Players Game 01 - Fraternize

by Rachel Van Dyken

  Wow. Alrighty then.

  “I think every new guy falls for it at some point,” Sanchez said, his eyes darkened before he looked right at me and shrugged. “It’s the tits.”

  I smacked him on the arm.

  “What?” he roared, rubbing the spot that I knew wasn’t even sore from my lame hit. “She’s got a nice rack, and sometimes it’s nice to just rest your face on the pillows for a minute . . . get some shut-eye . . . rub a little—”

  I threw my hands in the air. “I seriously don’t know why I talk to you.”

  “Best friends.” He nodded confidently. “But only if you say no to celery.”

  “Gag.” Kinsey made a face.

  Sanchez moved away from us and nodded to Miller.

  I didn’t hear their conversation.

  But any time they talked it made me nervous.

  And then I felt stupid with that same thought because, how arrogant did I have to be to assume they were discussing me?

  Miller looked over Sanchez’s shoulder when Sanchez was busy on his phone. Our eyes locked.

  His had always been so blue.

  So clear and pretty.

  In perfect contrast to his mocha-tanned skin.

  Full lips.

  Lips that knew how to do things that no high school boy should ever know how to do.

  And a mouth to match.

  A shiver racked through my body before I could stop it.

  “That.” Kinsey pointed to the two guys. “I’d be the cheese in that meat sandwich.” She sighed. “I’d just have to make sure I faced Miller instead of Sanchez, you know, because . . . Grant.” The way she said his name had me wondering if she really hated him or just hated that she and every other female was attracted to him and couldn’t help it—and that he knew we couldn’t help it.

  “Miller had your car towed last night.” Sanchez tossed me his cell phone. “Give me your number, and I’ll call the tow truck company and have them deliver it to your house.”

  “Convenient way to get someone’s number,” I grumbled. My fingers felt huge as I tried to type in the number as fast as possible. For some reason, giving him my number in front of Miller felt wrong. Like I was cheating.

  “Well, Miller tried to have it delivered to your old house and found out the hard way that you no longer live there. There was no forwarding address so, yeah.”

  Kinsey shook her head slowly at him. “What are you? A spy?”

  “I ask the right questions in order to get the right answers.” He caught his phone as I tossed it back at him. “And I’m the one with the girl’s number even though last night that prick was doing all the work. See? Point, me.”

  I looked between them.

  Point?

  Hadn’t Miller said something like that this morning?

  I shook off the bad feeling and then realized that I didn’t have a ride back to my apartment.

  “Shit.” Sanchez checked his expensive Rolex and popped on a pair of probably equally expensive dark sunglasses. “I have the Armani shoot in an hour.” He pulled me in for a quick hug then brushed his lips across mine before I could protest. “You need anything?”

  I shook my head, momentarily stunned by the way my lips still buzzed from his touch.

  “I’ll call you later, Curves.”

  He got in his car and left.

  By the time I turned around, Kinsey was talking to another one of our teammates, Cassie, who was really tall and smiled a lot. I actually liked when she hung around to chat, but she had a little girl so she was usually rushing back and forth between her house and practices. They were lost in conversation.

  Which left me and Miller.

  Alone.

  His expression didn’t give anything away, but if the tension between us was any indicator, we were in unfamiliar territory—something I’d never experienced with him.

  I’d been his biggest cheerleader, literally.

  And he’d been mine.

  My heart cracked a bit as he blankly stared, as if he didn’t recognize me. I wanted to yell at him. To tell him he could go to hell, that his judgment meant nothing, that he couldn’t hurt me anymore.

  But it would all be a lie.

  The pain of being told you were already forgotten—being told you were annoying—that the person you loved most in the world was avoiding you so he could let you down easy . . .

  He’s destined for bigger and better things.

  The words still burned.

  Hung over my head like a blazing neon sign.

  Miller turned and opened the door to his SUV then turned back toward me. “Need a ride?”

  I shook my head no.

  “So, let me get this straight. Sanchez can drive you anywhere, but I’ve got the plague?”

  “You hate me.”

  “I don’t know you.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Can’t hate someone you don’t really know. Can you, Em?”

  I held up my phone. “I’ll call an Uber.”

  “At eight in the morning.” He crossed his arms. “When everyone else is doing the same thing in order to get to work on time? Downtown Bellevue?” He took another step toward me. “I’m taking you.”

  “You’re bossier than I remember,” I grumbled.

  “You’re prettier,” he whispered and then, as if realizing he’d said it out loud, he shook his head. “Sorry, it slipped. Old habits.”

  I smiled. “You never did have a censor.”

  “Censors are for—”

  “Sissies,” we said in unison.

  He smiled briefly and looked away. “Get in the car, Em.”

  He was right. But I still didn’t want him to see where I lived.

  I still had my pride.

  And my really crappy online teaching job that I needed to log into in about an hour.

  “Okay,” I said quickly. “Thank you.”

  I’d just have him drop me off on the side street.

  He didn’t need to know that I lived in the apartment building.

  Or that my dad was sick.

  Or that my world had crumbled the minute he walked out of it.

  “So . . .” He slammed the door shut. “Where to?”

  I fired off instructions and tried to glue myself to the door so that I wouldn’t have to smell his cologne or, like a psycho, lean over the console and take a giant whiff.

  He had no right to smell so good this early in the morning!

  Traffic wasn’t too bad, which meant I’d at least get to grab something to eat before I logged in and started my day.

  Neither of us spoke, but we’d never been those types of friends, the ones that had to fill the air with needless words.

  Our words, even in teasing, had always held a purpose.

  For some reason, just thinking about how we used to be had tears burning in the back of my eyes.

  And then, of course, we had to roll to a stop in front of the McDonald’s where Miller and I’d had our first kiss.

  I sucked in a breath.

  The air stilled in the car.

  Like someone had pressed pause on our lives and simultaneously shown us a preview of the past.

  (Then)

  I stood by his giant blue truck.

  I felt his hands in my hair.

  His tongue in my mouth.

  The SUV jerked to the right so abruptly that my cheek nearly collided with the glass window.

  And then we were parked in the exact same spot.

  The lines of paint in the parking lot were faded.

  The smell was the same.

  Somehow it was the same.

  “When you left . . .” I swallowed past the lump in my throat. His hand was tense on the steering wheel and the car still on, as if he was trying to figure out if he should ram it through the building or turn it off and park. “I used to grab a small order of fries and sit here . . . and pretend you were with me. Stupid.” What was I doing? “I know.”

  I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye.

 
; Both hands still gripped the steering wheel.

  His jaw flexed.

  Miller’s eyes closed briefly, then flashed open before he jerked the key from the ignition and barked out, “Breakfast.”

  It was like slow motion, jumping out of his SUV in my sweats, walking behind him as he led the way to the doors.

  He let me go first.

  My legs felt like lead, and my skin erupted in a million tiny goose bumps as I tried to find my voice, to decline food right along with the trip down memory lane.

  “What can I get for you?” The teen didn’t look up from his fry-caged prison behind the cash register.

  “Five sausage and cheddar McMuffins, two orange juices, and . . .” He paused. “Water.”

  The guy repeated the order.

  Miller didn’t ask if I was hungry or thirsty or anything.

  I assumed I at least got an orange juice.

  Then again, I never ordered at fast food restaurants. I’d always felt like I was getting judged, even if I made healthy choices; it was as if I couldn’t be free to eat what other people did because I somehow didn’t deserve it, even though I was healthy. I was over it—but I still hated dealing with the looks so I avoided them at all costs.

  We waited for our food.

  I tried to look at anything and everything but Miller, but everywhere I looked was filled with the past.

  Even the stupid red and yellow straws reminded me of when we used to steal them and use them at school in our sodas. How he used to toy with them between his teeth, making my stomach flutter and my legs clench.

  “Holy shit, you’re Miller Quinton!” a pubescent voice screeched. The guy who was helping us finally looked up. I blamed technology for people’s inability to look others in the eye.

  “Yeah.” Miller’s entire demeanor changed from kicked, pissed-off bulldog to suave, confident, and sexy, and in front of my eyes, he became exactly everything I’d been haunted by during every stupid ESPN interview he’d ever done.

  “What’s up, man?” Miller shook his hand.

  And he then signed enough autographs to make my fingers hurt.

  We walked in silence back to the SUV.

  And I was tossed a McMuffin.

  “What’s this?” I held the greasy thing in the air, and the paper crinkled as my fingers dug into the heated goodness. Saliva was already pooling in my mouth, damn him.

  “Food.”

  “I know what it is. I just thought you ordered for you?”

  “Eat.”

  “Are we resorting to one-word conversations now?”

  He grunted and took a giant bite, his perfect teeth ripping at least half of the sandwich into his mouth.

  The smell was killing me. I wanted to eat the damn thing so bad that my stomach growled, totally betraying me to Miller, who was already finishing off his last McMuffin and sipping his orange juice with a knowing smirk.

  “It’s not in the manual.” I tried to hand it back to him, even though I wanted to eat it. It wasn’t even hunger that was winning, just some sick, misplaced nostalgia that if I did, things would be back to normal again.

  He didn’t budge.

  “Miller.” I groaned to myself. “I have to do weigh-ins every week.”

  He sipped the orange juice louder, the straw coming up semi-empty with every draw. Miller shoved the empty cup into the cup holder, grabbed the sandwich, slowly unwrapped it, took one bite, and then handed it to me again.

  “It won’t work.” I breathed out the lie even as I licked my lips. Yeah, it was already working.

  The sandwich touched my lips. He grinned and then tilted his head in a very taunting, sexy-as-hell way.

  He couldn’t get any sexier in that moment.

  Holding a sandwich against my lips like it was better than sex. Which, let’s be honest . . . close tie.

  “I won’t tell,” he whispered.

  And suddenly, my brain wasn’t just lusting after the sandwich.

  I took one bite.

  A huge bite.

  Too big for my mouth.

  Miller’s eyes heated.

  It was dirty McDonald’s foreplay.

  I chewed.

  He made a noise in his chest before visibly adjusting himself and letting out a curse.

  I took the sandwich from him and neatly wrapped it back up, then tucked it into the bag and wiped my mouth with a napkin.

  His breathing was heavy as he shoved the orange juice into my empty hand, then turned on the car again. He drove toward my apartment.

  “Take a right,” I whispered, my chest heavy. “And then another left. I live just up the road so I can walk from there.”

  Miller’s eyes gazed over the part of town I was embarrassed to be living in. He was in a penthouse, and I was living in the cheapest part of Bellevue, which wasn’t really even Bellevue anymore. The gas station across from the apartment had bars over the windows and a bail bonds company was attached to it.

  “No.” He bit out the word like he was pissed again. “I’m not letting you walk. I don’t care that it’s daylight. Now, where do you live?”

  My eyes watered.

  They weren’t tears, right? Because that wouldn’t be fair. That he’d take me on a trip down memory lane and then remind me once again how far I’d fallen without him.

  “Em.” His eyes pleaded.

  “Go another half mile,” I whispered.

  When he was close to the apartment building, I closed my eyes and said, “We’re here, on the right.”

  Luxury Apartments.

  That’s what the sign said.

  But anyone with two working eyes could see that the paint was chipping off the walls, the grass hadn’t been mowed in weeks, and the sign still had rates from three years ago.

  A few people had Christmas lights on from the previous year, and trash was littered around the four-level building.

  “Do you live here by yourself?” he asked.

  “No.” I breathed a sigh of relief that I didn’t. “My dad and I live here.”

  “What happened to your house?”

  “That’s enough questions for today.” I swallowed the harsh pain swelling in my throat, making it hard to breathe.

  “Em—”

  “Drop it.” I opened the door and grabbed my duffel bag. “It’s not your problem, alright? I’m not your problem, remember? You don’t even know me.”

  I threw his words back at him, hoping to inflict pain, even if it was minute compared to the emptiness I felt every day.

  My phone rang, and the screen flashed Sanchez’s name.

  He nodded slowly, eyes flashing. “You’re right. I don’t.”

  “Thanks for the ride.” I tripped over the words and slammed the door so fast I was surprised I didn’t stumble backward. I let the call go to voice mail.

  And let a few tears slip onto my cheeks before putting my armor back in place and walking into my apartment, head held high.

  “Hi, baby!” Dad grinned from the couch. “Hope you listened well in school today!”

  “Yeah.” I forced a smile and lied. “I, um, have homework. So, I should get on that.”

  “I’m so proud of you.” He looked down at the book in his hands and frowned. I knew before he said anything that he hadn’t remembered reading it, even though it was his favorite. Some days it brought him out of his fog; other days it just made him angry and confused him more.

  The good days were happening less and less.

  And I knew it was only a matter of time before I had to figure out another plan for him. The state only paid for so much, and putting him in a home cost more than an Ivy League school.

  My only hope was getting a better job.

  But getting a better job also meant I couldn’t cheer.

  I couldn’t follow my dreams.

  Before my dad got this bad, he’d made me swear I would never give up my dreams for him.

  It was unfair of him to ask at the time, without knowing how fast the disease would wreck
his mind. We’d thought we had years before he lost his job, before he lost his sanity.

  We’d been wrong.

  Chapter Fourteen

  MILLER

  I don’t know how long I drove around—a few hours, at least. Finally, I made my way back to my empty apartment, my duffel bag in one hand and an empty McDonald’s bag in the other.

  I could have thrown it away in the parking garage trash.

  But for some reason, my fingers were having a hard time parting with just one more memory that I knew would be soon forgotten.

  Nothing made sense.

  Why would Emerson and her father have to move out of their house?

  He’d had a really good teaching job at Shoreline College. The man had a PhD.

  The more I thought about it the more curious I felt. The more sick that she’d been living like that—and that maybe I’d been wrong about her.

  Until the elevator door opened to my penthouse, and loud music greeted me.

  Damn Sanchez.

  I went to his door first and banged my fist against the wood grain so hard I was surprised it didn’t splinter.

  He jerked it open and turned toward the living room.

  Was that an open invitation?

  With a curse, I dropped my duffel outside the door and entered. “Can you keep it down?”

  “Nope.” A few of my teammates, Jax included, waved from their spot on the couch. Naturally, they were playing Madden because we didn’t get enough football every day of our lives.

  “I’ve got Brady!” someone yelled.

  “Beer?” Sanchez tossed me a Sam Adams before I could protest. I didn’t want beer. I needed something a bit stronger if I was going to have to look at that guy’s ugly mug for the entire season, especially if he was going to keep kissing Emerson in front of me.

  With a sigh, I sat down, knowing that if I went back to my apartment, I’d just mope around or study playbooks, and that sounded depressing and boring as hell.

  It just proved the point. Money doesn’t buy happiness.

  I hadn’t been happy, truly happy, since Emerson.