Blitzed (Rules of Possession Book 3), page 3
Well, that was certainly over. I didn’t want to put a crimp in his business, but I didn’t want to see him at every Outlaws’ function from now on either.
“Can you at least look at me?” He demanded. “I think I’m owed that much.”
I turned to face him with a sigh. Objectively, he was still model pretty—shiny blond hair and blue eyes that he made even bluer with contacts. And yes, he was the same guy that had messaged me on Instagram with a picture that made me nearly drop my phone, but today, I felt nothing. Seeing him on his knees in a club bathroom blowing some random guy had effectively killed every iota of affection or attraction I’d ever had for him.
I don’t know what he was expecting but he looked disappointed. I sympathized. It was probably a crushing blow to find out you can’t actually kill someone with your beauty.
“Better?” I asked drolly.
“You blocked my number,” he said, flashing those hurt baby blues that usually made me melt a little.
Nothing. Shit, maybe I’d better make sure I wasn’t dead. I glanced at my smartwatch to make sure I was still registering a pulse.
I didn’t bother with subterfuge. “Some people would take that as a hint.”
“I know you better than that.”
Lord. My right eye started to twitch as I prayed for patience. “Brooks. At the risk of being repetitive, let’s try this again. What are you doing here?”
“I thought we could catch up. We were friends once, weren’t we?”
Not especially. I didn’t see a reason to be hurtful…or unleash Brooks’ dramatic side, which was always just a few centimeters under the surface, lurking, waiting for any reason to emerge and throw glitter in your eyes. “I guess.”
“Okay, then. Friend.” He propped his chin on his hand. “How’re things?”
Well, let’s see. I tore my ACL which effectively stopped my career in its tracks. I was supposed to start this season, but PT said no. I think management is looking for a way to get rid of me, and my replacement is already doing amazing things on the field. I’m also facing felony charges of DUI. Oh, and I’m sitting here with you. So…you know. Everything is fucktastic.
“Good,” I said shortly. “Good drink. Good talk. Good day.”
He grabbed my wrist and I allowed him to pull me back down. “For fuck’s sake, it won’t kill you to sit with me for a few minutes. You here alone?”
“Actually…no,” I said slowly, because lying was a viable option to get out of uncomfortable situations and I wasn’t above doing it. “I’m seeing someone. It’s still pretty new.”
“Really?” Brooks sounded skeptical. “I hadn’t heard.”
“Why would you?” I asked reasonably.
“Well, where is he? None of your friends mentioned that you were dating someone.” His eyes flashed in the way they did when he wasn’t getting his way.
I was very familiar with that look. It was the same look he’d given me before he sideswiped a mailbox with my Lexus during an argument. He maintained it was an accident but I had my doubts.
“Is there a reason you’re hiding him?” He demanded.
“Hiding him? Don’t be so dramatic,” I said smoothly. “He’s a private person, and he hates a fuss. And I did invite him, but he had to work.”
“That’s too bad. I would’ve loved to meet him.” It was clear from his tone that he didn’t believe a word coming out of my mouth. “Maybe we should all have coffee sometime.”
“That would be nice.”
“Maybe even brunch.”
I could hear the challenge in his voice. My mouth quirked. He should know me better than that by now. Andrew McAdams didn’t back down from a challenge—not on the field and not in real life. Not even when I was blowing so much smoke that someone should pull a fire alarm. “Sounds good.”
“For God’s sakes.” Brooks scowled at me. “Can we stop playing games, please? Let’s just address the elephant in the room. You want me and I want you back.”
Oh, so sad. The elephant in the room was delusional. Now how to tell him that I didn’t want him back and he should feel free to head back to the grasslands. “Look—”
“Baby, I miss you.”
I blinked. Since when? Last I heard, he was dating some emo-singer, Xanthe, whose real name was Scott. “Yeah? And why’s that?”
As Brooks struggled for a good answer, I stared at him in confusion. I wasn’t sure the words I miss you had ever left his mouth before…at least, not about me. Not even my eight-week jaunt at training camp made him utter those words.
From the look on Brooks’ face, his inner quest wasn’t going well. I had to give him credit—at least he didn’t try the word love. I’d hate to leave a tight-end-shaped hole in Warner’s French doors.
“I feel the way I feel,” he finally said. “I shouldn’t have to explain it.”
I stared at him for a few moments, head tilted like he was a puzzle I just couldn’t figure out. And then I found the pieces I’d lost under the table. “You got dumped.”
“Xanthe did not dump me, thank you very much,” he snapped. “We mutually decided to go our separate ways.”
“Scott bounced your ass to the curb like a rubber ball. You cheated on him, didn’t you?”
His cheeks colored as he glared at me. “If you’re just going to be insulting, this is pointless.”
“Holy shit,” I blurted. “I didn’t really believe it. You actually…you know what? Never mind. It’s none of my business.”
Brooks leaned in closer so that our shoulders touched, his eyes large and languid on mine. I wasn’t sure how he worked those things the way he did, but they were his best weapon. A firm, round ass served as his backup weapon, like secondary artillery in the president’s limo.
His hand landed on my thigh, and I had to admit it was tempting. Just for a few seconds. I had no excuse except sometimes horny is as horny does. I hadn’t had sex since we’d broken up three months ago. Not because I was just so heartbroken, but it just seemed like too much trouble. This would be easy. Like…like putting on some of my go-to clothes that always fit just right.
I sighed exasperatedly at my own thoughts. Clearly, there was a reason Hallmark had never called me. My romance game was whack and I was going to die alone, right after someone slapped me for telling him earnestly that baby, fucking you is like slipping into a pair of my oldest jeans.
“As I said, I’m off the market,” I said lightly. “Sorry.”
“You put up the good fight, but I think we both know how this night ends,” he said with a wicked little smile. “Don’t worry. I’m sure your boyfriend won’t mind.”
“Yeah.” A voice came from behind us. “I rather think I would.”
3
ANDREW
Being a good player meant adjusting on and off the field, sometimes at the drop of a hat. The player who ran the play no matter what his defenders did wound up on his back, wondering what the fuck happened and if his spleen was back near the ten-yard line. So I was used to thinking on my feet. But at that moment, I could only blink at my lie come to life as Jesse Fox slid onto the stool to the left of me.
He leaned forward, bracing both elbows on the granite bar top. He was on the shorter side and slender—or maybe my perception was just skewed working with guys who could bench press a washing machine. His ass was neither compact nor slender, just the way I liked it. You could tell there was a lot of strength in that compact body.
Or maybe you couldn’t tell, and I’d just spent a lot of time imagining Jesse Fox naked.
His dark hair was longer than the last time I’d seen him. I couldn’t tell if it was messy on purpose or styled to look that way, but I liked it. He was wearing dark jeans that hugged his…well, everything just right, and a pale blue vee neck shirt that looked amazing against his creamy skin.
Suddenly, the proposition of going home alone didn’t seem quite as attractive.
I’d met him at a charity function a few years ago, and let’s just say I’d never been turned down so fast. He came to the same charity event every year, and our relationship had progressed to flirty casual.
Go out with me. I kept asking even though I knew what he’d say. He upheld his end of our unspoken bargain and kept saying it. Nope. My last nope had come with a little smile, though. Then he’d looked irritated with himself, as if he couldn’t believe he’d given me that much. It was fucked up and ironic beyond belief. The only guy that truly intrigued me in years wasn’t even remotely interested.
Or was he?
I eventually managed an erudite little, “Hey.”
Those dark green eyes danced with mischief as he leaned over and brushed a kiss over my scruffy cheek. “Sorry I’m late.” He turned to an extremely pouty Brooks and held out his hand. “Jesse. Nice to meet you.”
Brooks frowned as he shook his hand, and it looked like he was gripping a little harder than necessary. “Yeah,” he said a beat later than was polite. “It’s a real kick.”
My brain finally made the necessary readjustments to reenter the atmosphere safely. “Sweetheart.” The word felt strange on my lips. I wasn’t a sweetheart kind of guy. “I thought you couldn’t make it.”
“I shuffled some things around and I was able to get off work.”
“Aren’t we lucky?” Brooks murmured.
Rex came back by just then and we all proceeded to order drinks. He clearly had a nose for drama—he was so busy trying to eavesdrop on our small talk that he nearly dropped a liquor bottle. I could save him the trouble. Our small talk was dry. Super dry. In fact, I was pretty sure someone had doused our conversation in clinical deodorant.
Brooks did his part by setting a world record for frowning, while Jesse threw himself into the supporting role of fake boyfriend nicely. He sat so close to me that his thigh pressed up against mine, and I didn’t mind that shit at all. He also smelled good. Really good. I couldn’t identify the scent, but it made him smell like summer—something tropical and beachy. If there wasn’t a palm tree on the label of whatever he’d used, I’d give up my Superbowl ring.
“So where did you two meet?” Brooks asked suspiciously.
“At a charity event for cancer,” Jesse said smoothly.
Brooks looked Jesse up and down carefully. Insultingly. “So what, you play sports or something? I’ve never heard of you.”
“Actually, I’m a community center outreach coordinator.” Jesse looked amused. “But aren’t you sweet?”
I hid my smile in my drink. I knew Jesse could hold his own—I’d seen him put people in their place without them even realizing that he had. So I could just sit back and enjoy the show.
The charity event he’d referred to was yearly and went under the heading of “must-attend” for the team. Our GM’s wife and mother had breast cancer, so the cause was personal to him. And when Barnes said something was mandatory, I trotted out my tux and left an hour early, just in case.
Jesse had been seated next to me at dinner, a guest of Trace King who was a fullback for the Raptors. There had been a lot of tension between them that night. Trace spent the night flirting with the waitstaff while Jesse networked with Dare Wakefield, an affluent hedge fund guy who was seated across the table. By the time dinner was served, Jesse secured a one-time pledge. By the time the deconstructed cheesecake arrived, he’d turned that pledge annual.
Watching Jesse work the usually recalcitrant Wakefield with ease, I was intrigued. I wanted to get to know him. When he leaned over the table to reach for Wakefield’s business card, I got a better look at that ass and I wanted to get to know his body, too. My dick came to life in a way that made me scoot closer to the table.
My intrigue segued into determination.
Too bad he’d been very interested in ignoring me. Like expert-level ignoring. Like who’s that hitting on me, I don’t see anyone, must be a horny ghost ignoring.
Before they left, I’d pulled King aside and asked for Jesse’s number. I couldn’t have been more surprised when he practically got up in my face.
“Yeah, I don’t think so,” he said, practically vibrating with anger. “And I’d better not see you talking to him again.”
Or what hovered on the tip of my tongue. I went with a milder, “Why’s that?”
“Because I said so.”
“What are you, five?”
“Look. Just…just don’t. Okay?” He rubbed a hand over his closely shorn hair. He was known for having his barber shave things into his do, and he had his jersey number on one side and a snarling tiger on the other. “He’s off-limits, bro. And I need you to respect that.”
“What am I respecting, exactly?”
My brow furrowed as I tried to connect some weird-as-fuck dots. Because King was routinely in the news with women, so the vibe I was getting had to be wrong. It took me a minute to stop being thick.
I blinked. “Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh.”
“So you’re bise—”
“I’m gay,” he hissed. “Keep your fucking voice down.”
“How was I supposed to know?” I snapped. “Don’t be a dick.”
“You’re the only dick here,” he shot back. “Why would you try to mess up a good thing?’
“Can’t be that good if no one knows about it,” I said before I could think better of it, and he growled.
He got even closer, but he knew better than to touch me. I could admit that while I was generally laid-back, I was still a football player with reserves of aggression. That aggression fed on aggression, whether we were on the field or not.
I’d like to say I didn’t understand why he was keeping his relationship with Jesse a secret. That anything worth having was worth standing up for. That more of us should come out and force them to acknowledge we were here. We were your doctors, your neighbors, your coworkers, your firefighters. And our sexuality didn’t make a damn bit of difference in how we did our jobs.
But.
I could understand why he didn’t want that smoke. After several years of taking that smoke up the nostrils, I had days when I wished I’d never said anything at all. I’d lost friends. Endorsement deals. A homophobic second cousin who lived in the Bible belt…okay, no one gave a shit about Gerald. But for every supportive teammate, there was another who would rather I never came back on the field. A reporter had once labeled us the “rainbow team” in an article and Randy Carol, one of our defensive tackles, had nearly lost his shit. So I could understand why King wanted to keep his relationship quiet.
A year later, I saw that King had gotten engaged to some pro tennis player. She seemed to languish at the bottom of the rankings but made People’s most beautiful list year after year. I was sad that King had caved to the pressure. Sadder for Jesse because I knew breaking up sucked. Probably sucked more when your ex’s new relationship was splashed over social media…more still when Elle magazine dubbed their wedding the event of the year.
But King fucking up meant that Jesse was a free agent.
I harassed my agent until he got Jesse’s number for me. When I called, Jesse informed me that he was done with ballplayers. So. Yeah. Thanks, King. You gotta love it when one asshole ruins it for everyone.
Jesse nudged my thigh with his. “Isn’t that right, AJ?”
I didn’t need the nudge—his usage of my nickname alone jerked me right out of the past, and I blinked at him. I wasn’t sure he’d ever used it before, like that would help keep distance between us.
“Um, yeah,” I agreed without any knowledge of what I was agreeing to. No one looked at me amiss, so I guessed I hadn’t agreed to anything crazy.
Remind me not to sit next to Jesse in a police interrogation. You heard him, folks. He said, “Um, yeah.” That’s all the confession we need. Lock his ass up.
Jesse kept a hand on my arm as he chatted with Rex, and I already missed his regard. Luckily, looking at his profile was no hardship. I liked that he didn’t seem to care or notice how attractive he was. His dark, messy hair would probably have trouble picking a brush out of a lineup. In a world gone nuts on filters and retouching, his careless beauty was hard to look away from.
I stared some more. He had a cute nose that was a little upturned at the end. And long lashes that were dark and spiky. He also had a freckle under his left eye that I hadn’t seen before. I wondered what else I’d missed.
Realizing he and Rex were now looking at me expectantly, I sat up straighter. Apparently what I’d missed was the freaking conversation. Christ. Couldn’t a man replenish his spank bank in peace?
“What now?” I asked in irritation.
His lips tilted. “Rex here wants to know if you’ll sign a jersey for his sister, who is a big fan. And in response to that lovely compliment, you stared at him blankly and then barked what now.”
I laughed, embarrassed, wondering if I’d ever get used to people fanning out right to my face. “Sorry. Yeah, sure. Just give me her information and I’ll make sure that she gets it.”
“Told ya.” Jesse sent a beaming Rex a wink. “My honey never likes to disappoint a fan.”
I barely held in a guffaw. Granted, I didn’t know him all that well, but pet names and endearments didn’t seem like Jesse’s style. “You know your honey.”
I ignored Brooks’ mutter on my other side. I didn’t catch all the words, but he distinctly made a reference to retching. I smothered a grin. Hadn’t he heard? The ability to make singles retch from your love is couple goals. Clearly, we were doing something right.
A few minutes later, Jesse slid off his stool and stood. I tried not to let disappointment set in. I’d always liked talking to him, but he was as stingy with his company as he was with giving out personal information. He gave a long stretch, causing his shirt to ride up. I didn’t even pretend to look away. He was mine, wasn’t he? Even if it was fake.
“I need a smoke,” he said, patting his pockets.
“You know I hate it when you do that,” I said, as if I had any say in what Jesse did or did not do.
“Just a quick one. This was nice though, wasn’t it?” He walked around me and leaned in close to Brooks. His voice was low and measured but I heard him with no trouble. “If I hear about you hitting on my boyfriend again, we’re going to have a conversation that’s not so nice. Understood?”
