Roughing the Kicker

by Eden Butler

  He stumbled, not overwhelmed by their weight, but surprised by their attack. Hanson went down, no longer laughing.

  Then it was his turn to be insulted as his teammates, his own players, and the families around the camp laughed at him lying on the ground.

  “Sucks to suck!” one of the glittered Minis told him before they jogged back on the field.

  The Minis took the penalty they received for the attack—personal fouls they clapped and cheered about—and then the game resumed. But there was less bluster in Hanson’s Raiders and their coach. There was less of anything at all but fumbles, penalties, and missed throws to the end zone.

  Twenty-one to thirteen.

  The Mini Reeses won.

  Reese clapped and shouted at the last whistle, running onto the field right into a crowd of those fierce pink warriors, getting hugs and kisses, doling out compliments and proud, ecstatic praise.

  Keola Pukui stuck right to her side, her face red, her smile radiant, and the girl let Reese hug her. Then, the kicker led her team off the field, celebrating for the night and the brief reprieve from the knowledge that kept her away from Ryder.

  He was going to be a father. Of course he was. Greer was beautiful. She was smart, and she’d been warming Ryder’s bed for two years. Reese was his past. Like Greer said, she wouldn’t be his future.

  Across the field, Reese spotted him, his gaze on her, his expression calm. Greer was not with him. She hadn’t been around all day, despite all the other Witches and Ghouls in attendance. She didn’t know what to make of his expression. There was something old and familiar in the way he watched her. The smile that grew over his mouth was easy. It was sweet and reminded Reese of the boy she’d known back in college. It reminded her of a hundred different things she’d told herself she forgot about him.

  Stop it, she thought, recalling the slip of Greer’s hand over her flat stomach and the choking sadness that had Reese running out of the lobby and straight for her car.

  “We’re Ryder’s future.”

  The words felt like a splinter in her brain, something you cannot be rid of easily. Something Reese thought would always live inside her.

  She looked away from Ryder when her Minis converged, still excited from their win, and Reese followed them off the field and away from the man she knew watched her leave.

  22

  Ryder

  Ryder felt nearly as upset about his kids losing as he had the Steamers’ loss against the Vikings. There’d been a well of disappointment when his last throw was intercepted, and Minnesota scored on him, but that didn’t sting nearly as bad as Jack fumbling during the last Lil Steamers game of the tournament.

  The kid was disappointed. He’d fought and struggled to throw the ball straight to his running backs, making their catches close to the end zones, but the Ryders were simply outmanned. Well—out wo-manned.

  “I’m so sorry, Mr. Glenn,” Jack told Ryder, yanking off his helmet right after Keola Pukui blocked a beautiful throw he had sent almost on top of the end zone. “She’s good.”

  “And so are you,” he told the kid, sitting on the bleachers, offering Jack a bottle of water and the seat next to him. He took the water, not looking at Ryder as he drank deep. Around them, the Minis celebrated while Ryder’s team hung back, letting Reese’s girls have their moment.

  “The true measure of a man is how he admits his mistakes,” he told the boy, gaze moving over the screaming, smiling girls, stopping at Reese as she high-fived them. “Sometimes we can do our best, or at least think we are, and still be wrong.”

  “Wrong?” Jack asked, holding the water between his small fingers. “You think I did something wrong?”

  “No,” he told the kid, pulling his attention away from Reese. “I just mean that we all make mistakes. Even when we practice and plan, sometimes God or the universe or just plain dumb luck has other ideas about how things should go.”

  Jack considered Ryder’s explanation, his forehead wrinkled as he watched the ground, pulling up clumps of grass and dirt with the tip of his shoe. “I delayed. That last throw, I tried to make sure Billy was close as he could be to the end zone, but I waited too long. That’s how she got him.” Ryder nodded, agreeing with Jack. He liked that the boy was able to own up to his mistakes.

  He was already a better man than Ryder in that regard.

  “So mistakes happen?” Jack asked, looking at Ryder with his eyes rounded and wide. “So I shouldn’t beat myself up?”

  “Nah, bud. You shouldn’t.” Across the field, Reese laughed at Wilson and Baker, letting the bigger man kiss her cheek. “Don’t beat yourself up but learn from your mistakes. Make sure you don’t make it again.”

  Jack nodded, smiling at Ryder before he handed back the bottle. “I got it, Mr. Glenn. No more stupid mistakes.” And as the boy ran off, joining his teammates to offer their congratulations to the Minis, Ryder watched Reese. She had been his biggest regret. She always would be.

  Pukui approached, and Ryder’s throat tightened, feeling that deep ache in his chest over the loss the man had suffered, and the incredible weight that must be heavy in his heart now that he was solely responsible for raising his daughter. That was a loss both Pukui and his kid would never get over. Ryder was familiar with that kind of pain.

  Reese leaned down, kissing Pukui’s daughter, brushing back the hair from her face and something wild and old and sweet shoved at the dozing giant Ryder kept at bay. The creature had been awake for a while now. He’d wanted Ryder to act and take and do whatever he had to win back Reese. Seeing her with that little girl, seeing her happy and elated and kind made that giant ache with the anguish of not being near her.

  Reese was good and tender and a part of Ryder’s past that he held close to his heart. She lived inside it, always waiting for forgiveness she should have never needed. She was wild and beautiful and someone who had filled Ryder up in the short time they’d been together. She was the past, a sweet, safe memory that was true and precious to him. And he was desperate for her to be his future.

  And he wanted that future to start right then.

  23

  Ryder

  Too much of their lives had been up for public consumption. Ryder knew marching across that field to soundly kiss Reese in front of their kids, teammates, families, and media would have done nothing to get him alone with her with the quickness he was desperate for.

  They deserved now. Right now. They deserved a new shot at the thing that they’d been best at together.

  Ryder waited an hour after he’d watched Reese leave the field, each minute like a bomb ticking down to detonation. He’d been cruel to her. He’d been selfish, and, God, she thought he was going to father someone else’s child. Reese wouldn’t be easy to convince she should give him another shot.

  But he still had to try.

  “Suck it up,” he told himself, gaze shifting up the side of her building. He’d never been there but had learned, from an excited Cat, what building Reese had moved into.

  “I’m only telling you because I know what’s best for her,” Cat said, more humor in her voice than Ryder thought was necessary.

  “And what’s best for her?” he asked.

  “You, you big idiot. Go get her.”

  There was no traffic on Baronne Street, unusual for a Sunday night. Ryder was glad for the seclusion. It meant they hadn’t been followed. They hadn’t been discovered, but then Ryder had been the only one in the know.

  He nodded to the security guard, half-sleeping, his attention faltering from the security channel and the small monitors of each floor and the parking garage and the tablet on his desk playing an episode of Game of Thrones.

  The man paused the episode when he spotted Ryder, smile sliding up as he stood. “Mr. Glenn,” he greeted, his excitement obvious in how wide his eyes grew, but seeming able to maintain his cool as he offered the quarterback his hand.

  Ryder shook it, nodding back at the man. “I’m here to see…”

  �
��2-C. Go on up.” Ryder got a foot from the elevator when the man called after him. “Great damn season this year,” he told Ryder. “I hope you and Miss Noble can repeat next season.”

  “Thanks, man. I hope so, too.”

  His heart beat in time with his footsteps, each clip of his heel like a hammer slamming inside his chest. Ryder had never been this nervous. But there he stood in that elevator, hands clammy, throat knotted up, fingers shaking as that small box climbed higher and higher. He gave a half-hearted thought about stopping the thing and finishing the rest of the ride in the stairway, figuring he could get to her apartment faster, but then thought better of it.

  Breathe, he told himself, wiping his palms against his pants. Just breathe.

  He heard her calling behind the door just minutes after he rang the bell. He couldn’t hear her walking toward him, but he did catch the low sigh she released, probably when she looked through the peephole.

  Ryder swore he felt his heart stop as the deadbolt unlatched and Reese’s door slid open.

  She didn’t speak, gaze mixing from worry to wariness. Then, Reese moved her eyebrows up, a silent question that was a veiled attempt to hide whatever it was she felt at that moment.

  Reese went on watching him, features tense, as though she wasn’t sure what he wanted or why he’d driven across town to see her at ten at night.

  “It was Hanson,” he said, betting she thought he sounded as stupid as he did.

  “What was Hanson?” she asked, hip leaning against the door.

  He glanced over her shoulder, wishing she’d ask him inside, but didn’t make the request. “The stuff about us at Duke? Turns out Hanson wanted shit on you. He hired a P.I. that was easy for Cat to buy herself.”

  “Cat hired the P.I.?”

  Ryder stuck his hands in his pockets, nodding once before he exhaled. “She said he…” To his left the elevator dinged, and he shot a glance back inside Reese’s apartment. “Can I come inside?”

  Reese squeezed the door between her fingers, waiting a half a second before she shrugged, backing up to wave Ryder inside. “So, Cat hired the guy Hanson hired?” she asked, walking ahead of him into her living room.

  The place was nice—clean, organized, the furnishings classy, a little feminine—all things Ryder’s place wasn’t. Reese fit in here, even if she didn’t realize it. She folded her arms; the stance made her look nervous, then fucking tempting, when her arm brushed against her stomach and lifted the tank she wore, exposing her toned abs.

  Ryder had to look away, avoid the lush sight of her naked skin so close to him. He focused on her face, the beautiful contours of her features, the high cheekbones, the full, perfect mouth.

  “Ryder?” she asked, reminding him that she’d asked a question.

  “Yeah…” He cleared his throat before he continued. “Cat got curious how the DJs found out so she paid off one of their interns. Seems Billy and Bud don’t care so much about being nice to their employees or the kids working in their offices, so the girl Cat met gave her info on one of Billy’s sources. A private investigator in Atlanta named Weston Lloyd. He was easy enough to track down and pay off.”

  “Wouldn’t he lose his license?”

  Ryder shook his head, smiling at Reese. “No honor among thieves. The guy had debts. Cat had cash. He’d probably have sold his soul to get out of his situation. P.I. found Luke. He told the guy everything.”

  “Why wouldn’t Cat tell me this?” she asked, stepping further into the living room. She sat with her foot under her on an upholstered chair, holding a fluffy white pillow against her chest. Ryder spotted the black nail polish on her toes and the green and black Slytherin wool sleep pants she wore.

  Perfect, he thought.

  “Who knows?” he said, following her in the room to sit in front of her on the coffee table. Reese sat up straight, eyes shifting to a squint as she watched him.

  “So…” she started, clutching that pillow tighter. “Cat found out everything, just like this Lloyd person and then…?”

  “Cat told me after our camp’s final game. I confronted Hanson. He admitted it…in front of Ricks and Gia.”

  “Oh…” she said, slumping against the back of her chair. “So Hanson…”

  “Might face consequences next season. Gia isn’t happy about it, and Hanson knows he’s on everyone’s shit list now.” When Reese only nodded, her mouth moving down into a frown, Ryder tilted his head, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “What’s wrong?”

  “Why would everyone have him on their shit lists?”

  Ryder stilled, frowning, watching her. She had to know, surely by now she had to get it. “Reesie, seriously? You don’t know?”

  “What?”

  “Hanson isn’t loyal. But we are. You’re our people. We always protect our people.”

  Reese’s features relaxed, and a small pulse beat quickly against her cheek as she watched Ryder. “Because…because I can kick?”

  “Because,” he said, leaning forward, dropping his tone, making it soft so she knew he meant what he said. “We love you.”

  It seemed to Ryder that the air had somehow warmed in the room. Some kind of heat circled around them, a crackle of energy that he remembered but had not felt in a long time. Reese didn’t speak when he left the table. She didn’t do much at all but take deep inhalations through her nose as he came to his knees in front of her.

  “And when you love someone,” he started, leaning so close to her that Ryder caught the faint hint of bourbon on her breath. It reminded him of post-game celebrations at Duke, of inky black nights lying in the bed of his truck kissing Reese between sips of Jim Beam. “When you love someone…you…”

  Reese tensed, throwing the pillow in her hands to the floor as she stood. “Okay, I get it. I’m lovable. My team loves me. Thank you,” she said, bypassing Ryder as she scrambled away from him and toward the kitchen island. “You should go. It’s late and…”

  “It’s ten at night,” he reminded her, getting to his feet.

  “And you probably have someone’s—she’s…waiting for you…”

  “Reese,” he said, coming closer. Her response was immediate: she bypassed his reach, slipping behind the island. “You don’t understand…”

  “Should have told you sooner. I mean, I knew. Greer told me, and I should have congratulated you and all, but we had the tournament and then Pukui and…”

  “Reesie, hang on a sec.” She only stopped babbling when Ryder came around the island, touching her elbow to slow the animated motion of her hands as she spoke. “We aren’t together. Not anymore.”

  Her expression changed then, and Ryder wasn’t sure if it was disappointment or surprise she felt between the shifting wrinkles that set in her forehead as she watched him. “Since…when?”

  She held her breath when he stood in front of her, moving his hands to either side of her waist, palms flat against the marble top. “Since she lied to you about me getting her pregnant.”

  “Lied?” she asked, releasing a small noise that sounded like a realization.

  Ryder nodded, gaze moving across her features. “No, I’m lying…”

  “So you didn’t break up with her?”

  “I did.” He slipped a hand up, brushing his fingers against the bare skin at her back. “I lied about the when.” Reese shuddered when Ryder rubbed his thumb against her back. He liked how the smallest touch he gave her had an immediate impact. “It was over between us the second you walked onto the field at tryouts.”

  “Ryder…that’s not…”

  “No one has a hold on me like you do, Reese. Not then…” He moved his fingers up her back, skimming the tips to her arms, sliding them over her shoulders and against her neck. “Not now.”

  “You…you never…everything between us…you said there was no…”

  He silenced her with his hands against her face, holding her close as he closed his eyes, forehead against hers, wanting to smell that sweet scent of her hair, wanti
ng to bring back the closeness he once had with her.

  “There was only ever you, baby. You and me and those still nights. You and me and the feel of your body against mine. You and me and the forever that got paused because I was hurt and scared and desperate not to feel that kind of pain again.” He kissed her forehead, moving his nose against hers. “I’m so sorry. Can you forgive me?”

  Reese held onto his wrist, grip tight, fingers trembling. “I forgave you forever ago.”

  Ryder didn’t wait for permission. He didn’t wait for her to invite him for a kiss. Reese had been his a long time ago. She’d been his breath and life.

  He wanted to take it all back, have it back the way it had been before.

  Reese’s touch went still and steady as Ryder lowered his mouth over hers, his patience a weak thing that could not be held. He took her lips in a tentative touch that grew harder, became deeper, as she got louder.

  She tasted like that bourbon and the rush of heat that filled their bodies. She was his again with just one kiss.

  “Ryder,” she panted, pulling him close, fingers curled into the waist of his pants. There was a question in the sound of his name from her lips, one he answered with his lips over her skin, his tongue and teeth moving over the surface of her neck, and down to the hollow of her throat.

  “God, Reesie…I’ve missed this,” he said, tugging her tank lower, teasing the curve of her breast, his thumb across her nipple, glancing at her face when that small movement made her shake and writhe against him. “You like that?” Another swipe of his thumb and her moan deepened. A second swipe, this time with a pinch of his forefinger, and Reese curled her fingers into his hair, grip tight as she pushed him close to her breast.

  Ryder obeyed, coming to his knees, tugging the tank over her head, pushing down the sports bra she wore to get at both breasts, cupping them, nibbling the nipples, sucking both in his mouth as he held her close.