by Aubrey Irons
It’s a lot more than that, and I know it. London and Holden Cade, who she poached from the Rattlesnakes barely two months ago have a much more interwoven story than just her “getting knocked up.”
I just like giving my best friend shit like this.
She rolls her eyes, her cheeks going red before she looks down at her still totally non-showing belly.
“How’re you feeling, by the way?”
“Good,” she says with this broad, engulfing sort of smile I’ve never quite seen on her before. “I’m feeling really good.”
She should be. The girl’s just managed to find her soulmate - someone who fits her like no other guy I could possible imagine.
She shrugs. “Plus my dad isn’t threatening to blast my fiancé with a shotgun anymore, so there’s that.”
I laugh, raising my glass. “Gonna miss you, Texas.”
London snorts a laugh herself before her face falls again.
“I seriously can’t believe you’re moving.”
“Same,” I mutter.
“And I can’t believe you’re going to be working with Landon.”
I groan again. “Yeah, no shit.”
She eyes me with a prying look.
“You know, you never did come clean with me about what happened with you two. I know something went down the night he took me out for that job offer dinner.”
I groan exasperatedly. “No, I did tell you. We got drunk, we stayed up super late, and we fell asleep on his balcony.”
“Oh, is that what the kids are calling it these days?”
I roll my eyes. “You’re impossible.”
“And you’re keeping something from me.”
“I’m really not!” I put the wine down and spread my arms wide.
Again though, lying to my friend hurts. But even when it happened, I couldn’t tell her that I’d slept with the head of the board of our rival team. I can’t tell her about the deep discussions on the meaning of life and the universe - the type of deep discussions you can only have at five in the morning with a lukewarm bottle of champagne in your hand and the sun cresting over the city skyline.
I can’t tell her about the part where I threw every rational thought away and gave in to the need for him.
This time though, she seems satisfied with my answer, which only hurts worse.
“Well, on the bright side, at least he’s cute.”
I roll my eyes. “Do not call him that.”
“Oh, please. I might kind of buy that you didn’t totally have sex with him that night, but do not even pretend to disagree that Landon Reece is a good looking guy.”
“He’s an arrogant asshole,” I mutter.
“Arrogant assholes have an obnoxious way of being pleasing to the eyes.”
“Believe me, he’s just the first part.”
“Well you seemed awfully chummy with him before, considering you didn’t sleep with him.”
“Yeah, well that was before I really got to meet him. Because trust me, he’s a douchebag, and he’s acting like it’s my fault that a guy I’ve never met before is giving me half his team.”
London makes a face. “I’d be pissed too, I guess. I mean, if I were him and found out a stranger was getting half of what I’d assumed was mine.”
“Well, sure, but why the hell is he taking it out on me?”
“Male PMS?”
I snort.
“Look, I’ve only got one night here before I have to head back to Denver. Can we go out tonight?”
London arches a brow at me. “Uh, pregnant, remember?”
I down the last of my wine and grimace before I shoot her a look. “Dancing is good for babies.”
“Says?”
“The internet. I read it.”
She laughs. “Oh, well then.”
“And I’ll buy you all the most expensive, extravagant, ridiculous mocktails you want.” I give her a pleading look. “Please. I’m moving away from my best friend to get locked up in the castle with the evil beast. Let me have this.”
London grins. “Are you comparing you going to work with Landon in Denver to Beauty and the Beast?”
“Yes.”
She gives me one of her famous knowing looks.
“You do remember how that one ends, right?”
“Oh shut up.”
Chapter Seven
Serena
I groan as I gratefully sink into the couch in the dark of my living room. I let my head loll back as I kick my heels off and put them up on my coffee table. My TV remote and a few magazines go scattering, but I merely wave a hand at them dismissively as I close my eyes and take a deep breath.
Apparently, going drink for drink with a pregnant lady who’s sucking down pineapple juice, lime and soda water like it’s going out of style was not my best plan for the evening. Especially when I’m the one drinking Mexican beers and shots of tequila.
Yikes.
But in a weird way, it feels like me moving to Denver and taking on this insane new adventure is keeping in fashion. After all, my friend is also moving on in a way, what with getting married, and having a baby and all that.
Still, I’m going to miss this. Even if this ends up only being thirty days, I’m going to miss having her so close. I’m going to miss this city I know so well, and the people I call family.
I rummage in my purse for my phone and start tapping out a message to her that I did indeed get home okay, when another text comes buzzing through.
Did you get any of the emails I sent over?
I roll my eyes. Landon, of course. Bossy, demanding, texting me about work stuff on my last free night in Houston Landon. The answer to his way after business hours text is of course, no. I mean, yes, I got his emails - all ten of them. But no, I haven’t looked at a single one past subject lines like: “Q3 Quarterly Accounts Rec.” and “Offensive Coaching Spending Analysis” and “Four Year Conjectures.”
Please.
I mean, I get it. I get that the job is going to be intense, I get that it’s way over my head, and I get that I’m not just going to be gifted this bizarre windfall on a silver platter. But like I said, it’s my last night in Houston with my best friend in the world.
Landon and his four-year spending conjectures can take a hike until tomorrow.
Roger roger.
I groan and make a face as soon as the text goes through. Great, don’t mind me, just using dorky Airplane movie quotes to respond to my new hot, multi-million dollar football organization co-owner.
No big deal.
Yes, I mean. I got them. Will look at on the plane tomorrow.
My phone instantly starts ringing with a call from him.
Good Lord.
“Hi.”
There’s a beat.
“Hi.”
His voice comes deep and velvety over the phone.
I immediately make a face at the words my mind has chosen to describe Landon Reece’s voice and clear my throat.
“What’s up?”
“Is there a reason you haven’t looked at those documents yet?”
“Besides it being eleven o’clock at night?”
“I sent them hours ago for you to at least look over.”
“Well, I didn’t.”
“Do.”
I roll my eyes. “Are you always going to be this bossy?”
“Yes.”
There’s a hint of humor in his voice, but I can also tell he’s serious.
“I went out,” I toss back.
“Clearly.”
“You’re big on the one word answers aren’t you?”
He sighs, in a way where I can practically picture him pushing those large hands through his thick, blonde hair - those perfect lips of his thin across his defined jaw.
Again, my face sours again at my choice of words in describing him.
“I get things done, Serena,” he says. He’s got one of those voices that gets even more pronounced over the phone, and his happens to be this head-swimmi
ng combination of stern, demanding, business boardroom and cavalier, cocky jock all at once.
At the current moment, with tequila still flowing through my system, it’s making it very hard to concentrate on what he’s actually saying.
“What?”
He clears his throat.
“I said, I get things done. And there is a lot to get done right now with this team, just so you know.”
I frown. “And just so you know, you don’t have to talk to me like I’m a child. Trust me, I get the magnitude of this, okay? I get that this is a big deal.”
“Which is, I’m assuming, why you went out and got drunk tonight instead of looking over the important business documents I sent over.”
My eyes narrow. “One of us is moving away from their home for this, in case you’ve forgotten. I think it’s well within my rights to have a night to myself to say goodbye to special people in my life.”
“Special people.”
There’s an edge to his response that brings a slight grin to my lips.
“Yep,” I say flatly. “Special people.”
“So is your boyfriend okay with you moving to Denver for this job?”
I mean special people like my best friend. I could correct him on my complete lack of any sort of romantic relationship in Houston, but there’s a strange part of me that wants to see where this is going.
“I don’t see how my dating life is of any concern of yours,” I say primly.
“Oh believe me, it’s not,” he tosses back with almost a laugh. “But I do need to know that your head is going to be centered and focused on this job and not still lingering on whatever you’re leaving behind.”
“Not going to be a problem, but thanks for the concern,” I say with annoyance in my voice.
Landon chuckles.
“There’s no boyfriend is there.”
I scowl as I tuck my knees up and hug them.
“I didn’t say that.”
He starts to laugh again.
“What are you, still pouting that I never called you or something?”
The line goes quiet at my response, and I grin.
“I don’t pout, Serena,” he says with a hint of amusement in his voice that irks me. “And just so you know, I also don’t do second dates or repeats.”
“Repeats?” I roll my eyes. “Believe me, it wasn’t that good.”
It’s my second time lying this evening.
“Serena.” His voice comes purring through the phone, instantly sending a shiver up my spine.
He sighs. “Look, we need to stop this back and forth if we’re going to work together on this.”
My scowl deepens.
“I thought I was going to be gone in thirty days.”
He sighs. “Yeah, well, if you’re gone, I’m gone, and neither of us gets a piece of the pie. So it looks like we’re in this together.”
“Now was that so painful to admit?”
Landon clears his throat. “Look, about what happened before-”
“I think we’re both adults.”
“Good,” he says firmly. “I don’t mix business and, well, that.”
I grin. “Were you seriously just about to say ‘pleasure’?”
“Look I can just tell there’s probably something lingering there, and I want you to know there has to be nothing but professionalism between us.”
My jaw drops in the empty darkness of my living room.
“Are you actually implying that I won’t be able to keep my hands to myself or something?”
Asshole.
“I’m just putting the cards on the table.”
“Wow,” I whistle, shaking my head in disbelief. “You seriously need to get over yourself.”
“There’s a lot at stake here, Serena, and I think it’s best if we both agree that-”
“Goodnight, Landon.”
I hang up.
Chapter Eight
Landon
The hospital is clinical and white in a sterile, chemical way. I can feel my jaw tightening, my fist clenching with every step as I make my way down the hall towards Sam’s room. The creep of something chilling slides up my spine and threatens to break into the little locked box in my mind of everything from that night.
I fucking hate hospitals.
I didn’t always. Hospitals used to make me think of the day Emily came into this world. They made me think of holding my newborn daughter in my hands, and for the first time ever in my life, truly understanding that there was more to this world than just me.
I lost those memories the night of the crash. Those memories along with almost everything else in my life. After that night, hospitals make me think of unbearable loss, and wanting to fight against something there’s no fighting against. No amount of drive, or muscles, or rage could bring back what I lost that night.
The night of the crash.
The night one random, senseless act of selfishness by a stranger ended in shattered glass and broken steel and bones.
The night I lost Sarah.
The night I lost my wife.
The drunk college kid who hit us that night died on impact, but not before he took away two of the biggest things in my life.
I knew the first one instantly. I knew I wasn’t ever playing football again even when I was still trapped in that car, just by looking at my leg. Before the EMTs even got to us, still hanging upside-down in what used to be a car, holding her hand and telling her to hold on, I knew my career was over.
That was a quick acceptance. That loss came fast, and I digested it, and moved on.
It was the second one that cut infinitely deeper. It was losing Sarah two hours later in this very hospital that all but broke me.
That was six years ago, and now I fucking hate this place.
But I didn’t lose everything. Somehow, I got to keep one last piece of good in my life.
Emily.
Emily who a friend was watching that night when we went out to dinner. Fate, or God, or whatever you want to call it let me hold onto her, and that little girl became my entire reason for living.
It still is.
I grit my teeth, pausing at the door to Sam’s room before I turn the knob and step inside.
It’s cold in here - the air filled with the same antiseptic chemicals as the rest of this place. He’s alone, laying propped up in his hospital bed connected to machines that breathe for him. His hair seems grayer, his skin sallow - a shadow of the man and the mentor who was the closest thing to a father I’ve ever had.
I’ve called Sam Horn my “Uncle” for just about as long as I’ve known him - first as a hot-headed player for the Rattlesnakes, then management after the crash. The man saw something in me, I guess. Somehow, Sam saw through my wild, bullshit ways as a younger guy and decided I had promise. And I did, under his guidance.
After the crash, when any other team owner in the world would’ve sent me a nice card, their condolences, and a “fuck off, you’ve been replaced”, Sam stuck me in management. And hell, if I thought I’d been good at marshaling meatheads on a football field, turns out I was a natural at cracking skulls in a boardroom. I made chairman six months into the job, and I’ve never looked back.
I flop down in a chair next to Sam’s bed, frowning at the shell of a version of the man I know so well. Sam Horn: sixty-five years old and still the life of every party. Fast cars, young women, lavish nights out - perpetual bachelor extraordinaire. Sam saw promise in a wild, lawless young kid like me because he was that wild kid. Hell, he still is that kid, even if he learned to channel it better with business.
Seeing him like this - broken and cold - just seems like such a fucking waste. Horrible timing too, if we’re being honest. There are a million questions I want to ask him right now - most if not all of them having to do with her.
Serena.
Make no mistake, I’m grateful for everything Sam’s given me in this life, and I have zero qualms about splitting up ownership of the team with someone els
e if that’s the direction he’s chosen.
But her?
Serena Roth came out of nowhere - first a month ago back in Houston, with a night that stands out in a sea of forgettable nights. And they’ve all been forgettable since Sarah.
A hundred women, and every single one of them one-time, forgettable nights. Quite purposefully, I might add. Because I have time in my life and space in my heart for two things, and two things only: my daughter, and this job. There’s no room for anything else, and that’s the way I like it. Focused, unburdened, and armored.
And yet I can’t stop thinking about that night with her. Her, the girl I never saw coming, and the one that won’t get out of my head. The girl I stayed up all night talking with - letting go with.
I shake my head as I reach out, pat Sam’s hand, and then stand to leave.
Love will only break you. Love will leave you cut open and empty, even when you do find it.
So will unknown variables suddenly owning half of your mentor’s legacy.
I’m calling the investigative team before I’m even out of the hospital. Kyle and Silas were referred to me by Austin, a one-time possible recruit for Denver who turned into a friend, and I’ve used them for a couple jobs now.
Nothing like this though.
Nothing this personal.
Kyle picks up on the second ring.
“Long time, bud. What’s going on?”
“Got a job for you guys.”
Part of this feels wrong. Part of this feels like it’s probably nothing I should be doing. But the other part is pretty plain and simple: I need to know everything there is on Serena Roth. I need to know who the hell she is, where the hell she came from, and how she got half this fucking team.
And I need to know now.
Chapter Nine
Landon
Four Weeks Ago:
“Jesus Christ it’s hotter out here than it was in there,” I groan as we stumble out of the dive bar and into the dry Houston heat.
So much for coming out for a breath of fresh air.
