Home Field Advantage

by Liz Lincoln

  Calm began to wrap around him, that sense of peace he yearned for. Fiddling with wires soothed his soul for reasons he’d probably never understand.

  He was so in the zone, he didn’t notice the door creaking open or slamming shut. When Natalie’s head was suddenly next to his, long hair spilling onto the radiator, he startled.

  And promptly slammed his head on the hood of the car. “Ow, shit.”

  He shuffled backward, away from the offending machine and the complicit woman. He hadn’t hit it hard and it would be fine in a minute. But for now he was going to milk it a little as the initial sting faded to a throb.

  Natalie rushed to him, hands out. “I’m sorry, are you O—” She stopped a foot away, as if realizing the situation for the first time. She took two steps back. “Are you OK?” she repeated, her voice tighter than a moment ago.

  Quinn rubbed at his head. “I’ll be fine.”

  Awkward silence settled around them. Made more awkward by his body’s automatic reaction to being this close to her, the way it seemed to reach toward her. His hormones hadn’t gotten the memo that he distinctly did not like her.

  “Do you need something?” The words came out harsher than he’d intended, but maybe that was OK. It would keep distance between them. The last thing he needed was to forget what she’d done to his career and let himself open up to her betrayal again. Twice was plenty.

  She glanced at the Porsche, then back to him. Her expression was tense, her blue eyes stormy. Quinn had to shove his hands in his pockets to keep from reaching for her. The instinct to soothe her was still strong.

  “I, uh, I’m heading out. Matt said I should check out your car first. He knows I’m into that too. Though I don’t think he knows about our…well, how you got into…” Her voice trailed off. She cleared her throat as if that could eliminate some of the discomfort between them. “Anyway, I’ve never worked on a Porsche, and I’ve always wanted to. I thought I’d give her a look.”

  She was hitting him where he was most vulnerable: his cars. She knew how much he loved to show off his cars. He couldn’t help the way his chest puffed up, just a little. And before he could think better of it, he got out his phone and pulled up his photo album.

  Making yet another bad choice, he moved close to her and held up the phone for her to see. “She was a wreck when I got her.”

  Natalie looked at the picture, then at the car. She went back and forth a few times, her expression assessing. “Wow, you really have done a lot of work. Nice job.”

  Pleasure flushed through him; he liked her compliments more than he should. “Thanks.”

  She scrolled to the next picture, the car from a different angle, showing off some of the huge dents on the passenger side.

  Being this close to her, her shoulder brushing his when she moved, had his whole body on edge. In a way that felt too good. The urge to brush her hair aside and bury his face in her neck slammed into him, catching him off guard.

  A memory flashed in his head, of how he used to wrap all that hair around his fist as he kissed her. Or as she rode him, moaning his name. How he’d used it to tug her lips to his when he was deep inside her.

  Fucking hell. Why couldn’t she have cut it off? Or at least put it in some severe bun so it didn’t remind him of the way it tickled his nose as he slept with her in his arms.

  Shit. This was too much. How the hell had he gotten here?

  At least he had a whole helluva lot to talk to Meg about tomorrow at therapy.

  His fight-or-flight instinct kicked in, and he shoved the phone back into his pocket. “I—” he started, intending to make up an excuse about needing to study his playbook.

  “What are you working on now?” Natalie went back to the hood of the car, leaning in to see what he’d done under there.

  Don’t answer her. Tell her you need to watch video. Hell, tell her you need to trim your nose hairs. Just get the hell away from her.

  Proving yet again that he was his own worst enemy, Quinn ignored the voice in his head and followed her to his car. “I’m trying to fix the alternator, but I’m not having much luck.”

  “What’s it doing?” she asked. She straightened and started twisting her hair into a long rope.

  Round and round and round she twisted, mesmerizing Quinn. In his pocket, his hand itched to reach out and help her.

  She wound the rope around itself, then tucked the end through itself and tugged. She’d literally tied her hair in a knot. Why did he find that fascinating? And why the hell did it turn him on?

  Oblivious to his staring, Natalie stuck her head back under the hood. She bent over, giving him a prime look at her perfect ass. He really loved her ass.

  Clearly he’d pissed off a whole host of gods for them to torture him like this.

  It took all the willpower he’d ever had to stand next to her rather than behind her, pressing his half-hard cock into her gorgeous ass. But no matter how much his body wanted that, some part of him remained smart enough to resist. Besides, she’d given absolutely no indication that she harbored even the slightest lingering feelings for him.

  No, she’d made it pretty clear she couldn’t stand him. She was only here because she apparently loved classic cars more than she disliked him.

  He shoved all that baggage to the back of his head. “The alternator is making some sort of rumbling sound.”

  She turned to glance at him, then reached under the hood. “That sounds like bearings.” Her fingers went to work, twisting this and tugging that.

  Quinn couldn’t do anything but watch. She’d always been best at the mechanics of the car; he was better with bodywork. She understood the engineering and physics behind how they worked. If she hadn’t done sports journalism, she could have had a successful career in engineering. Her sharp mind was one of so many things he’d loved about her.

  He lost track of time as they worked side by side, slowly smoothing out the kinks in his car. As a team, she identified problems and he handed her tools to fix them. They finished with the alternator and moved on to the transmission. Here he identified the need and she handed over wrenches.

  Almost like it had been so many years ago. Minutes and eventually hours ticked by and the outside world didn’t matter. A finely oiled machine, they were in sync.

  Almost like they were friends.

  Chapter 5

  “Lasagna day is the greatest day,” Jaron sang off-key, holding his fork like a microphone as he gave an impassioned impromptu concert in honor of his favorite food. On the table in front of him, his plate was piled with three slices of the pasta dish, four pieces of garlic bread stacked on top.

  “No way.” Matt shook his head as he forked up a huge bite. “Nothing is better than Waffle Wednesday.”

  “Trask, care to weigh in?” Quinn asked the kicker, grinning. He didn’t have a preferred menu. All the food in the Dragons cafeteria was amazing.

  “Taco Tuesday or get the fuck out.” Trask grabbed a piece of ice out of his water cup and flicked it at Jaron. “And, man, shut the fuck up. We’ve been over this. No more singing until you learn to carry a damn tune.”

  “Lasagna, you taste so good in my mouth.” Jaron ignored his friend’s directive, still crooning into his fork.

  Trask wasn’t exaggerating. His singing sounded like someone stepped on a goose.

  They continued arguing about which meals were the best. Quinn mostly sat back and listened, enjoying the banter, the camaraderie. He’d missed this part of football almost as much as he’d missed the game itself.

  Living in Boulder with his parents had been lonely as fuck. His dad was angry with him for being weak, because that was how he viewed addiction. Quinn should have been able to keep it under control. His mom babied him, treated him like she had when he was four and had a cold. But neither understood.

  Worse, neither ha
d shown any interest in trying to understand.

  And the few friends he had from high school who were still in Boulder had lived completely different lives. They were in nine-to-five jobs, with wives or girlfriends. A couple had kids. He didn’t know how to relate to that. Not when they didn’t have any common ground other than high school.

  He’d felt so fucking alone. His therapist in Colorado had talked about the importance of building a support system, but how the hell did he even begin doing that? Maybe that had been one of the forces driving him back to football. The friendships built around the shared goal of the game were lifelong bonds. His friends from his other teams had supported him from afar, but they too were busy with their lives on their teams.

  Now he had a new team. A new family. He and Matt had clicked from the first moment they met and, while Quinn would never admit it to the guys, he was glad to have a roommate. The hotel room he’d stayed in when he first got to Milwaukee had been almost as lonely as Boulder. And the prospect of an apartment by himself had been enough to give him chills.

  With the help of his therapist, he’d figured out that he needed other people around. He was quiet and largely sat on the edge of the group, observing and listening, but he still needed to be part of it.

  And now he was. The group of guys around the table had become his closest friends. And the larger group of the team, the coaches, the trainers, the whole Dragons organization had become his support system. He felt at home in a way he hadn’t even in Vegas. He’d loved playing with the Scorpions, but there was something about the way Coach Crosby managed his players that made it feel even more connected.

  “Hey, Donovan. What’s your ugly ass doing tomorrow night?” Marcus called to the wide receiver at the next table.

  “Your mom’s busy, so I guess I got no plans,” Ricky Donovan shot back with a shrug.

  “Fuck you, my mom’s way too good for you.” Marcus sneered at the other man, but there was a lightness in his words that said he was playing.

  Quinn was pretty sure Marcus’s mom was a renowned neurologist or brain surgeon or something. So yeah, she was way too good for all of them.

  “That’s not what she said last night.” Donovan grinned.

  Quinn joined in the whoops and laughter and general merriment surrounding them. Even Marcus was grinning.

  As the noise died down, Marcus said, “Since your sorry ass is free, drag it to Bubble. We’re having a birthday party for Trask.”

  Donovan nodded. “Yeah, sure. I can do that. You need dentures, right?”

  “Fuck you.” Trask threw an ice cube across the gap between tables, hitting Donovan in the temple.

  “How old you gonna be?” Quinn asked. He used a piece of garlic bread to wipe up sauce from his plate. Damn, that was good stuff.

  “Thirty-three.”

  Not much older than Quinn. But in a league where they beat the shit out of their bodies on a regular basis, a lot of men retired before they hit thirty. Still, Trask was a kicker. He didn’t take the kind of hits the rest of them did. He could have another eight or ten years.

  Quinn, on the other hand, probably had less than five. He’d been a major contributor to the team’s 4-0 start, and in many ways, he felt better than ever. Probably because he wasn’t filling his body with booze and pills.

  But in other ways, he definitely felt his age. He’d left the league in his twenties; he was returning in his thirties. It made a difference.

  “Hey, you’re coming, right?” Matt asked.

  It took Quinn a moment to realize the quarterback was talking to him. “What?” He looked from Matt to Trask to Marcus. “What’s Bubble?”

  “Me, Trask, and Jaron own this club downtown,” Marcus said. “Got people who run it, but it’s a decent investment. You should come with us tomorrow.”

  Quinn’s throat squeezed. A club. He’d spent a lot of time with NFL players in clubs. Drinking. Swallowing whatever pill someone handed him. Drinking more. And then having another drink after that.

  Dancing and drinking and pills and drinking. That had been his life in his twenties.

  “I don’t know.” He continued looking around at his friends’ faces. Hadn’t he just been thinking how nice it was to fit in? Nothing like a slap in the face reminder that no, he didn’t.

  “I’m not really gonna be drinking either,” Matt said, his expression a little too close to the overdone sympathy Quinn’s mom smothered him in. “I’m the biggest damn lightweight in the world, and flying Saturday with a hangover will wreck me. I wanna beat the Vipers. Which means I have no more than one beer.”

  That would help. He had therapy after practice tomorrow, so he and Meg could strategize. Figure out how he could resist temptation.

  “Most of us won’t have more than one,” Marcus said. “It’s hard enough to drag our asses out of bed to work on a Saturday.”

  Fuck it. He’d had a champagne glass shoved in his hand and managed to walk away from that. He could do this.

  Just remembering that moment at Coach’s party had chills running through him. But he was strong. He had too much to lose if he took a drink. And these guys, his friends, would look out for him.

  “Sure. I’ll go.”

  * * *

  —

  Clubbing was really not Natalie’s thing. She danced like the extremely white girl she was, she wasn’t a big drinker thanks to her experiences with her alcoholic dad and Quinn, and she much preferred to sit and talk in a coffee shop than yell over music. Add in the fact they were at a club owned by three of the Dragons, and she really wished she’d been able to think of a reason to stay home.

  But Annie had somehow talked her into joining her and their friend Samantha at Bubble. When Natalie suggested they go to a different bar, Sam had insisted they couldn’t go anywhere else. It was the hottest club in town and she was on a mission to hook up. Natalie was pretty sure Sam wanted her to introduce them to any players who might be there.

  The second they walked through the door, Natalie’s back teeth started vibrating from the volume of the music. It was going to be a long night.

  “I’ve never been here,” Samantha yelled, leaning close to Natalie. “Have you?”

  “A few times.” Always for something related to a story. This was her first time independent of the Dragons.

  So who was the first person her gaze landed on as she scanned the dance floor?

  Quinn.

  Goddammit. Why was he here? Sure, he’d become friends with the players who owned it. But she’d been sure that even if they were there, Quinn would stay home. Half the point of going to a club was to drink. The other half, to find a hookup.

  And there he was, hand on the hip of a tall brunette as he danced in his awkward, gangly way.

  Memories of dancing with him at college parties, of running their hands over each other and rocking their hips together, flooded her. Her face felt like she’d been scalded.

  The old familiar anger and frustration choked her, and she had to turn away. “I’m getting a drink. First round’s on me.” Quinn might not be able to drink, but she sure as hell could. And who knew? Maybe he was off the wagon. That wasn’t her problem.

  She wiggled her way up to the bar, watching the bubbles dance beneath the champagne pink surface as she waited for the bartender.

  “Was that Quinn?” Annie pressed against Natalie’s back, speaking into her ear. Annie’s long dark hair tickled Natalie’s bare shoulder.

  Natalie could only nod. Her reaction was ridiculous. She had no right to be upset that he might be drinking. He owed her nothing. Their relationship was older than ancient history. And she certainly had no claim to be jealous of him with another woman.

  So why were her eyes itchy, and why did she have to keep her hands wedged into her jean pockets to stop herself from drumming them on the bar?

 
“Wow, I wouldn’t have expected him to be here.”

  The bartender came over and grinned, his white teeth brilliant against his dark skin. “What can I get you?”

  Natalie ignored her friend’s comment as she ordered. Once they had their drinks, Sam found them a high-top table off to the side. They stood and sipped and shouted and Natalie tried her damnedest to keep her gaze from drifting back to the dance floor. She really did try.

  She did not succeed. Anytime she paused her mantra of don’t look don’t look don’t look, she looked. She watched.

  And dammit, she longed. Which was so completely unfair. She didn’t even like him. Or, she didn’t want to like him, at least. And he looked more goofy than sexy when he danced. But her body and her hormones refused to forget how good things were between them.

  “You’re way hotter,” Annie said into Natalie’s ear.

  Natalie startled, sloshing her drink on the table. “Than who?”

  Annie rolled her eyes, her heavily made-up eyelashes fluttering. “That woman he’s dancing with.”

  There was no use pretending she didn’t know who Annie was talking about. “She’s very pretty.” She was. Leaning into him and running her hands over his chest, she was also flirtatious and forward in a way Natalie sometimes wished she were.

  Not that she’d be forward and flirtatious with Quinn.

  Still, part of her wanted to go wedge herself between them and get to feel that hard thigh between hers as his hand guided her hip. The bunch and shift of his shoulders under her hands. And the heat in his eyes as they darkened, burning her as they moved over her body.

  She had to put a hand to the corner of her mouth to make sure she wasn’t drooling. Tonight was such a bad idea.

  At least she’d probably be able to squeeze some five-hundred-word gossipy story out of it to appease Ellen. Her boss had emailed every day that week to ask where she was on interviewing Carrie Chamberlain about her wedding to linebacker Seth Chamberlain. Ellen had told Natalie to write a story about the wedding, because apparently that’s how SLNT thought they could gain more female readers.