Pick Six

by Max Monroe

Goddammit, Six. You’ve totally messed with my fucking head! I mentally cursed her even though I knew she couldn’t hear me. Nor would it fix anything.

  “You know…” Aria smirked at me and slid her hand up my chest. “I wanted you to come home with me that night…” She paused and pushed out her lipstick-covered mouth into a pout.

  Those nearly blood-red lips of hers were such a turn-off.

  I didn’t want those lips. I wanted different lips.

  Soft, pink, full, pliant lips.

  Six’s lips.

  “But…you turned me down,” she purred like a fucking cat. “Isn’t that sad?”

  Sad? The only thing sad right now is me.

  She stared at me with knowing eyes and pouty lips and leaned herself in a little closer to press those stupid lips of hers to my cheek. Her strong, flowery as fuck perfume hit me like a Mack truck, and I had the strong urge to shove her off my lap.

  “Don’t you think we should remedy that tonight, Sean?”

  Fuck, is she still talking?

  She pressed her fake tits into my chest and fluttered her eyelashes in what I guessed was her sultry and seductive face.

  Her tits, her face, her body, it all had about the same effect as her lips.

  A total fucking turn-off.

  God, what was wrong with me?

  She’s not Six.

  “No shit,” I said, and honestly, I couldn’t even really remember what I was responding to or what she’d just said. I also didn’t really give a fuck.

  I looked around the room and then down at the table in front of me. I counted the empty glasses and quickly surmised I’d had at least six vodka and tonics, possibly eight, but I wasn’t sure if those were actual extra glasses or if I was just seeing double.

  Basically, it was too much, and I needed to get the hell out of here.

  Without thinking twice, I stood up and removed Arielle or Aerosol, fuck whatever her name was, from my lap and started looking for Mitchell.

  “Oh my God,” the chick muttered, and I looked down.

  Instantly, I offered her a hand when I realized I’d nearly dumped her off my lap and straight onto the floor.

  “Sorry about that,” I apologized, and with a strong hand, I made sure she was steady on her sky-high stilettos before I let go. “Look, it was great chatting with you, but I’m gonna call it a night.”

  “What? Seriously?” she questioned, and I nodded.

  “See ya around, er…” Fuck, what is her name? “Yeah…see ya around!” I called over my shoulder as I strode out of the VIP section and headed straight for the dance floor.

  The instant I spotted Cam in the center, dancing with some random blonde, I pushed through the sea of people until I stood beside him.

  “Dude, I need to go,” I said directly into his ear, and he nodded, honoring the bro code like a fucking soldier.

  “Sorry, sweetheart,” he said to the girl who was currently grinding her ass into his crotch. “Gotta go.”

  And that was that.

  We paid our tab and got the hell out of there before I drank more alcohol or ended up hooking up with a chick named after a hair spray can.

  Or is it Ariel? Like that fucking Disney mermaid?

  Fuck if I knew. Fuck if I cared.

  I just wanted to go home and pass out in my bed.

  But first, I’d pound a jug of water and eat some carbs to avoid a soul-crushing hangover in the morning. Lord knows, Coach B would be pissed to see me hunched over and hurling in the weight room tomorrow.

  After tonight, the only certainty I knew was that I needed to find a way to get the fuck over Six Malone or else I might as well just sell my cock on the black market and become a goddamn monk in the off-season.

  Yeah, good luck with that, asshole.

  I’d been home in San Diego for all of four days.

  You’d think, after being on the East Coast where the temperatures rarely hit above freezing this time of year, I’d be out savoring the California sun.

  But instead, I was locked up inside my apartment, staring at the television as reruns of Jersey Shore filled the screen.

  Snooki was drunk again, and honestly, I was jealous of her ability to gain access to alcohol.

  I’d yet to go to the grocery store since I’d gotten home, and besides responding to work-related emails and posting a few videos to my public YouCam profile—videos I’d luckily had as backup for days that I just needed a fucking break—I’d done nothing else.

  Which explained the bare fridge, the various empty takeout containers scattered across my kitchen counter, and my vagabond-like appearance.

  Ugly blue robe wrapped around my gravely unshowered body and dirty, Pebbles-style ponytail, I was a total hot mess.

  I truly wondered if people who passed by my apartment could smell the aroma of pathetic seeping out from beneath my front door.

  I was sad for a million different reasons, but the one that had me the most fucked up revolved around a name I didn’t even want to think, much less verbalize out loud.

  Because once I said it or even thought it, that would make it real.

  And if it was real, it meant I actually had to deal with it.

  Avoidance felt like the better option at this point.

  Deep down, I knew that no matter how real my feelings for him were and how hard it had been saying goodbye and how much I missed him, it didn’t matter.

  It wouldn’t change anything.

  Right before I found the strength to sit up and grab the remote control from my coffee table, my phone started ringing and vibrating across the couch cushion beside me.

  Heart in my throat, I waited with bated breath as I picked it up and looked down at the screen.

  Incoming Call: Everly

  My heart almost dropped to my feet once I saw who the call wasn’t from.

  God, why did I still hold out hope he’d call me?

  I mean, why did my brain even think that was a possibility?

  With a heavy sigh, I pushed out the ridiculous thoughts that would never come true and answered Everly’s call with a quick tap to the green phone icon.

  “Hey,” I greeted. I tried to be cheery and happy and shit, but I just sounded like a monotone robot.

  “Six?” she questioned. “Is that you?”

  “Of course it’s me,” I muttered. “Why wouldn’t it be me?”

  “Because you sound like someone just killed your cat.”

  “I don’t have a cat.”

  “Thank God. I can’t stand those little fuckers.”

  I sighed. “Everly.”

  “God. What in the hell is going on?” she demanded. “You sound terrible, and you know I can’t stand it when people don’t laugh at my jokes.”

  “I’m just feeling a little under the weather,” I lied.

  “Please hold,” she said, and next thing I knew, she’d managed to conference Sammy into our call. “Okay, now, please resume your bullshit lies, but just know, both Sammy and I are now listening and ready to call you out on it.”

  “Fucking hell,” I muttered. “I’m not lying.”

  “Oh, come on, Six,” Everly retorted. “Just tell us what’s wrong before we have to come all the way there. You know if you see me in person, I’m going to make you watch General Hospital every day.”

  “No more soaps!” I shouted, the trauma of Everly’s detailed fantasies about Sonny and Jason playing behind my eyelids. God, half of my high school experience had been robbed by her talks about sex swings and whips.

  “Honey,” Sammy chimed in. “What’s going on? Are you okay?”

  I sighed…again. “I’m fine.”

  “Are you sure?” Sammy’s much calmer and less aggressive voice filled my ears. She was always the mother hen who could carefully reassure anyone into admitting the truth. Everly, on the other hand, was more of metaphorically grab you by the back of your hair and force you into admission kind of gal.

  “You know we’re just worried about you, sweetie,” S
ammy added, and her sympathy and concern were too much.

  Silence consumed the line, and the instant tears started to prick at my eyes, I couldn’t hold it back.

  “I think I fell for the manwhore,” I half whispered, half sobbed.

  “You fell for the manwhore?” Everly questioned, voice laced with confusion.

  “Sean Phillips,” I responded through shaky tears, and the mere admission of his name felt like a dagger to my heart. “I was just supposed to fuck him, but I fucking fell for him.”

  “Wait… You hooked up with Sean Phillips?” Sammy questioned, and I could literally picture her pretty blue eyes damn near bugging out of her head as she asked it.

  “Multiple times,” I muttered. “In his car. At Topgolf. In hotel rooms. All over the fucking place, to be honest.”

  “Ho-lee shit,” Everly said, and I couldn’t agree more.

  Holy shit was right. I’d stupidly let my heart get involved with a man who didn’t ever let his heart get involved with any-fucking-one.

  “So…you guys just had sex or…?” Sammy paused, and I knew exactly what she was trying to get at. Always the romantic, she was secretly hoping there was some kind of budding love story developing between Sean and me. And in her hopeful, romanticizing brain, we’d eventually reunite and live out our happily ever after with Snow White’s fucking birds chirping around us and shit.

  But there were no birds here. Or happily ever afters. Or Sean.

  Just four days’ worth of oil in my hair and a fort of empty Chinese takeout containers.

  “We definitely had sex…a lot of sex…and I was the stupid girl who let herself get too attached to him.”

  “What about him? Surely, he’s tangled in your wild mane of hair,” Everly asserted, and I rolled my eyes.

  God, I wish.

  “Sean Phillips is not the type of guy who settles down,” I denied. “He’s a brilliant fuck buddy. A terrific one-night stand. But boyfriend? Hell to the no. He’d rather cut off his big dick than commit.”

  “Are you sure about that?” Sammy’s naïve question filled my ears, and I scrubbed at my face, roughly wiping the tears away from my cheeks and eyes.

  “Trust me, I’m sure,” I answered. “So, you two can go ahead and stop filling your heads with daydreams about Sean and me getting together and having some kind of fairy tale happily ever after. That will never happen.”

  “Damn, girl,” Everly muttered, all of her normal humor officially snuffed out by the sound of my tears. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Me too,” Sammy agreed. “Is there anything we can do for you? Do you want me to try to get some time off work and visit this weekend?”

  Considering she only lived a few hours away in Palm Springs, the idea was tempting, but I still needed a little more time to wallow in my own pit of self-pity and despair.

  “I really appreciate the offer, but I have a lot of work to get done over the next few weeks, but how about next month?” I suggested. “How about both of you come out next month, and we can have a girls’ weekend?”

  “Count me in,” Everly said, and Sammy quickly agreed.

  “All right,” I said. “It’s settled. Next month we’ll drink wine, catch up, and maybe eat at that expensive Mexican restaurant in Beverly Hills you both love so much.”

  “Hell yes! Take me to El Padre, and I’ll put a temporary hold on my threesome with Sonny and Jason for the weekend.”

  I grinned at Everly’s excitement, despite her overzealous expression of detail, and honestly, I think it was the first time I’d smiled in like five days.

  Which was really flipping sad.

  I ended the call a few minutes later, and both Everly and Sammy urged me to call them if I needed anything or wanted to make the girls’ trip sooner.

  God, I really needed to get it together. I couldn’t just sit around and be sad about a man who didn’t see our time together as anything more than a fun way to pass a few weeks.

  Grabbing my laptop off the coffee table, I fired up my internet browser and decided I’d attempt to get some work done.

  I logged in to my email and started to scroll through the pages upon pages of unanswered messages. Some were from fans. Some were from sponsors trying to get me to promote their products. And some weren’t even work-related, just various websites and newsletters I subscribed to.

  Before I’d even managed to get through page four of unread emails, I froze in my spot, and my fingers dropped away from my laptop trackpad as my jaw plummeted toward my lap.

  Sean Phillips has a hot night out with pop sensation Aria!

  The subject of the email from Gossip! grabbed my attention instantly.

  Like a full-fledged masochist, I clicked it open.

  I didn’t waste any time reading the article. Instead, I scrolled down to the bottom and took in the collage of photos.

  Aria sitting in Sean’s lap.

  Sean smiling up at her as she stood behind him, her hand on his shoulder.

  Her lips pressed to Sean’s cheek.

  Picture after picture after picture filled my eyes, and my poor little heart felt like someone had carved it with a rusted-out butcher’s knife.

  It’d been all of a week, and already, he was out having a grand old time with Aria—the pop sensation who was so popular she only needed one goddamn name like Madonna.

  And while he was out partying his ass off and most likely hooking up with celebrities, what was I doing?

  Wallowing in my sadness and missing him.

  Fuck that. Fuck this. Fuck him.

  I didn’t want to be that girl.

  Hell, I refused to be that girl. I refused to let myself fall into some sort of depression over a man.

  No way.

  And just like that, I felt renewed. Validated.

  I peeled myself off of the couch and stretched out the creaks in my joints and muscles.

  First step, a goddamn shower.

  Next step, move the hell on and stop thinking about the motherfucker who could give zero fucks about you.

  Obviously, ending things with him had been the smartest thing I’d ever done.

  My brain was on board. Rational and realistic and ready.

  But my heart said otherwise, whispering, Yeah, keep telling yourself that, you stupid, stupid girl.

  “You all right?” Quinn asked from his spot beside me at the bar, and I couldn’t miss the way his eyes scrutinized me.

  We were supposed to be out celebrating our big postseason win against Baltimore.

  One more game and we’d be a shoo-in for the championship game.

  This was the furthest we’d even gotten in the play-offs, and it should’ve been a fantastic fucking night.

  But Quinn was obviously trying to put a damper on my fun. And, most likely, put an end to one of the biggest reasons for my fun. Alcohol.

  “Of course I’m good,” I muttered and took a long swig of beer. “Why wouldn’t I be all right?”

  “Because you almost never drink during the season, and for the past few weeks, you’ve done just that.”

  Bingo.

  I sighed. “Just calm down, Mom. I’m just having a little fun. No need to get your panties in a fucking bunch.”

  He stood up from his barstool and looked down at me with a firm jaw. “Listen,” he said, his voice a near whisper. “I can tell you’re going through some shit and I know it has everything to do with a certain little vlogger, but for now, I’m going to let you be.”

  “And what about later?” I questioned, sarcasm dripping from my voice. “What are you going to do later, Mom?”

  Internally, I grimaced. I knew I shouldn’t have been taking my anger out on him. He was one of my best friends. And he never failed to be someone I could count on.

  But, fuck, I couldn’t stop myself.

  He stared at me for a long moment, concern embedded within his steely gaze, but eventually, he just decided I wasn’t worth the time.

  “Don’t fucking worry about it,” he mu
ttered, and just like that, he walked away, leaving me sitting at the bar by myself.

  We’d just arrived back home in New Jersey a few hours ago, and now, most of our team was partying inside our regular hole-in-the-wall of an establishment, Doolan’s. We came here a lot, but it wasn’t without purpose. It was one of the only places we could go without being overly hounded by fans. Apparently hungry for our business, the owner saw to it personally. Hell, half the time, if it got too busy or if too many people started showing up to get autographs, he would just shut the place down and let us hang out in peace.

  It was a good thirty-minute drive from the stadium but one hundred percent worth the time and distance.

  Tonight, we blended in to the crowd.

  And the only people who really even noticed us were the women who tended to follow the team around.

  The groupies.

  The fangirls.

  The chicks who did everything in their power to fuck a Maverick.

  Somehow, they were well-versed in our whereabouts and always made it so fucking easy for any one of us to take them home.

  Maybe that’s what I need, I thought to myself. Maybe I just needed a random night of fucking to cleanse myself of her.

  Fucking Six.

  She was in my thoughts. In my dreams. Hell, sometimes, when I woke up in the middle of the night, I swore I could smell her perfume on my fucking pillow.

  I missed her. And I hated that the most.

  I hated that I missed the woman who’d so easily walked away from me, who didn’t even want to try to give us a shot.

  But it’s not like you told her you wanted to give it a shot, my mind taunted, but I fucking ignored it. With my lips to the bottle, I chugged the rest of my beer and gestured toward the bartender to bring me another.

  Before I knew it, I was six beers deep and making eyes at some blond chick across the bar.

  I raised my beer toward her and winked.

  She took that as the opening I intended and slid off her barstool, sashaying her ass directly toward me and not once breaking eye contact.

  “Is this seat open?” she asked, and I shrugged.

  “Looks that way.”

  “Mind if I join you?”

  I raised my beer toward the bartender and gestured for him to bring two more. One for me and one for my new friend with the generous rack. Which, with the way her tits were nearly shoved to her chin, she obviously wanted me to be aware of. I silently wondered if it was a push-up bra or an actual boob job.