He sighs. “I mean what was so intense that I had to come out and meet you tonight?”
I shrug, shoving a beer his way.
“What, I can’t hang with my good buddy?”
Max eyes the beer, but doesn’t take it. He raises his dark eyes to me, frowning slightly.
“You sort of made it sound like it was important,” he says in his deep baritone voice.
I grin. “Dude, it’s always important for us to hang. Anyways, I also just said it was so you’d actually come.”
He groans, muttering under his breath.
“You disappear all the time now, man!” I clap him on the arm. “How the fuck else am I supposed to get you to actually come out?”
He chuckles. “Yeah well, life’s different now, dude. Things change.”
The changes he’s talking are the twin girls he and Hannah had three years back. Max is fucking completely devoted to them. Shit, he’s come to practice with his toenails painted sparkly pink like five times now, and no one gives him a bit of shit about it.
Well, I do, but that’s cause I’m an asshole - plus he knows I’m just messing with him.
“So what, I gotta lie to you to get you to come out with me these days?”
“Yeah, basically.” He glares at me. “I can’t believe you dragged me out here, you liar. Tonight was movie night.”
I pull a face. “Sorry, dude. I just missed hanging with you.”
He grins. “I’m just fucking with you.”
He grabs the beer in front of him and takes a swig.
“You asshole.”
I turn and take a sip of my own beer before I take a deep breath.
“Okay, actually…” I trail off and shrug.
“There is something I need to talk to you about.”
“You’re moving.”
I choke mid-sip from my bottle. Max laughs.
“Dude, you’re way less sneaky than you think you are.”
Fuck.
I stare at my beer, not sure what to say before Max chuckles and claps me on the shoulder.
“Don’t worry, I’m the only one that has it figured out – by the way, thanks for confirming my hunch just now.”
I mutter under my breath and look away.
“Hey, I get it man.” Max nods slowly, stroking his beard before he takes another slug of beer.
“Brandon, all the pressure of being the hometown boy,” he shrugs. “You could have an easy career here, you know.”
“I know.”
“But you want to be more than just a hometown boy though, I can tell.”
I nod. “I need a change, man.”
We sit in silence for another second, just drinking our beers before Max turns back to me.
“Where?”
I chew on it for a second before answering.
“Houston.”
He smirks, raising a questioning brow. “The Bulls?”
“It’s a hell of an offer.”
Max laughs. “Well, yeah, I’d hope so for being the worst fucking team in the league.”
“Yeah no shit.”
He laughs again, shaking his head before he turns back to me.
“That said, you turn it around for them and you’re a god.”
“The thought had occurred to me.” I grin at him. “Maybe I could get them to buy you too.”
He snorts. “Yeah, Hannah would be thrilled.”
He puts a heavy hand on my shoulder and nods as he raises his beer to me.
“Well hey man, congrats.”
I give him a wry look. “Really?”
“Yeah, really. You think it’s the right move?”
“I think it might be.”
He nods. “Well then, fuck it. Long as you visit once in a while, you prick.”
He turns back to his beer.
“Not that often, though,” he says with a grin.
“Dick.”
I turn to the bartender and call out for a couple shots of whiskey, but Max frowns and shakes his head.
“Nah, I’m good man. Only having the one.”
I roll my eyes. “Oh c’mon! This is big, man! Hell, I thought you said movie night was bullshit.”
“It is, but that doesn’t mean I can or want to get home late and drunk.”
I thank the bartender for the shots and then shake my head at Max.
“Live a little.”
He shakes his head sternly.
“Ugh, fine.”
I take the first shot and then do the one I got him.
Max’s mouth goes tight.
“You’re not driving tonight, right?”
My post-shot buzz instantly sours as I glare at him.
“No, of course not.”
“Good.”
We’re silent a minute.
“How you doing with that anyways,” he says quietly.
“With what,” I snap.
I know damn well what he’s talking about, it’s just nothing I seem to ever be able to have a straight discussion about.
Brandon.
My best friend.
The one I let walk away from that party with his truck keys in his hand because I was too interested in getting a piece of ass to chase him down and tell him to call a fucking cab.
I look away. “I’m fine, Max.”
“Bro, you can talk about it, you know. That shit hit all of us pretty-”
“I’m fine, man,” I snap again.
Max backs off, nodding.
“Sorry,” I mumble.
“Don’t,” he says gruffly. “It’s fine to be angry man, just don’t be angry at yourself. And don’t you fucking dare end up like him,” he adds, jabbing a finger at me. “Get a fucking Uber or something.”
“I know, I will.”
Max sighs. “Well, fuck, this got morose fast.”
“Seriously how do I bribe you to come get fucked up with me?”
He snorts, shaking his head.
“Come on, let’s hit up Soul Lounge and pick up some college chicks.”
Max raises a single eyebrow at me and gives me the same look I remember from the road whenever I’d try and convince him there were other vaginas in the world than the one he was married to.
It’s a look that says ‘shut up and back the fuck off right now’.
I’ve missed that look.
“Oh you know what I mean,” I say with a grin. “I’ll pick up college girls and you’ll be the kindly friend who graciously declines the obvious and inevitable invitation to get laid.”
“And then pass her your way?”
I give him two thumbs up.
“Despite the fact that you’ll already most likely have three girls crawling all over you.”
I nod eagerly. “Yeah that’s the general plan. The more the merrier, Max. I think everyone deserves a little love.”
“You’re a nut, Holden.”
“Yeah, nuts for hot college girls begging for it.” I sigh at him. “And you’re fucking insane for tying yourself to one woman.”
He eyes me again as I grin at him and deflate a little.
“Okay, no, you’re not insane. You actually just have the game figured out.”
He claps me on the back. “You’re learning. I’m proud of you, buddy.”
“So you’re really not going to come out with me and help me get laid.”
“You don’t need help in that department last time I checked the papers.”
I grin at him and he sighs dramatically.
“Look, I’ll give you a fucking ride to Soul Lounge, okay?”
I pump a fist in the air. “You’re the best, Max. Let me just get a shot for the road.”
He frowns at me. “Take it easy, man.”
“Nah,” I grin. “That’s your job, family man.”
“It’ll happen to you, and you’ll get it.” Max stands as I signal the bartender for another shot.
“You’ll find a girl and find out what I’m talking about.”
London’s face pops i
nto my head before I even know what hits me, and I freeze, the shot-glass halfway to my lips.
What the fuck is that?
Max is talking about goddamn soul mates and families and shit, and the girl I had a one-night drunken fling with pops in my head.
Jesus, I need to get laid.
It’s been roughly eight hours since London walked out of that hotel room, but damn do I need to get something strange to get that girl out of my head, for whatever reason she’s still there.
I quickly take the shot of whiskey, grunting at the burn before I turn to Max and gesture dramatically.
“Bring me to pussy, valet!”
* * *
The bravado is gone fifteen minutes after getting to the club.
The scene is exactly what I thought and said it would be. Me, drunk in a private booth with three girls fucking feeding me booze, stroking my body, and writhing on top of me.
Yeah, in this town, I’m the fucking king. And yet here I am thinking about leaving it, like some sort of idiot.
Two of the girls - a couple of blondes - start to make out over me, right in front of me. The third leans in and whispers in my ear that we should all head back to my place.
All.
My cock throbs. Fuck, I mean, of course it does. I’m a red blooded man after all.
But then one face pops into my head, and the whole debaucherous fantasy comes crashing down.
Fucking London’s face.
Again.
And then I’m not thinking about the hedonistic orgy that’s being offered to me. I’m not thinking about any of these vapid, giggling football groupies.
I’m thinking of her.
I’m thinking of that sass, or of how she threw it right back at me - how she made me work for it.
I’m thinking about how she rode me, how she spread her legs and took me inside, clawing at my back and moving with me like no other girl ever has.
The way she brushed me off this morning.
I can’t do this.
And at that point, I don’t even want to. The booze is coursing through me, the music’s too loud, and suddenly I just feel claustrophobic with these skanks crawling all over me.
I need air.
“I’ll be back in a sec, honey,” I say, pushing the third blonde off of me.
She frowns. “Where are you going?”
I stand and all three of them look at me like I’m fucking insane.
And I really might be.
“I just need some air.”
She pouts in this thoroughly un-sexy, obnoxious way.
“Coming back?”
I nod. “Yeah, definitely.” I flash them a grin and the three of them start giggling.
I’m not coming back.
I stagger outside, just needing to be out of that fucking place and away from the crowds and the music and the meaningless groupies.
I grab a cab back to the first bar down the street where I parked. I’m stumbling, and fishing for my keys, ignoring Max’s words. I get to my car, squinting at the door handle, when Brandon’s face comes scowling into my head.
Fuck.
What am I, an idiot?
I stare at the keys in my hand; slowly shaking my head and feeling my shoulders droop.
Not like this.
I stuff the keys in my pocket instead, turning and shuffling back to the street to see if I can grab a new cab.
* * *
Back at my condo, I slump down onto my couch.
I’m drunk, but I know that’s no excuse for why I’m still thinking about London Goddamn Jacobs. I stuff my hand in my pocket and pull my phone out, flipping through contacts until I land on her number.
Jesus, what the fuck am I doing.
No, I don’t call girls like this. I wait for them to call me, or just show up ready to suck my cock. Because that’s the guy I am.
Crude? Misogynistic? Filthy?
You fucking bet, and I’ve got zero complaints about it so far.
And yet…
I groan.
And yet here I am hemming and hawing about calling London, like a total pussy.
Fuck it. I’m not calling her.
I’ll text her instead.
15
London
Seven hours after I’m supposed to take off, I’m finally settled into my seat on the plane, finally at cruising altitude back home.
Opening my laptop, I click onto the in-flight wifi before bringing up my email.
Because I travel so much on planes without cell service, I have my phone set up so that text messages come through to my email, so I can actually communicate with people for work on flights.
But I frown at the browser, because there, at the top of my inbox, is new text message from someone I do not need to be communicating with.
Holden.
“Talk to your people yet?”
I click “Reply” and fire off a message back.
“I’ve barely talked to a stewardess. Still on flight.”
“Seriously? That sucks.”
“Delayed.”
And then as an afterthought, I follow it with another one.
“Ps, you’re terrible at negotiating. You should wait for ME to get back to you.”
A minute goes by, during which I turn and look out the window, thinking about the night before. That particular train of thought quickly brings a flush to my cheeks, and so I quickly think of something else - anything else - as I squirm in my seat.
I turn back to my screen just as another message pops up.
“Thanks for the hot negotiating tip, but what do you think last night was?”
I bristle as I furiously hammer out a succinct reply.
“Last night was just some fun. I think we’re both adult enough to know that.”
A reply comes a few seconds later.
“Totally. I was just hoping things hadn’t changed what with me giving you the fucking of your life.”
My jaw drops at the sheer fucking nerve of this man. And I want to message him back and give him a serious piece of my mind, when cool, business rational takes control instead.
I breathe before I smile a thin smile and type a response.
“Hardly.”
Followed by a winky face.
Jesus I just sent a fucking winky face.
A minute goes by with me just staring at my inbox waiting for a reply.
Nothing.
Of course nothing, because I sent a stupid emoji like some sort of giggling girlfriend.
Another minute, followed by three more tick past before I finally roll my eyes at myself for hanging on his response like this. The stewardess comes by with a small bag of chips, which I open and slowly munch on as I turn to look back out the window.
I can’t believe I slept with him.
The fucking of your life.
My cheeks burn bright red as I swallow the tightness in my throat, feeling my pulse race a little quicker in my ears. The memory of Holden Cade taking me like that the night before - his hands so strong and powerful as he held me like that and drove into me again and again. His tongue, so perfectly wicked and teasing over my clit.
His cock - his jaw-droppingly perfect cock that filled me like no-one ever had before and made me come like no-
I scowl and shake my head.
No, Holden Cade did not give me the “fucking of my life.”
Please.
A new message appears in my inbox, and I click on it on instinct, still frowning.
I gasp as I quickly slam the laptop shut; my eyes wide and my face bright red at what I just saw splashed in high definition across my fucking laptop screen.
A picture of a dick.
And not just any dick, his dick. His huge, thick, fully erect cock filling my entire laptop screen.
I mean honestly, I’m on a fucking plane and he knows it.
Of course he knows it, I think to myself. It’s exactly why the smug, cocky prick sent it.
I take a shaky breath befor
e I slowly crack open my laptop and turn it towards the window I’m sitting next to. I open it just enough to close the attachment before I gingerly open it the rest of the way, only breathing easy when I can see it’s been closed out of.
That fucker.
“What are you, twelve?”
“9.5 actually.”
My face goes flush again, and I’m debating closing the laptop for the rest of the flight when another message comes through.
“Look, I’m in. The move that is. Randy’s on board, I’m on board. Send the papers and I’m yours.”
My heart is still hammering after his previous comments, not to mention that fucking picture. I take a centering breath, focusing before I frown and re-read his last message twice more.
Whoa, he’s really in?
I blink, shaking my head as I reply.
“I’ll send them when I land.”
Shit. This is not in the budget. The number I “straight talked” with him last night from the preliminary stuff I’d sent to his manager was the very top limit of our spending.
Maybe more than it.
This contract is going to strain our team and organization to its absolute breaking point. But we need him, that’s a given.
…It also means I’ll be seeing him again.
The thought of what “seeing him again” might entail comes teasing into my head, and this time, I do shut the laptop for the rest of the flight.
* * *
I slump against the back of the front door of my apartment after finally stumbling in well past when I was supposed to.
Home sweet home.
I go through my usual post-travel routine - watering my plants, checking my house-line voicemail, and pawing through any mail that my neighbor slipped under my door. I meticulously unpack my suitcase, stowing it the back of my closet where it lives before I slowly strip the clothes from my body and pad into the bathroom to shower.
Steam and water cascades over my travel-weary body, and I do everything in my power not to think about the gorgeous sex-god of a man that made my toes curl the night before. Because I can’t, because that chapter is done, especially now that he’s going to be coming to the Bulls.
Jock: A Secret Baby Sports Romance Page 9
