Trick Play (Mavericks Tackle Love Book 3)

by Max Monroe

  Marco didn’t do this—call a meeting just for the sake of praise. At least, not without a reason.

  “Really?” I pushed an elated smile to my lips.

  “Of course,” he said. “What do you think I wanted to talk to you about?”

  “I don’t know.” I stared down at my stilettos before slowly meeting his eyes again and coyly fluttering my lashes. There were answers in more than just my words—a man like Marco knew that—so I focused hard on being nothing more than a pretty face. “I guess I was hoping it was good, but also a little worried maybe you weren’t happy with me.”

  “Not happy with you?” he questioned, and the way he puffed out his chest proved my innocent little girl routine worked like a charm. “Impossible, honey. I’m very, very happy with you.”

  “Really?” I let my face perk up at his words and smiled like he’d given me the golden ticket. “You have no idea how good that makes me feel, Mr. Sabella.”

  “Oh, come on, sweet Trixie, I think it’s high time you start calling me Marco.”

  I giggled. The better to cover my gag with, of course. “Okay, Marco.”

  “Good girl.” I kept up my Trixie act and made my eyes light up a little in response.

  “So…is that all you wanted, Marco?” I asked and added a soft, raspy hint to my voice at the pronunciation of his name.

  “You in a rush to leave me, sweetheart?” His pout was grandiosely manufactured.

  God, he’s such a manipulative bastard.

  “Of course not,” I responded carefully. “It’s just that I’m next onstage, and I don’t want to disappoint any of our customers.”

  “Always so accommodating.” He winked. “I think it’s one of my favorite things about you. And I’m certain it’s one of Cam Mitchell’s favorite things about you too. You know, last night, he even came here looking for you.”

  Instantly, my heart rate kicked up in speed at the name I’d been trying like hell to avoid. And then it stopped as everything he’d said after the name registered.

  Last night? Cam had been here last night? How did I not know that?

  “Oh, really?” I asked, working to keep the arrhythmia of my heart under wraps and a smile on my face. Blinding nausea didn’t make it easy to do either.

  “Uh-huh.” Marco nodded. “He was a little disappointed when he found out you weren’t working, but don’t worry, a few of the other girls managed to keep him very entertained during your absence.”

  Marco might as well have smacked me right in the face.

  Pain sliced through my chest, and I could feel a thick layer of hurt clogging my throat. Hurt I knew I couldn’t show. Hurt I wasn’t so sure I could hide.

  Cam had spent the night getting fucking lap dances from other women?

  What. The. Fuck?

  “Well, that’s good to hear,” I said in Trixie’s fake, phony as fuck voice. Goddamn, I hated that voice so much. “I’m glad he didn’t spend the whole night lonely.”

  “He was quite the opposite of lonely. I can assure you of that,” he said with a smirk. “Now, I guess I’ll let you get back to work, sweetheart.”

  “Okay. Thank you, Marco.”

  I forced a tepid smile to my lips, one I knew had to be green around the edges.

  But I’d be damned if I gave Marco any edge.

  And I’d be damned if I let some fucking guy ruin years of work.

  The instant I shut the door behind me, I walked back toward the dressing room and stood in front of my vanity, trying to put a stop to my scattered thoughts and emotions.

  Had Cam really come here last night? Had he really spent the whole fucking evening being entertained by the other women working in this club so soon after sleeping with me?

  I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer—either way.

  “Everything go okay?” Star asked, and I startled. I’d been so lost in my thoughts I hadn’t even registered that she was beside me.

  “Yep,” I said. “Everything went fine.”

  Just fucking fine.

  She smiled in response and went back to fixing her hair, and I should’ve left the conversation at that.

  But I couldn’t stop myself from asking. I couldn’t stop my stupid self from finding out what she knew. “Did you work last night?”

  “Yeah,” she said and glanced at me out of the corner of her eye. “Why?”

  “I kind of forgot I told Cam Mitchell I’d be here, and I was wondering if he ended up showing up.”

  “He sure did,” she said with a little wink. “Saw him sitting with Marco and talking to Ana when I went out to give a lap dance.”

  My knees shook with the urge to crumple to the floor, but I held tight to the back of my vanity chair and kept my composure.

  I shouldn’t have been mad.

  In all reality, Cam could do whatever the fuck he wanted. I wasn’t in a relationship with him, and he definitely didn’t owe me anything.

  He didn’t even know me.

  And I sure as hell didn’t know him.

  But feelings were tricky, fickle little fuckers that thrived off irrationality.

  And I couldn’t stop them from flooding over my mind no matter how hard I tried to build a dam of rational control.

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  I hated that my chest ached.

  I hated that I felt like puking.

  And I hated that I was completely affected by Star’s confirmation.

  I thought about Cam, and I thought about the phone calls and text messages and quiet, private moments we’d shared.

  Sure, there weren’t a lot of them, but the ones that had occurred had left more than a simple impression on me. They’d truly meant something.

  I knew, with every inch of my soul, we had a connection deeper than all the lies.

  When I’d kissed him, it had been me kissing him.

  When he’d touched me, slid himself inside of me, it’d been my skin and my moans and my reactions.

  During our most intimate interactions, I’d given him parts of myself, the true parts of myself.

  And sadly, it was those things that played with my mind the most.

  You know what they say: the bad stuff is always easier to believe.

  After the pop-in I made to Skins last night, and the somewhat disastrous direction it’d turned, I decided maybe it was time to dial back some of the theatrics.

  Was I interested in Lana? Yes.

  Did I want to see her, speak with her, find a way to make something between us more than a quick night of fucking work? Absolutely yes.

  But I needed to be a little more patient in letting it come to me.

  As long as Lana knew I was interested, and I’d made every effort to enforce that, the ball would have to be in her court.

  That didn’t mean I wouldn’t reach out. That didn’t mean I wouldn’t pursue her. But it did mean taking things one step at a time and giving her time to work out whatever sorts of questions she had in her head.

  It’d taken two weeks to get her first name, for fuck’s sake.

  It was probably going to take a little more time to get a commitment.

  The timer on the oven sounded to announce the readiness of my late dinner, and Lucky, as expected, lost his ever-loving shit at the sound of it.

  I jumped up from the couch in a hurry and bounded over the dog gate to find him barking at the offending appliance and squaring up by leaning back into his haunches.

  I swatted his butt with a playful hand to break the intensity of his growl and laughed.

  “Relax, Luck. Geez. It’s just dinner. I had no idea when I adopted you I was getting such a basket case.”

  He woofed his objection to my assessment, but I rolled my eyes as I pulled on my oven mitts.

  “Please. You can’t even deny that you’re a fucking worrywart.”

  He woofed again, a clear rejection of my philosophy. He could deny it all he fucking wanted, but I knew the truth.

  “Look out, would you?” I ordered, cle
aring him away from the oven door with a sweep of my bare foot.

  The cheese on the top of the broccoli casserole bubbled and browned; it was perfectly cooked and ready to remove. My eyes rolled in delight as the smell of goodness overwhelmed me.

  With a kick and a twist, I closed the door and set the casserole on top of the range, hoping to keep it out of Lucky’s destructive reach.

  I still had to venture outside to pull my steak off the grill, and there was honestly no telling the amount of damage my crazy dog could do to my perfectly cooked casserole in the time that would take.

  “You behave yourself,” I told him sternly. “I have to get my steak off the grill, and I really want that casserole to be in one fucking piece when I get back.”

  It was amazing how normal it felt to talk directly to my dog after several years of living alone—just the two of us—but I wasn’t even embarrassed by it anymore.

  He was a home-destroying psychopath, but he was good company.

  I had just stepped onto the patio and pulled the door shut behind me when my phone rang inside my pocket.

  Thankful to be outside and well away from a potential hungry canine attack, I pulled it out and glanced at the screen.

  Beth Calling.

  Eager to talk to my sister and get a little taste of home, I answered the call and put the phone to my ear.

  “Well, hello, world traveler,” I greeted cheerfully. For the past three weeks, since finishing her sophomore year of college at Vanderbilt, she’d been traveling the Mediterranean like some kind of fucking rich girl.

  Don’t get me wrong, my family had a good amount of money, but my parents had never financed a European romp for me.

  “Hey, CamCam,” she taunted back, using the nickname she’d developed for me when she was just a toddler. I’d always hated and loved the fucking thing at the same time. I’d been a near-teenager, too cool for my own good, when she’d been a tiny little thing using it, and I’d grumbled uselessly to my parents about waiting so long to have a second child.

  They’d done nothing to defend their decision, instead essentially telling me to fuck off—which I deserved as it was in no way my business—and the nickname had been a thing ever since.

  “Listen, you’re going to need to tell me the secret of your ways. How the hell did you get Mom and Dad to send you on a trip like that at no expense of your own?”

  She laughed. “The same way you got Dad to build you a football field in the backyard.”

  “There’s such a thing as European scholarships to college?” I asked with a purposeful amount of sarcasm.

  “There’s studying abroad, numbnuts. I was touring a bunch of colleges over there to potentially attend second semester next year.”

  “Wow. You’re a better salesperson than I thought.”

  “Give me a break. You have your own money now. If you want to take a trip, you can just pay for it.”

  “If I want to take a trip, I have to wait ten years.”

  “You know, some people actually take vacations before they retire. It could be good for your focus.”

  “My focus is fine,” I argued, pulling the steak off the grill and placing it on the waiting dish.

  It was a half-truth, given the shakiness Lana had thrown into the mix these days, but tales about a stripper and an arrest weren’t exactly the loving details I wanted to get into with my college-aged little sister.

  The meat looked good, so instead of dawdling, I made my way back into the house and set to filling the rest of my plate with my casserole.

  Lucky may have tried to ruin it, if the paw prints on the glass of my oven were anything to go by, but it’d thankfully been out of his reach.

  “Listen, Beth,” I interrupted my sister as she blabbered on in my ear about Greek isles and how they were the cure for her soul. “I just finished making my dinner, and I’d like to eat it before Lucky beats me to it.”

  “Your dog is ridiculous.”

  “He’s adorable,” I contended.

  She laughed. “That too. Are you at least coming to dinner at Mom and Dad’s next week?”

  I groaned internally at the hope in her voice, knowing I wouldn’t be able to disappoint her—I absolutely hated disappointing Beth—but dreaded the four-hour drive already.

  My parents lived just outside of DC, in Northern Virginia, in the house I’d grown up in all those years ago. It was nice that I’d managed to be this close playing professional football—as it was rarely the case—but four hours was still a long haul in one direction for dinner.

  But, yeah. The disappointing my little sister. I wasn’t good at it.

  “Fine,” I agreed. “I’ll come to dinner next week.”

  I could hear her smile over the phone, and instantly, it made the drive seem worth it.

  God, I’m a sucker.

  “See you then, bro.”

  “See you then,” I repeated with a smile.

  I ended the call and dropped my hand, but the appeal of the lit-up screen was too strong.

  Quickly scrolling to recent calls, I moved to Lana’s name, dialed, and pressed the speaker button, resolving to leave her a voice mail when she didn’t answer this time.

  Only, she did answer.

  “Hello?”

  Fuck, the mere sound of her voice hit me straight in the chest, and I almost knocked my phone off the counter. I scrambled, volleying it back and forth between my hands as though they were paddles, and finally stopped it just before I lost it to the dog-infested underworld of my kitchen floor.

  Holy shit. Get it together, Cam.

  “Uh, hi, Lana.” My throat quavered as I swallowed hard to cover up the ragged breathing all the action had produced.

  “Hi,” she said simply. Her voice was kind of small, and I didn’t know what to make of it.

  But my mom and sister had taught me that finding the answer from a woman was often a minefield, so I decided instead to ignore it altogether.

  “I’m glad you answered.” I paused. “Like, really glad, actually. I’ve been wanting to talk to you.”

  “I’ve been busy.”

  I nodded immediately, even though she couldn’t see it, and then expressed my acceptance verbally. “Yeah, totally. I figured. I’m just glad I finally caught you.”

  Her heavy sigh was like a pin to my balloon of excitement. She didn’t seem nearly as enthused to be talking to me, and the tactic of ignoring it seemed less and less plausible by the second.

  Against my mom’s and sister’s judgment, I went straight in for the answer.

  “What’s going on?”

  The heavy pause she took before replying didn’t do anything to lift my spirits.

  “I just… Cam, I’m not sure the other night was a good idea. I’ve got a lot on my plate. A ton, actually. And you’ve got this whole steady life and routine you have to maintain for football. I honestly don’t think I’m the best choice for you.”

  Her admission felt like it came straight out of left field.

  Ever since I’d brought her home on my bike over a week ago and spent one of the best nights of my fucking life losing myself in her, the only interactions that had occurred between us had been playful text messages.

  Text messages that had shown she was just as interested as I was.

  None of which had given me any reason to believe she’d all of a sudden put a hard stop to our undeniable connection.

  The line grew silent, and I knew I needed to respond.

  “Well,” I started as I tried to rein in my surprise and, if I was being honest, harsh disappointment. “I mean, I get it. We don’t know each other well, and the other night happened pretty fast. I totally get that, and I’m willing to slow it down. I just…I’d like to get to know you, Lana. I feel like there’s something between us worth exploring. I don’t know if anything will come out of it, or if our lives will fit together, but I’d… Well, I’d like to at least give it a little more of a try.”

  “That’s the thing, Cam. You ca
n’t get to know me.”

  Huh? What was it that made women think it was a good idea to speak in code?

  “What do you mean?” I asked by way of attempting to understand what she was really trying to say. “Of course I can. This kind of thing takes time. It’s not going to happen overnight.”

  As much as I didn’t regret sleeping together, I was starting to regret the casualness with which I’d treated it. It was the only reason I could come up with for the change in her tune.

  “We’re going in different directions, trust me.” Her voice sounded too firm, too determined, and my stomach dropped dramatically.

  But once the initial shock wore off, frustration boiled under the surface of my chest as she pushed desperately against everything I wanted. Convincing her seemed like the only option, but from the way she sounded, it really didn’t seem like I’d be able to.

  “I don’t think we are,” I countered, but she stayed almost obstinately silent.

  It felt like I didn’t really have a choice in this matter. No matter how much I wanted to change that fact. Like I was fighting my opponent blind.

  “But…I guess you seem like you’ve made up your mind.” My voice was the only thing filling the deafening silence that had developed between us. “So, I’m not sure what to do here. I’d like to pursue you, but I’m not really amped up to fight a losing battle.”

  She didn’t respond, but I waited.

  And when she finally spoke again, her voice was resolute. “You would be.”

  She’d already written us off, written me off, as a battle that wasn’t even worth fighting.

  Fuck. That hurt. If she felt something for me, she’d fight for it.

  “All right,” I conceded, looking down at the steak that had lost any and all appeal. “I guess I’ll just hope you change your mind. You have my number if you do.”

  I closed my eyes tightly as she shut the metaphorical door completely and ruined my appetite for good.

  “Goodbye, Cam.”

  The phone clicked in my ear, and I let it drop to the counter.

  With a sweep of my hand, I dumped the food in the trash, plate and all, and grabbed a beer from the fridge instead.

  How the hell did this night go to shit so fast?

  “What’s wrong, Lana Lou?” my dad asked, and I looked up from my plate of spaghetti and meatballs for the first time since our weekly dinner started.