Blitzed (Rules of Possession Book 3), page 2
“No,” I said honestly. “It’s going to take some getting used to, though.”
She ran a nervous hand over her hair. “Well, luckily, you have time. We’re not rushing into anything….”
“None of my business,” I said. “I trust your judgment. And by the way, Dad would be proud of you, too.”
“Oh.” She pressed her hands to her eyes and took a deep breath. “For God’s sakes, I just did my makeup. Stop it, already.”
I chuckled, giving her a big hug, careful not to wrinkle her blouse. When she was nice and relaxed, her head on my chest, her hand patting my back like she’d done when I was little, I lowered the boom. “So who is this guy?”
She gasped as she smacked my chest and pulled back. “I thought you said you trust my judgment and it’s none of your business.”
“About how your relationship goes, yes. But I think Emmie, Grant, and I should vet this guy…we need to talk to ’im. Let him know what’s up.” I bounced on my toes. “He deserves fair warning about what we’ll do to his balls if he even thinks about looking at you wrong—”
“Andrew Jason McAdams.” She looked like she was hiding her amusement. “I do believe that’s your cue to leave.”
She started towing me toward the front door and that didn’t work out so well…so she went around behind me and started pushing. She was about half my size and didn’t even reach my shoulder, but she was doing a pretty good job of it.
“So you’re not going to tell me who he is?”
“I’ll introduce you guys when the time is right,” she puffed. “And when I’m sure he won’t go running for the hills after being confronted with my six foot four boys.”
“Let the record show that Grant is only six feet,” I pointed out as she manhandled me into the foyer. Mom-strength was unreal. “And what if this guy is a serial killer? We won’t even know which direction to point the police. All I’ll be able to tell them is that when I left, she was making an awesome pot roast and wearing man trap clothes—”
“I wear this outfit to church, you heathen,” she said, her eyes twinkling in amusement. “Now get out. I don’t need you scaring him off by being all big and intimidating.”
I reluctantly headed out on the porch and as I turned, another question all cued up on my lips, she shut the door in my face. No matter. I stuck my face to the glass insert like a pucker doll. “So he’s like, small?”
She stuck out her tongue and I laughed.
I waited until I was in the car with the engine running to whip out my phone. I ignored a text from Everett inviting me to Warner’s after-party and called my brother. Grant answered on the second ring, sounding a bit harried. “Hey, what’s up?”
“Nothing much,” I said jovially. “How’re you?”
“Good.”
“And Kim?”
“Kim’s fine,” he said slowly. “Why do you ask?”
I understood his confusion. We were close, but in more of an I know you’re there when I need you kind of way. We were both busy, he even more so with the restaurant and his family. Small kids had a way of sucking up free time, and in-season, my schedule could get crazy. We made a point to get together at least once a week but rarely called each other just to chat.
“I ask because she’s your wife and I’m invested in her well-being,” I said starchily. “How’re things going at the restaurant?”
“Do you want to just spit it out or draw this out?” He demanded. “I have laundry in the dryer.”
“Well, pardon me for interrupting your fluff and fold party. I just wanted to check in on my only brother and his family.” I huffed. “I love you guys.”
“Good to hear,” he said dryly.
“So.” I picked at a loose thread on my pants. “How’re things?”
“I’m so glad you’re interested in the minutia of our daily life,” he drawled. “So here goes. Kim doesn’t think I’m helping out enough with the household chores, so I’ve taken over the laundry completely.”
My eyes widened because I loved my nephews, but damn could those kids generate a lot of dirty clothes. It was like a horrible magic trick that kept going even after you killed the magician. “She does work hard. She could probably use the help.”
Grant grunted. “Which is why I’m up to my elbows in muddy clothes. Who signed these kids up for football camp again, AJ?”
I cleared my throat because while Uncle AJ might’ve found the league, signed them up, and got them hyped about it, he wasn’t doin’ no stinkin’ laundry. “I dunno. I think it was Emmie’s idea.”
“Our sister, the accountant, with two left feet? The one who asked when the Cincinnati Bears were playing?”
I bit back a grin. Pete, her husband, was a football fanatic and a huge fan of mine. When they were dating, Emma had asked me for a crash course on football so she could impress him. Flustered and pretty sure she was sitting across from the man of her dreams, she’d jumbled and bumbled everything together, which just made him fall more in love with her. When he told us some of the things she’d said on their first date, we’d howled. We did our best never to let her forget them. I’d even worked some of that shit into my wedding toast.
Told you I was a pesky younger brother.
“Yes, that’s the one,” I confirmed. “You know Emmie and football.”
“Mhmm,” he said suspiciously. “Anyway, Liam is losing a tooth and Luke is pretty jealous, especially since he knows the tooth fairy is coming. They both like their teacher this year, which was expected since she’s a big softy who uses a good behavior sticker system liberally.”
“Uh-huh.” I was already bored out of my mind. “That’s cool.”
“Isn’t it? Let’s see, what else? Liam is going through a robot phase right now, and he’s punctuating pretty much every sentence with the phrase beep beep.” Grant chuckled. “In his mind, he thinks he’s emulating a robot, but he sounds more like a dump truck backing up.”
“Uh-huh.”
He launched into a story about the twins leaving their belongings at school, embellishing every detail until I wanted to scream. Nothing was worth this. Nothing. “I swear that classroom is like the Bermuda Triangle. So I said okay, you’re not getting any new lunchboxes until you bring the old ones back—”
“Holy fuck, you got me.”
Grant made a victorious noise. “So you’ll cut the bullshit?”
“Yeah, whatever,” I said crossly. “But I do love you guys, you know.”
“I know that.” He sounded amused. “Now get to it.”
I paused for dramatic effect. “Mom is dating someone.”
“What?”
“Yeah. Exactly. I don’t know who or for how long.”
“Who?” Grant sounded flabbergasted. “And how long has this been going on?”
“What did I just say?” I said exasperatedly. “You’re going to have to be a lot sharper if we’re going to do this stakeout.”
“Stakeout,” he practically yelled.
I shushed him frantically. “For God’s sakes, Grant. Your first assignment is to watch a fuckin’ spy movie. Take good notes.”
“I’m not spying on my own mother.”
“We can’t just have her going out with anybody. We have to check this guy out. You know, make sure he has Mom’s best interest at heart.”
“We have brunch tomorrow. And you’re coming,” he said before I could offer an excuse. I shut my mouth. “Maybe we can suss out some details then. You know, before we break out the spy goggles.”
“We’d use binoculars. You moron.” I huffed out a breath. “I knew I should’ve called Emmie instead.”
He chuckled. “I just think this is the better route to go before we get all Mission Impossible in Mom’s rose bushes. Wait, hang on.” I heard the murmur of a female’s voice in the background and Grant called, “No, I did the load of darks, babe. The towels are still in the hamper.”
I couldn’t help but smile at their domesticity. They’d met when Kim had been assigned his tutor in college, and they’d been together ever since. Well, except for a dark two months when they broke up after graduation and tried dipping their toes in the dating pool. They quickly found out what most singles already know—the dating pool is more of a shitty slip and slide.
“You’re such a good hubby,” I teased.
“Shut up.” He wasn’t the least bit offended, cloaked in the confidence of a man who knew he had it good. “And Kim thinks we should plant a baby monitor and see how the date is going…which lets me know that I’m now surrounded by madness.”
“Your wife is a fuckin’ genius.” I paused. “Except I don’t want to see or hear anything that could scar me for life. Tell her we’ll meet for coffee and hammer out a good plan—”
“You’ll do no such thing. The two of you are going to wind up in jail for familial espionage.”
“That’s not a thing,” I shot back. “And how would they even find out—”
“I’d tell them.”
“Fuckin’ snitch,” I grumbled.
He laughed. “So where’s Brooks? I haven’t seen much of him lately.”
Wow. My family was batting a hundred on picking topics I didn’t want to fucking discuss. “Busy. You know Brooks.”
He sighed. “Fuck. I owe Mom fifty bucks.”
I scowled. “You people are unbelievable. And she said it was a hundred.”
“Double fuck. I was hoping she didn’t remember the amount.” He cursed again. “Well, I’d feel bad about betting on my brother’s relationship—”
“As any decent person should—”
“But we all knew it wasn’t going to last.”
“Thanks for the encouragement.”
“So if you’re not going out with Brooks, what are you doing tonight? And don’t say going home,” he added before I could even open my mouth. “You’ve been a fucking hermit lately.”
Well, forgive me for needing to work through some shit quietly. I’d trained hard this summer, worked my ass off in PT, and I still didn’t get my spot back. It was hard to be the good- time guy when you were feeling low…hell, I’d need a stepladder to get up to low.
“I have my reasons for that,” I finally said.
“Well, I know it can’t be about Brooks because as we’ve established, that shit wasn’t real. So it has to be about your knee.”
Leave it to Grant to cut right to the heart of things. “Maybe,” I admitted.
“Your injury is all but healed. This is just a temporary bump in the road. You know that.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“There’s a reason they call you Allstate, right? Every time you catch a fucking pass, the ball is in good hands. They need you out there.” I could hear the smile in his voice. “Hell, I need you out there so I can make good on some of these fucking bets. Kim already told me she won’t love me without kneecaps.”
I laughed. “Who could blame her?”
It felt good to joke about it. I rolled my shoulders and winced at how tight the muscles felt there. Guess I was more stressed than I thought. It was just all too easy for one game to turn into two and then slide into three. Before you knew it, I’d be traded. Or cut. I was starting to look less like Allstate and more like an insurance company that won’t answer the phone after you get rear-ended.
“I guess I’m just worried,” I admitted.
“Because they won one preseason game? Sorry they couldn’t keep losing until you got cleared by medical,” he said exaggeratedly. “You’re going to keep conditioning and training and you’re coming off the IR list.”
“Or Texas will keep doing his thing out there.”
“Possibly,” he agreed, which was part comforting, part annoying. I liked that he wasn’t going to bullshit me, but fuck, where was the love? He chuckled at my silence. “Now stop channeling your inner hermit and go out with the guys.”
“How do you know—”
“Because they won. And the Outlaws don’t win shit without partying about it.”
“Ev texted me earlier,” I admitted begrudgingly. “They’re at Warner’s place.”
“I knew it,” he crowed.
“Maybe you could come with me.”
“To an Outlaws’ party?” He practically squeaked. “You serious right now? And what would I tell Kim, exactly? Hey honey, I need you to finish cooking dinner, clean up all those dishes, and handle bath time and bedtime with the boys so I can head out to a party with my brother. And yes, there will be models and actresses there.”
I heard Kim talking in the background but I couldn’t quite make out the words. “What did she say?”
“She said I could go.”
“See? You want me to pick you up or—”
“You know, sometimes I forget how long it’s been since you and Joy were divorced,” Grant said dryly. “Clearly you’ve wiped all the finer nuances of marriage from your mind. Like a prisoner of war.”
“Which means….”
“It means I’d better go before she removes the Waterford vase from the pedestal in the foyer and replaces it with my head,” he said dryly. “Now git. I have at least five more loads of laundry to get through.”
“Fine,” I said with a sigh. “By the way, I use a laundry service. I’d be happy to pay for—”
“You know, AJ, sometimes just talking to you is enough.” His voice was unexpectedly warm for two guys who could sometimes get into an argument over which dip was the best. “We don’t need your money to love you.”
“I know that.”
“Then act like it.” He paused. “Besides, Kim would notice and kick my ass.”
I didn’t blame him for hanging up on me when I wouldn’t stop laughing. But the follow-up fuck you text message was a bit much. I grinned as I responded with a middle finger emoji. I knew they had bad times like everyone else, but they were buttressed by so much good. Truthfully, there was nothing Grant loved better than being at home with his family, and an Outlaw party couldn’t compare.
Growing up with parents that had a “dear God get a room” marriage, I’d always wanted that. Assumed I’d find that kind of love. When had I stopped looking?
Maybe after my divorce. My ill-advised marriage to my high school sweetheart had mostly been a “fuck-you, we know what we’re doing” to our parents and hadn’t lasted all that long. My more cynical friends swore Joy was trying to get her hooks in me before I got drafted, but I’d known better. We just weren’t right for each other. Getting married so young, we were bound to grow as we changed and learned more about ourselves. If you’re lucky and put in the work, you grow together. Joy and I had been better at growing apart.
Better yet, maybe I’d stopped looking sometime after my dad passed. Watching my mother try to recover and come up with some semblance of life hurt down to my bones. And neither Grant nor I could make it better. The only person who could make things better was interned at Pineview Cemetery. Why would I look to find a love like that? Why would anyone want to hurt like that?
I was getting melancholy as shit being alone with my thoughts. Grant was right and I needed to get out. I texted Everett that I was on the way to Warner’s place before I could change my mind, and tossed my phone in the cupholder.
Who knows? Maybe I’d even have fun.
2
ANDREW
I didn’t blame Fun for leaving the building. But tossing a match over his shoulder on the way out? Rude.
The setting certainly wasn’t the problem. Warner’s penthouse was incredible. As I sat on a modular white couch on the rooftop deck, Miami stretched in front of me as far as the eye could see, awash in lights and activity. It looked like you could reach out and grab handfuls of the sky. Warner’s girlfriend, a professional decorator, had flexed her muscles up here with cozy deck furniture. There was a bar, a professional grill and pizza oven, and a lap pool on the other side. The music was poppin’ and everybody was in a good mood, still running off a postgame high.
But a party is only as good as the people—also the food, don’t forget the fucking food—and there were several people here I was actively trying to avoid. Top on the list was Brooks. Apparently, Warner hadn’t gotten the memo that my cheating ex was exactly that.
He was doing his thing on the dance floor and didn’t look in my direction, not once, which let me know that he knew exactly where I was sitting. He was also wearing his favorite jeans, the ones with the strategic rips. I snorted as he did a little ass-shaking move. I hoped none of that was for my benefit. I had better things to do than watch Brooks drop it like it was lukewarm.
I headed for the bar. The bartender’s gaze was on me the entire way there, and he greeted me before I could even plunk my butt down on a stool. “What can I get you, sugar? And please say my number.”
I chuckled lightly. “Surprise me.”
It seemed like only a few seconds before he was back with something that looked like chocolate with whipped cream on top. “Here you are.”
I looked at him over the glass because I knew exactly what he’d made me, and it wasn’t what I’d had in mind. But I could be a good sport. I kept my gaze trained on his as I licked off some of the whipped cream and tossed the drink back. It was so sweet it made my teeth ache.
I slid the glass back his way with a little grin. “Thanks for the blowjob.”
He laughed. “My pleasure.” Someone down the bar called out for a drink, and he sent me a wink. “If you need another, ask for Rex.”
“Shameless,” someone muttered to my right as he plunked down on a bar stool.
I closed my eyes briefly and prayed for patience. I didn’t even need to turn to verify who it was. His distinct scent gave him away—some shampoo he used that smelled like papaya. “Should I even ask what you’re doing here?”
Brooks huffed. “Who do you think Warner called to plan the party?”
Right. Dating someone on the team had its advantages, after all. We liked to think of ourselves as a family, and that extended to our significant others. If you could throw someone a little business, you did. That was just the way we rolled. And Brooks had milked those connections for all they were worth.
