Blitzed (Rules of Possession Book 3), page 9
“I’m allowed, but thanks for your fake-ass concern.” His eyes sparkled. “Kelly said I could as long as I didn’t try to make a comeback. According to him, I’m not Tom Brady and I have enough championship rings.”
I blinked at him for a few seconds, fucking rocked. “Enough…enough Super Bowl rings?” I checked, just to be sure.
Coach goggled at such blasphemy and I couldn’t blame him. Strung together in that sequence, the words didn’t even make sense. “That’s just not possible,” he finally said.
“Thank you,” Blue said with feeling.
We all took a moment of silence to acknowledge the very wrongness of such thinking. After one last shake of his head, Coach set his sights on me again. “I want you to work closely with Montgomery. I brought you the fucking blueprint. Now make a fucking copy.”
I stiffened, but Blue was already on it. “McAdams has his own skills.” He gave me a crooked smile. “We just have to get his knee in good shape, but then he’s going to do it his way.”
“As long as that way involves winning, I don’t give a good goddamn.”
“Love the pep talk.” I tried to temper the defensiveness in my tone. All the reasons they’d dubbed me Allstate were still true. I had good hands on the field and fumble wasn’t in my vocabulary. “Have I ever given you a reason to doubt me?”
Because irony is and always would be a bitch, my SCRAM bracelet happily buzzed against my ankle.
Coach stared.
Buzzz. Buzzz.
Blue stared.
Buzzzzz.
I sat back in my seat with a huff. The damned thing was probably sending data, which it did randomly, and I silently urged it to shut the fuck up. I wanted to get back up on my high horse before the damned thing wandered off.
“So that happened,” Blue said when it finally stopped vibrating.
When I continued to sit there, building my monument to chill, Coach slapped his desk. “I'm sorry, I didn’t realize I was paying you millions to lounge. Get out of my office, Allstate.”
“Maybe we should call your ass Liberty Mutual until you’re back in shape,” Blue said with a grin.
I glared at his back as I followed him out of the office. We passed a couple of people in the halls that greeted Blue with an enthusiasm I reserved for floofy puppies.
“Bruh!” Dane ran up from behind us and slapped him on the back of the head, a move that Blue returned with a grin. Dane was in workout sweats, a sweating water bottle in one hand and his phone in the other. “The fuck you doing here? I was just getting used to not seeing that ugly mug.”
Blue beamed like he was holding up the heir apparent in The Lion King. “You’re looking at the new assistant coach.”
“Fuck yes!” Dane was so stoked that I started to fear for his safety. And mine, as he punched me in the shoulder to include me in the celebration. “It hasn’t been the same without you in the workout room. This is gonna be tight.”
I dunno, it felt a little loose to me.
I gestured toward the doors to the workout facility. “I’ll catch up with you guys later. I’m gonna get started.”
“Later, bro,” Dane said, fist-bumping me. He threw an arm around Blue’s shoulders. “My girl wants to do dinner with you and Kelly this weekend. You free?”
Yet another thing Blue has that I don’t, I groused. A stable relationship with the man he loved. I walked away to the sound of them ribbing each other. My primary question remained unanswered. Why was he even here?
He didn’t need the money. He couldn’t be bored with retirement yet. He’d left with plans to expand his family with Kelly and lay back and get fat. Wait, I’m sorry, not fat—thick. Kelly informed me that there was a difference, and I knew better than to question his expertise. Either way, I wasn’t sure what part of getting fat/thick and relaxing involved coming back to this facility and running me through drills. People already compared me to Blue too much. The last thing I needed was a side-by-side comparison.
“Hey, hold up!”
I glanced back to see Blue jogging to catch up, and I sighed as he fell into a walk beside me. “You're like a bad fucking penny.”
“A bad fucking penny who is going to keep your ass from getting cut.” He dropped the joking. “What the fuck is going on with you anyway?”
“Nothing,” I muttered. “You never blow off any steam?”
“I was never stupid enough to get a DUI, no.”
“So I’ve heard,” I said dryly.
“Hey.” His voice softened a bit. “I’m going to help you get back to where you need to be. Once an Outlaw, always an Outlaw, right?”
I searched his expression for the truth of that and his blue eyes were guileless. Was it that simple? Just…support in its purest form?
I felt unexpectedly emotional about that shit. Part of Blue’s magic as a respected veteran on the team was pulling people together. Some might not like him or even want him on the team—and fuck had there been a lot of that after the whole coming out situation—but everyone respected his game. Respected him as a person. I was starting to see why.
He held out his fist and I bumped it. “Let’s get after it.”
It was the best training session I’d had in a while.
Blue didn’t say anything as he watched me cool down with some stretches. Instead, he just smiled before downing three-quarters of a bottle of Powerade. Guess it was thirsty work living rent-free in my head all day.
“I want to do HIIT work tomorrow,” I grumbled.
“You’re doing yoga,” he informed me cheerfully. “Tight ends are big guys but we need to be graceful on our feet. Right now, you’re about as graceful as a herd of buffalo.”
“I’m plenty graceful,” I protested…maybe a little louder than I intended. “When I have a football in these hands, I’m a freaking ballerina.”
Dane and Carson stopped talking to harass me with whistles. “You don’t hear that too often from a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound ball player,” Carson said with a laugh.
“Also, no the fuck you aren’t,” Dane added. “You stepped on my toe the other day and I thought that shit was broken.”
“You fuckers know what I meant,” I shot back. “And I’m two-thirty. Get it right.”
“You’re about ten pounds over goal, is what you are,” Blue corrected. “I looked at your chart. With all this fucking exercise, you shouldn’t have problems making weight.”
“I’m conditioning—”
“To have a bigger ass? I’d say you’re all set on that,” he said, blue eyes sparkling. “Stop by nutrition and get your diet overhauled. I don’t intend to spend any more valuable time watching you drag ass.”
I put my earlier warm and fuzzies in the shredder and crosscut them. When he put me back up on the treadmill, I lit the tattered pieces of our friendship on fire and scattered the ashes to the wind. The day that fucker got inducted to the Hall of Fame, I was going to be waiting at his ceremony with two dozen rotten eggs.
10
ANDREW
Jesse was watching me again.
I was sure of it. If I had to guess, he was probably standing next to his judgmental little window in his judgmental little office, his judgmental little face pulled in a frown. He’d made it clear that he wanted to keep things professional. He was also as stingy as ever with any personal information. And frankly, I was a little tired of asking.
I glanced up at his window again.
I couldn’t even virtually stalk him properly. He didn’t have any social media to speak of unless it related to the center. He never posted any fucking pictures. The only online proof that he wasn’t a figment of my imagination were pictures posted by the staff. He was usually working in those—volunteering someplace or building something. There was even one where he was dressed as a vampire and handing out grab bags on Halloween. He hadn’t been all that committed to the costume—throwing on a cape with some jeans and a graphic tee does not a vampire make.
I looked at that picture for a little while. He was especially gorgeous when he smiled, which was not often, not for long, and rarely at me. That was okay, though. His frowns worked in my fantasies, too. He hated the fact that I could affect him so strongly, and I fucking lived for that shit.
I waved but the half-turned blinds of his office window didn’t move an inch.
Oh, he’s good.
I lifted the bottom of my shirt to wipe my face, exposing my sweaty abs. When I finally dropped my shirt, the blinds were closed. I huffed out a laugh and refocused on Harper, a kid who seemed determined to become my actual shadow.
When he’d asked me to practice with him, I couldn’t say no. His boyfriend, Travis, had joined us, setting up camp on the grass with his netbook. Frankly, it seemed like he’d rather be inside but he wasn’t going anywhere until Harper did. He also didn’t seem to like me very much.
Now and again, he looked up from his computer and shouted something encouraging. I wasn’t sure if he knew anything about football…or sports in general. It was hard to keep a straight face when he instructed Harper to go for the easy layup.
Harper understood the rules of the game, but he wasn’t that great at it. No matter. I slapped the football a few times before I sent it back. I tempered my throw, trying to remember there was a scrawny fifteen-year-old kid on the other end of it, not an Outlaw ready to sacrifice life and limb to make the play.
I grinned at Harper’s whoop as he ran for it. “I got it, I got it,” he shouted the whole way. The ball started to make the downward arc and he wasn’t in the trajectory. Like, at all. He poured on the speed, arms pumping. “I got it!”
“He don’t got it,” Travis observed.
I shushed as the ball bounced on the ground. Harper snagged it off the grass. He fumbled immediately, kicked it with his sneaker, and dove for it again. Yowza. He finally held up the ball in a pose more triumphant than the Statue of Liberty with her torch. I bit my lip to keep from laughing.
“Told you I had it,” he declared.
Travis snorted, and I whispered, “Shut it,” out of the corner of my mouth before saying loudly, “you sure did.”
I beckoned for Harper to throw the ball back and he did, showing the same amount of lackluster technique he’d been showing all afternoon. I lunged forward and caught it as he made a face. “I’m sorry. I know I suck.”
“You don’t suck. You need practice. You also need to throw at the person, not the ground.” I turned the football in my hands and he watched carefully as I demonstrated the proper way to throw it. “Okay, go long.”
I sent him a beauty that did its best to land in his hands. And yet…I watched in dismay as the ball bounced off his shoulder. “I got it,” he yelled as he went for it.
I sighed. “Yep.”
He scooped up the ball and trotted back over. His phone started to ring where he’d tossed it on his book bag, and Travis said, “Phone,” as if we didn’t have ears.
Harper ignored that as he told me earnestly, “I’m better at soccer.”
He was gangly with strong legs, so I could see that. For his sake, I was also glad that the sport he loved didn’t require the use of his hands. When it was clear he wasn’t going to say anything more, I asked the obvious question. “Why don’t you play soccer then?”
“I do. I’m on my school’s team. But my dad likes football, so I’m hoping to try out for that, too.” He flipped a long hank of caramel-colored hair out of his eye. “He and my uncle tried out for the Dolphins, you know.”
I waited for the end of that statement, and it took me a few seconds to realize that it was finished. “Ah, I see.” That was his father’s claim to fame, his moment of glory, and he was determined that Harper continue his legacy. “Well, your dad had the chance to play the sport he loved. This is your shot.”
“Which I’ve said about a bazillion times,” Travis said, not looking up from his drawing. “There’s like, literally no point anymore.”
I hid a smile as Harper sent his boyfriend a frown. “I want to play football,” he said stubbornly. “It’s already going to be a disappointment that I’m…you know.”
“Gay,” I said loudly. Because there wasn’t a damn thing wrong with that.
He flushed bright red even as he nodded. “Yeah. That.”
“There’s more to you than sports, Harper.”
There’s more to me than sports, too. I reminded myself of that, often. I’d seen a lot of that in the NFL. Some guys played until they couldn’t, and it wasn’t for the money or the fame. They just didn’t know who they were without football. I planned to leave the game long before they had to cart me off the field on a stretcher. I didn’t know what I wanted to do yet, but I’d figure it out.
Maybe…something at a community center. I enjoyed the work more than I thought I would. Maybe one day I could be the director of athletics. Not at the Harbor, though. I grinned at the thought of Joshua Knox issuing me a staff ID badge. Jesse would murder me before I could even proudly hang it on a lanyard.
Harper’s phone rang again and Travis leaned over to peer at it. “Dude. It’s your mom. You know how she gets when you ignore her calls.”
“I know, I know.” He checked his watch and groaned. “Crap, I’m late.”
Harper jogged over to his book bag, grabbed it off the ground, and slung it over his shoulder. I followed slower, flipping the football. I always felt better with it in my hands. And yes, I knew a shrink would have a field day with that.
“I gotta go,” Harper said a little shyly. “You’ll be here tomorrow?”
“Um….” I reviewed my schedule in my head and realized very quickly that could not be less possible. I had a meeting with a sports drink company that was looking for a new spokesperson. Ari hadn’t minced words. You should thank your lucky stars that anyone wants to sponsor you right now. I called in a favor. Don’t let me down.
Missing the meeting would mean certain death. Ari didn’t often do any manual labor, but I was pretty sure he’d make an exception for the introduction of his well-manicured hands to my unsuspecting neck.
“I can’t make it.” As Harper’s face fell fifteen stories, I scrambled to catch it. “Maybe I can come to your next soccer practice.”
“Really?”
He looked like I’d just offered him a slice of the moon, and that solidified an iffy plan into a sure fucking thing. I wasn’t sure anyone had ever looked so excited for my company. Not without me giving them something tangible.
“Yeah, really.” I ruffled his hair as his phone started ringing again. “You’d better go. If you ignore your mother’s calls three times in a row, she just appears out of your phone as a hologram.”
He rolled his eyes but finally got moving in the right direction. Travis was hot on his heels. Even as they took off, I could hear him harassing Harper for gawking and flirting. No, I don’t care how unbelievably hot he is, we’re supposed to be in love, he grumbled.
I snorted, silently wishing Harper luck with his handful.
I glanced at my watch and realized I’d spent an hour more than I’d intended to. Working with kids had a way of sucking you in—they needed so much and soaked up your attention like needy little sponges. It had been a long time since anyone made me feel useful for something other than football.
When I walked into the building, I nearly plowed into Jesse. I muttered sorry on autopilot, even though it wasn’t my fault. Who would’ve expected to find him standing there right at the door, peering out of the glass cutout like a weirdo?
He crossed his arms as he gave me a severe frown, and I decided not to tell him that he didn’t look imposing when he did that. He just looked hot as hell. He had on a soft gray shirt and worn black jeans that could not have cupped his ass better. Against my will, my gaze was drawn to his mouth again. It was the kind of mouth that people pumped their lips with filler for. And I’d give just about anything to see it stretched around my cock.
Fat chance.
He didn’t beat around the bush. “Harper told me you promised to go to his practice on Thursday.”
“Yeah? So?”
“So you shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep.”
He sure was less hot when he opened that mouth of his. He was also lucky I didn’t offend easily. Most of that was probably from my background in sports. I wasn’t sure Coach Maxwell knew how to say McAdams without yelling it, usually followed by the instruction to act like you want to fucking be here.
“That’s good advice,” I said mildly. “And here’s some for you—stop pretending you know anything about me that you can’t read on TMZ.”
His chin tilted pugnaciously, which really shouldn’t make me want to drag my fingers across his stubbled jaw. “I know enough,” he shot back. “Harper already thinks you hung the moon. Your words mean something to him.”
“You don’t think I know that?”
“I think you live in a world where people say we should catch up sometime with no intention of doing so, or I’ll call you for sure when they don’t even have your number.”
That steady gaze was cool and knowing. I flushed a little because yeah, guilty. If I called everyone back who wanted to speak to me, I’d have to surgically attach my phone to my hand. But fuck, it was so irritating when Jesse’s little assumptions were right.
“What’s your point?” I growled.
“Don’t fuck with my kids,” he said softly. “You’re only going to be here for a short amount of time, and you’re only here because you have to be. An egotistical ball player with a DUI under his belt and more money than sense is not the kind of role model they need.”
Jesse looked sorry—if defiant—but he didn’t take it back. That was a lot of courage for someone who only came up to my shoulder.
I wavered in between feeling judged and realizing that I’d earned his judgment. It was kind of hard to defend yourself when you were wearing an ankle monitor. SCRAM bracelets should come equipped with a label that reads, tell me without telling me that your life isn’t going the way you planned.
