Beauty and the Beefcake

by Pippa Grant

  But that’s not the problem.

  Something’s wrong in the air.

  I blink in the darkness.

  Loki’s staring at us.

  Sitting on Gammy’s nightstand.

  Watching us sleep.

  Okay, creepy.

  But it’s not until the hall light flips on outside the bedroom that I realize the monkey isn’t what’s bothering me.

  “Fecility,” my brother slurs two seconds before he lists into my doorway. “We talks to gots.”

  He has the beginnings of a black eye, a split lip, and a cut across his cheek. Even without the slurred speech, I’d know my brother was six sheets past the wind.

  He has that glassy-eyed, crooked smile, and his shirt’s on backwards.

  Which is fucking impressive, considering it’s a collared polo.

  I leap up, realize I’m naked as a jaybird, and slap one hand between my thighs while the other shields my nipples. “Get out,” I hiss.

  I try to slam the door, but Ares is stirring behind me, and even Drunk Nick recognizes what’s going on.

  “Fuck. The. What?” he slurs at me.

  He shakes his head.

  I slam the door, but it bounces off his foot, then crashes wide open as he tears into the room.

  “What the ever-loving fuck, Berger?” he hollers.

  Yeah.

  Stone-cold sober now.

  I’m still just standing around in my birthday suit, barely able to cover all the vital needing-to-be-covered parts.

  “Stay,” I order Ares.

  He’s climbing off the bed—without the boot—and I’m going to fucking kill both of them if Ares hurts his ankle more right now.

  Nick’s quick, but I’m legitimately sober, so I manage to get a grip on the pressure point in his shoulder before he can leap.

  He stumbles to his knees, and I adjust to get a tighter hold.

  “Sit. Down,” I order Ares.

  His gaze shifts between me and Nick.

  I growl.

  A ghost of a grin teases his lips, and he sits.

  Pulls the covers over his stick and pucks too.

  “Fucking ow, Felicity.” Nick tries to jerk away, but I hit the pressure point on his other shoulder too, and he sinks closer to the floor.

  “I swear on Gammy’s ghost, if you don’t pull your head out of your ass and stay the hell out of my love life, I will decimate you and everything you’ve ever loved,” I hiss in his ear.

  “Decimate? Who the fuck says decimate?”

  I dig my fingers deeper.

  “Ow ow ow!”

  I could seriously go for some clothes right about now.

  Ares meets my gaze. Didn’t know I was getting a show tonight, but I like it.

  “You. Be. Quiet,” I order.

  He purses his lips together.

  Clearly holding in a smile.

  I shouldn’t be turned on by him being amused at watching me naked wrestle with my brother, but an intrigued flush is creeping over my skin.

  “I’m ordering you a Lyft,” I inform my brother. “You’re going home. You’re going to sober up. You’re going to issue a public apology for overreacting about my love life, and you’re going to fucking find a way to behave yourself or I’m calling Gracie and we’re releasing that picture of your dick that you had printed on all those cookies on my lawn. Understand?”

  He doesn’t answer.

  He’s having a stare-down with Ares.

  Apparently not a very effective one, because Ares isn’t even trying. There’s no heavy determination, no terrifying focus, not even half-hearted concentration.

  As far as Ares stares go, this one’s so weak it could use mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

  That has to be pissing Nick off.

  Not that I care.

  Though I am in favor of mouth-to-mouth.

  Ares gives good kisses.

  “I told you to take care of her,” Nick growls.

  Ares lifts a brow.

  And not a yeah, you should’ve seen how I took care of her when I made her vagina explode brow.

  Huh.

  No, that’s an and what have you done right in trying to help take care of her?

  Have I ever slept with a guy who would’ve passed up a chance to brag about his orgasm-inducing powers?

  I don’t think I have.

  Which is interesting, because I’ve never had an orgasm quite like—

  Ares cuts a glance at me, and there’s the ego.

  You have to look deep—under the not the time, Felicity look, and under the my monkey’s getting an eyeful of your naked breasts look, and under the you’re about to lose your grip on your brother so he can pounce on my injured ass look—but it’s there.

  Along with a hint of that’s right, and I’ll give you another one as soon as your dumbass brother leaves.

  I think.

  I hope.

  Fuck, I’m a mess.

  And I’m so glad Loki doesn’t have a camera.

  I press harder on Nick’s shoulder, because Ares is right. I’m letting my guard down.

  “What’s your problem with Ares?” I ask quietly.

  “He fucked you.”

  “And?” I prompt.

  Without rolling my eyes. I deserve a fucking trophy for that.

  Nick’s chest heaves. His shirt gapes open in the back where his collar opens. “And I don’t like it,” he grits out.

  “Tough.”

  Loki throws Gammy’s black book at him.

  “What—”

  I reach over and snag it, because I didn’t want to know, and Nick certainly doesn’t either.

  Nick starts to lunge for Ares, but I tackle him at the knees, and he flops, face-first, into the side of the bed.

  “Fuck,” he mutters.

  “My hero,” Ares says to me.

  I stare at him for a second, and I burst out laughing.

  He grins.

  Warm, amused, affectionate.

  How could anyone object to Ares?

  He’s fucking awesome.

  36

  Ares

  She is my hero.

  Nobody’s ever saved me.

  Didn’t need her to.

  But she stood up for me. Defended me. Claimed me.

  She shows her brother out—“If you turn around, you’re getting a full frontal, and I will never forgive you, so get your ass out of here before I tell Gammy’s ghost who ruined her petunias that summer she babysat us”—and returns with an ice pack and my bottle of painkillers.

  “You’re a little swollen,” she says.

  I don’t look at my junk.

  Not until she does.

  She’s right.

  It’s swollen too.

  She tucks her hair behind her ear, smiles at me, and disappears again.

  When she comes back, she’s carrying a chair. She puts it at the end of the bed where my feet are hanging over the end. “Lie down,” she orders.

  I prop myself back on my elbows and watch while she wraps the ice pack around my ankle and positions the chair under my foot.

  She’s quick. Efficient.

  Her touch is sending sparks up my skin and making my cock stand at attention.

  “Loki, there are bananas in Ares’s room,” she says.

  The monkey scampers off the nightstand and dashes down the hall.

  She shuts and locks the door behind him before crawling back onto the bed with me.

  Still naked. Full breasts jiggling.

  She doesn’t lie down.

  Instead, she traces my tattoo, her fingers inches from my cock. “The Milky Way?” she asks softly.

  “All connected,” I answer.

  Her fingers circle the red planet in the middle of the blue and purple swirl of our galaxy. “Why is Mars so big?”

  She lifts her eyes to mine. You’re not ego, that look says. But I know Mars is you.

  One more question no one’s ever asked.

  Me and Z, we both live in a s
potlight. Always have.

  He’s all bluster. People think his ego matches his mouth. It doesn’t. You grow up bigger, rowdier, louder than everyone else, the world believes you’re bigger, rowdier, louder.

  That’s who he shows the world. The face he lets them have so he can keep his heart.

  Me?

  I don’t give them anything, so they think I’m nothing.

  But I’m not nothing.

  Had my moments of thinking maybe I am nothing—how is any man any better than the next?—but I’m not nothing.

  Especially not when she’s looking at me.

  “I exist,” I tell Felicity.

  That’s why Mars is big.

  Because I still exist. Even when I think I’m nothing.

  Her hand flattens, and she runs it over my lower abdomen and grips my cock. But she’s watching me. My eyes. “I’m very glad you exist,” she whispers.

  She lowers her mouth to me, licks me from balls to tip before she sucks me all the way to the back of her throat, and fuck, I’m so glad I exist too.

  She is everything.

  Makes me feel like I’m something.

  She makes me something.

  37

  Felicity

  I always thought that whole I’m not going to be able to walk tomorrow thing was a joke.

  But I’m wincing with every step this morning.

  Ares notices—because of course he does—and he tosses me over his shoulder to carry me downstairs.

  Since he uses his crutch, I don’t lecture him.

  Much.

  But I do take advantage of the opportunity to explore his back muscles through his shirt.

  The fabric is soft. Buttery soft. I didn’t look closely at what his T-shirt says this morning, but I’m positive it’s something misspelled or completely nonsensical.

  “Where do you get these?” I ask him, plucking the fabric as he carries me through the living room to the kitchen. It’s almost ten, I’m starving, and I’m way more interested in his T-shirt than I am in food. “It’s really soft.”

  He deposits me in a chair and carefully lowers himself into another.

  Poor guy doesn’t trust Gammy’s chairs.

  I stroke his forearm. “It’s not going to break,” I tell him.

  Says you, that dark eyeball answers.

  He pulls his phone out, taps his finger over the screen, and slides it to me, open to a website featuring T-shirts with some familiar sayings.

  “Sunny Flanimgo?”

  He grunts and rises again.

  “Sit,” I say.

  He kisses the top of my head and ignores me.

  “Ares—”

  “Cooking. Get a shirt.”

  I click the menu and navigate to the About tab.

  Flamingoes decorate the background, making it hard to read. I squint through it, reading about a boy named Trevor who liked soft T-shirts and flamingoes and making art, so he bought a website to sell T-shirts without telling his mom.

  There’s a boy who can’t be more than sixteen pictured halfway down, brown eyes soft and eager, his black hair cut close to his head, full lips spread in a tentative smile.

  Trevor, it seems, struggled in school and didn’t have many friends because he was always in trouble because he couldn’t sit still. He ran up a huge bill on his parents’ credit card, ordering T-shirts himself after uploading his artwork to one of those custom-print websites.

  And that’s it.

  That’s the entire story.

  Like the kid got interrupted mid-bio. I hope because he’s too busy selling T-shirts.

  Sort of like Ares keeps getting text messages as I’m reading.

  He’s a remarkably popular guy. But there’s no substance to any of the messages, unless there’s a secret gif language I haven’t learned yet.

  Can you be fluent in gif?

  I don’t know.

  “You know Trevor?” I ask Ares, holding his phone up.

  Crap. I probably need to check my own phone.

  Later.

  He’s piling peppers and onions on the counter. He shakes his head.

  “How’d you hear about his T-shirts?”

  He doesn’t answer. Of course he doesn’t.

  Because Ares works in mysterious ways. And I’m okay with that.

  The website is basic. Not the work of pros. And something that I can imagine a kid getting made fun of over.

  I wonder if Ares was mocked a lot as a kid.

  He had Zeus, but there’s no doubt he was still bigger and weird just because of who he was.

  Or did he do the mocking? Is his quiet presence now a form of apology for his sins as a child?

  “How many other kids do you help out just by being you?” Lucy asks cheerfully.

  His shoulders bunch.

  “Ah. That many, huh?”

  He slides me a look.

  I grin.

  “Were you a total asshole as a kid?” I ask as Tim.

  “Sometimes.”

  The answer is as much of a surprise as it isn’t.

  I was an asshole sometimes as a kid. Still am, if you ask my brother.

  “But you’re never an asshole now,” Lucy protests.

  Another look.

  “Everyone’s an asshole,” Harold says.

  “Not all the time, Harold!” Lucy exclaims.

  “All the time,” Harold replies. “All the fucking time.”

  Someone bangs on the front door.

  Before I can move, Ares is on his crutch, swinging sideways through the doorway to head to the living room.

  A minute later, voices explode.

  Welcome voices.

  “Oh my god, Felicity, are you okay?”

  “Why didn’t you call me back?”

  “You better have a damn good reason for the silence.”

  Maren looks me up and down first.

  Her eyes narrow, and then she breaks into a grin. “Okay. You’re forgiven.”

  Kami strangles me in a hug without letting me up. “It’s so awful. I can’t believe they’re benching Nick for four games.”

  I look at Ares.

  Did you know?

  He shrugs.

  Didn’t know, isn’t surprised. He goes back to cutting vegetables.

  Like a pro.

  Which is both weird and not.

  If he’s going to do something, he’s going to do it right.

  I can’t quite suppress a shiver at the memory of everything he did right last night. And way early this morning. And later this morning too.

  “How many messages do you have?” Alina asks.

  “Probably a few hundred. Hey! How was your performance yesterday?”

  “Diva-licious,” she replies with a smile and an eye roll. “I had way more fun with Ares yesterday.”

  She holds out a hand for a fist bump, he pauses to oblige, and they nod at each other.

  Maren eyes me like she knows Alina isn’t the only one who had a good time with Ares yesterday.

  “Any good videos?” I ask Alina.

  “Of course.”

  “I tried to show the Thrusters’ video production staff the clips I had from you two yesterday, but Ares wouldn’t let me.”

  Yes, yes, I’m kinda throwing my sort-of boyfriend—is he my boyfriend? We’ve mutually agreed we’re going to keep sleeping together, and I like him, and he likes me, so I guess maybe he is?—under the bus, but it’s for his own good.

  “You’re ruthless and cruel,” Alina declares.

  “Can I see?” Kami asks.

  Ares silently gives me a look that promises to not spank me if I show anyone that video.

  I’ll have to ask him about that later.

  But since I clearly love to torture people, I pull my phone out.

  And wince.

  Forty-seven text messages. Six voicemails. Dozens of missed calls.

  “I can take care of that for you,” Alina offers. “One quick dunk in the toilet, and they’ll all disappear.�
�

  I skim for the most important messages.

  My parents still expect me for dinner at two. Bring Ares.

  Nick’s not sure how he feels about Ares right now. Don’t bring Ares to dinner.

  Maren, Alina, and Kami all want to know if I’m okay.

  “I’m okay,” I announce to the room at large.

  Kami hugs me again.

  Alina nods. “So it appears.”

  Maren sits in the seat Ares has been using, it creaks, and collapses beneath her.

  Loki swings into the room, points, screeches, and steals a pepper.

  We all share a look.

  And all of us—even Ares—crack up.

  38

  Ares

  Team meeting today.

  All of us have to be there.

  Not really surprised.

  Not happy either.

  See the writing on the wall.

  We’re all ordered into the dressing room for a sit-down. Murphy’s sober, looks to want to take my head off.

  Lavoie and Frey back him into a corner.

  I clomp on my crutches to sit next to Jaeger across the room.

  Don’t hold it against Murphy that he’s pissed.

  Not going to change to make him happy though.

  I’m not a dick. Won’t pull dick moves on his sister.

  Can’t fix his problem though.

  Has to do that himself.

  “Bet you couldn’t have pulled off a hat trick last night, old man,” Jaeger says.

  I don’t answer.

  No good answer to give that can’t be taken the wrong way.

  He glances at Murphy.

  Back at me.

  I’m staring straight ahead now.

  “Fuck, man,” he mutters.

  Coach walks in with the big guns.

  General management. Team president. Director of operations.

  “Gentlemen,” Coach says, “a few things need to change. Today.”

  Forty minutes later, I’m texting my agent.

  And not any of the gifs I send everyone else in my life. This is a flat-out SOS.

  They say I have to talk to the press.

  The whole team’s getting image coaching. Can’t be champs if we don’t act like champs. Don’t deserve the cup if we don’t earn the cup, on and off the ice, and we could win the cup this year.

  Manners lessons. Wardrobe consultations. Anger management counseling.