unraveled between us almost choked me up on my sip of water

I zoned back in just as coach Bruins was lecturing Virginia about the fact that she needed to stay closer to home so that he could keep an eye on her...through me.

"What? You mean you want this guy to 'watch over' me on campus? I don't know if you've forgotten, but I am a legal adult now, Dad. There are plenty of eighteen year olds who leave home for a college halfway across the country, or even in a different country altogether."

Yeah, she obviously didn't like what her dad had to say very much, and I wasn't sure I did, either. He might've been confined to a wheelchair, but I could already tell he was as much a control freak as my stepdad. That was strike one for him...I sincerely hoped he didn't get three.

"Yes, but I don't think their parents are paying for their education like I am for you. I know you got that scholarship for the New York Conservatory, but you didn't have enough for housing and food once you got there. This was the best choice for you, and we all know it."

We got on the subject of this weekend once the aunt changed the subject, thank god, but I got a bad vibe from her, like she was hiding something...she had shifty eyes.

"Oh, this weekend...my new friend Maddie invited me to something. I already told her I would go."

At least Patrick's party would be semi entertaining with her there. They tried to convince her not to go before her father spoke directly to Virginia, and then to me.

"I hope you're going to be coming home once this event is over? You're not out of our deal to come home every weekend. Eli, will you be attending?"

"I will. I can give her a ride back here if you need me to, since I'll be staying in the guest house next weekend anyway."

"Excuse me, what?"

Guess the cat was out of that bag, but I decided to lay it on even thicker with a tease to my voice, just to see how she'd react.

"You know, since you asked me to stay every other weekend as part of our coaching."

"Yes, I remember. That sounds like a great idea, and Virginia can just leave her car on campus. That's perfect."

"Perfect. Just perfect."

***

Virginia was obviously in a bad mood after her cousin and her ex left the table, but I wasn't about comment on her abrupt departure as well. I still needed to talk to her dad one on one.

I stood up at the wrong moment, however, as our chairs got caught together and suddenly my hands were around her body and I was in a fantasy that involved the kitchen table, my arm sweeping everything off of it and ravishing her right then and there, sans the aunt and father.

Her skin was delicate and soft beneath my fingertips, the silk, charcoal tresses tumbling down her back in waves and brushing my hands, forcing my breath to hitch in my lungs as I wondered at her up close and in person.

My hand snaked down to her waist and she began choking-no, coughing violently, and I wondered if she hurt her ribs.

"Are you okay?"

An almost imperceptible shiver ran down her spine, but I'd always been good at noticing the slightest ticks in someone's demeanor, I had to- it was a survival tactic living with my stepfather.

"I'm fine. I'm going to my room now."

I was about to say something in response but before I could she was out of my arms and running upstairs to her room, hips swaying as she did so and I had to suppress a groan of approval at the sight.

"Eli, I'm sorry that dinner didn't go so well, but I appreciate your honesty in everything we spoke about. I want you to know that I would love to be your coach."

"Really?"

"Absolutely. You're full of potential, and I can't wait to see what you'll do with the rest of your college career, and then its all up from there."

Wow. Mike Bruins was officially going to be my coach.

He had already achieved Michael Jordan level success and had become a household name shortly before his accident, and that cemented himself in the basketball hall of fame- or hall of what could have been.

"I'd ask you to join me for a night cap but my gi- I mean, my nurse here, says that I need to lay off the hard stuff."

He nodded his head at Virginia's aunt in the kitchen, and I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion. It was obvious that the two shared a bond, but I wasn't aware that they were romantically involved until just that moment when he'd almost slipped up and called her his 'girl'.

A man with his dead wife's sister...well, who was I to judge? I hardly knew them.

"That's alright coach, I was just going to head out for the night. Thank you again."

I bent down to shake his hand and noticed just how gaunt his features had become, the paleness of his figure sticking out as well as the frigid temperature of his hand. He definitely wouldn't be able to hurt me like he had. That was enough to eliminate strike one from him being a control freak.

We parted ways and I was to the foyer when a hauntingly beautiful voice reached me. Holy shit. It was her. It was really her...

I had to find out for sure, to make sure that it wasn't just a recording of her voice that Virginia had been listening to.

The songs switched to a new one just as I reached her bedroom door, and I leaned against the frame as the first few verses flew by, and then suddenly I was entranced, pulled into a world of spine chills and weak knees.

I pushed her door open slightly as she began soaring through high notes left and right like it was her birthright to do so, like she was the professor and every other singer in the world was her student.

Intricate dips and swells, her voice adopted a breathy quality before rounding back out again into a sharp and commanding sound, the differing techniques creating a beautiful masterpiece of emotion and depth that touched me more than just in my soul, but in my heart, the place that I usually kept under strict lock and key and this one girl was ripping those barriers down piece by piece with every word sang from her.

I shuffled forward again, like she was a magnet drawing me ever closer to her, but she abruptly stopped and turned, noticing me in the hall.

Eyes wide, we only stared at each other, like I was a deer caught in the headlights or a kid caught stealing a cookie from the jar.

And then she strode over towards me purposefully, fire in her eyes that died out as soon as she reached me, only, that fire didn't die out completely.

It transformed into a slow, smoldering ember, and if nurtured, would catch aflame once more, but we didn't have time for that.

We were so close, all I had to do was reach out and-

A sharp intake of breath from behind us shocked us out of our stare, and she was the one to make the first move. The door swung closed on its hinges, leaving me outside and not so alone...

"I don't know what you guys are doing there, but its probably not a good idea."

I turned to find Virginia's ex boyfriend Jared staring at me with suspicion swimming in his eyes.

"I think you should just mind your business."

Yeah, it was cold, but the guy had obviously broken up with my girl and then immediately got together with the cousin. Okay, yeah, I might've creeped her on social media, who wouldn't?

Jared rolled his eyes and went back into the bedroom to resume what he'd been doing with his new girlfriend directly across the hall from Virginia, a completely tasteless and classless act that was probably the cousin's idea. She was jealous of her, and I could see why.

Virginia was a knockout, once in a lifetime, unique type of beautiful. She had something special inside her, this talent that could evoke emotions and pain and pull it out of someone with a simple song.

She was everything her little cousin wanted to be, and so of course she was jealous of her.

Hell, if I were a girl, I'd probably be jealous of her too.

I took the steps two at a time to race to my car and blast the radio for the drive back to school. I was supposed to stay that night in the guest house, but she'd done something in her room to me, brought out the pain I usually kept hidden to the forefront.

I blasted my dad's favorite song while trying to push it right back down again where it belonged, and hoped beyond hope that I would be able to hear her sing it again just once.