The End Zone: SPORTS ROMANCE (Contemporary Sport Bad Boy Alpha Male American Football Romance) (New Adult Second Chance Women’s Fiction Romance Short Stories)

by Jenna Payne

  “Looks like you fell for me, Cynthia.”

  She blushed red and let out a small laugh. What the hell are you doing? She asked herself. This man and his friend hunt and kill people for a living and you're flirting with him? Are you crazy? She knew that she might be, but there was something about this man and his partner that made her feel safe. Something about them that made her feel other things too. Things that she hadn’t felt since she was a teenager and still interested in boys more than making a living for herself.

  “I think I need to go home.” She hoped that the two men would let her go home. Now that she thought about it, she was afraid that she was about to find out how the characters felt in countless novels that she had read when someone told them that they couldn’t go home. Her heart leapt into her throat when Shaun turned to Gerald.

  “I think we better go with her don’t you Gerald? Just in case Jimmy here had a friend.”

  “Just in case.” Grunted Gerald in agreement.

  “I’ll be fine. Really.” She tried to sound confident, but suddenly she didn’t feel that way at all.

  “I’m sure you will, but we’ll tag along just in case.” Shaun winked at her. She knew that it was supposed to feel better, but it didn’t.

  Cynthia grabbed her purse and things off the desk and headed for the back door of the library. They all three went out and she locked it behind them. She started for the bus stop, but Shaun laid a hand on her shoulder and stopped her.

  “We have a truck. There is no need for you to ride the bus. Besides. It could be dangerous.”

  The closer she got the two men’s truck the more uncomfortable she became. You don’t know who these men are. What if they’re killers just like the other man? What if he was part of their group and they killed him because he double-crossed them or something like that? She shook her head to clear it of such thoughts and climbed into the backseat of the truck while Gerald held the door open for her.

  She gave them directions to her house, sat back in her seat with a deep sigh, and closed her eyes. Not until now had she realized how tired she was. She remembered reading somewhere that a person might go into shock after what she had just been through. Shock wasn’t what she felt. She was sure of that. What she felt was something that she couldn’t quite describe. It felt like every nerve in her body was on edge.

  Shaun pulled the truck to a halt in front of her house and turned around in his seat. “Is this it?”

  “Yeah. This is my house.”

  “Check the back, Gerald. I’ll go through the front and let you in if the door is still locked.” Shaun looked at her and nodded. “You come with me, but stay behind me.”

  Cynthia seemed to float through the checking of her house and afterwards she sat down hard on the couch. Her eyes drifted closed and she seemed to fall asleep. You’re going into a fugue state dear, she told herself. With a vicious shake of her head, she snapped out of it. The two men who had saved her from she knew not what stood by a window at the back of her small house deep in conversation. The one called Shaun was a huge man with shaggy, brown hair so light that it was almost blonde. His partner, Gerald, on the other hand, had brown hair so dark that it was nearly black. Both men stood with an air of confidence, but Shaun was clearly the leader of the group.

  Quietly, so as not to disturb their conversation, Cynthia sat forward on the couch and started to get up. The two men instantly turned and looked at her. A smile formed on Shaun’s face and Gerald’s as well.

  “You’re back.” Shaun walked over in front of the couch and squatted on his haunches with his hands dangling between his thighs.

  That must be a favorite position of his, Cynthia thought. I’ve seen him like that more than once now.

  “Are you feeling okay?” He asked.

  “I think so.” She rubbed her temples. “I feel a bit of a headache and I’m thirsty but other than that I think I am fine.”

  “Good. You went into shock there for a moment. Most people do after witnessing the change of a shapeshifter for the first time. Although, you came out of it quicker than I have ever seen. Didn’t she Gerald?”

  “Yep.” Gerald grunted the response and went back to looking out the window.

  For the rest of the night, the two men kept watch while Cynthia went about her normal routine as best she could. She went about going to bed and tried not to think about the two strange, yet fascinating men in her living room. The thought of sleep seemed to evade her as she brushed her teeth, but seconds after her head hit the pillow she was asleep.

  The next morning she awoke and went about her normal routine of taking a shower before she did anything else. Dressed in her robe and slippers she made her way into the living room and nearly screamed when she saw Shaun asleep on her couch. She clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle the yelp she let out just as Gerald stepped out from the kitchen with a cup of coffee in his hand.

  “I hope you don’t mind.” He held up the coffee cup and spoke in a whisper.

  Cynthia padded across the room. “How did you even make it? My coffee maker is broken and has been for months.”

  “I used the stove and the carafe from your old coffee maker.”

  “Is that what you call the glass thing?”

  “It’s what I have always called it.”

  “Mom always called it a percolator.” Shaun added from the couch as he sat up. “But I did come from a very southern family.”

  “Is there any more of that?” Cynthia pointed at the cup in Gerald’s hand.

  “On the stove.”

  Once she had poured herself a cup of the coffee, she went back to her room and got dressed for the day. She knew that she had to work at the library today, but considering the dead body that was there last night she thought that most of the day would be spent with the police. Did that all really happen, she asked herself as she slipped on her shoes. Did I really see a man change into a bear and another change into a weasel? It didn’t seem likely in the cold light of day.

  When she emerged from the bedroom, no one was in her house. She hoped that maybe she was rid of the two men, but a small part of her didn’t. She stepped out onto the porch to find both men standing beside their truck deep in conversation. A sigh escaped her lips as she walked down the steps, but she wasn’t sure if it was a sigh of exasperation or relief. Inside she was conflicted about the two dangerous and interesting men she had met last night.

  “We’re going to follow you to the library and make sure that you make it alright.” Shaun explained. “I know that you usually take the bus, but today I think you should take your car.”

  “Okay, but how am I supposed to explain the dead body in the library?”

  “We took care of that.” Gerald said as he climbed into the driver side of the pickup.

  Great. They took care of it. Now I’m not only an accessory to murder, but I’m an accomplice to the cleanup job afterward. Hello prison. She dug her keys out of her purse and pushed the button on the fob to unlock the doors. She climbed inside and turned the key in the ignition. Nothing happened. Again she turned the key, but all she heard was a dull thunk and nothing else. No whir of the motor. Nothing.

  She was so preoccupied thinking about going to jail or worse for murder that when Shaun pecked on her window she nearly jumped out of her skin. The button wouldn’t roll down the window no matter how hard or how many times she pushed it and then she remembered that her car wouldn’t start. She opened her door and looked up at him.

  “Something is wrong with it.”

  “Yeah. I’d say your battery is dead. Pop your hood and we’ll give you a jump.”

  “Okay.” In all the years that she had been driving she had never ‘popped the hood’ on her car and only had a vague idea of how this would work. As Shaun called to Gerald and told him to pull the truck up beside her car, she frantically searched for the button or lever that would ‘pop the hood’, but she couldn’t find it. She watched Shaun walk around to the front of her car and wait for her to
do as he had asked with a growing sense of embarrassment. When Gerald pulled along beside her, she still hadn’t found what she was looking for. The weight of seeing a murder, watching men change into something straight out of the Twilight Zone before her very eyes, and the fact that one of those men was only a few feet from her was more than she could take. A sob escaped her lips as she began to cry. Her shoulders shook as the sobs grew ever stronger. This time she ignored the peck on her window and kept right on crying. The passenger’s door opened and Gerald sat down beside her. He placed a hand on her shoulder and she turned to look at him, tears streaming down her face.

  “Are you alright?” He asked.

  “No, no I’m not alright. I’m a normal person okay? I’m not supposed to have to deal with things like this. I can’t do it. I don’t know where the freaking thing is to pop the hood on my car is. I don’t even know what that means so just cut me some slack. Okay?”

  “Hey. Hey.” Gerald spoke in a soothing voice. “It’s alright Cynthia. Here let me show you how to open the hood on your car.”

  He leaned across and pointed to a small black button on the dash to the left of the steering wheel. She reached a shaking hand out and pushed the button with a finger. A clunk sounded and the hood popped up a couple of inches. Shaun gave them a thumb up through the window and pulled the release lever under the front of the hood.

  “Cynthia.” Shaun called to her from outside the car. “Come out here and I’ll show you how to do this yourself if you ever have this problem again.”

  She roughly wiped the tears away from her eyes and climbed out of the car. She watched without a word as Shaun and Gerald proceeded to show her how to hook the jumper cables up to the car battery and the battery on their truck. After a few moments, they instructed her to start her car. She got in and turned the key in the ignition. The small car rumbled to life.

  “We’ll leave it hooked up for a moment just to make sure that it takes the charge.” Gerald explained.

  Ten minutes later she pulled into the library parking lot and shut off her car. She could see the men inside their truck parked across the street. She couldn’t quite decide how she felt. Some part of her wished that they would just leave her alone, but another part was glad they were there and felt safe. No one was around this early in the morning. With her keys, she unlocked the back door and went inside. She half expected to see the man Gerald had killed the day before still laying on the floor or at least a pool of blood, but there was nothing. No evidence at all of a fight or murder or whatever it was that she had witnessed. She unlocked the front doors and sat down behind her desk for what she hoped was the start of a normal day. If there could be such a thing anymore.

  *****

  Gerald took a long swallow of his soda and twisted the cap back on before he sat it down on the dashboard. He eyed Shaun and wondered what his partner was thinking. They had worked together for many years now and most of the time Gerald knew what his partner was thinking, but this time it eluded him.

  “She’s not like the others Gerald.” Shaun’s said.

  “How so?”

  “She seemed so calm this morning. I know she freaked out a little about the hood thing, but most of the people who have seen a shifter are freaked out for days. Besides she’s just different somehow.”

  “You mean she’s easy on the eyes.” Gerald flashed a smile at his partner. “I’d agree with you a hundred percent there. I find her very attractive, but I don’t think she’d ever go for us Shaun. She doesn’t seem like the type of girl who would even consider two men at once. Let alone two men who can shapeshift into bears or anything for that matter.”

  “You’re probably right, but I just can’t get her out of my head.”

  “Take a walk. I’ll watch the library for a while to make sure that last night was just a man running scared and not something more. You can scout around a little as you walk and make sure that no one is checking out the perimeter.”

  “Alright. Be back in a few.” Shaun opened the driver door and climbed out of the truck.

  Gerald watched him in the rearview mirror and sighed. He had seen his partner act this way once before and he remembered how well that had gone. Shaun asked the woman if she was interested in them and she rejected them soundly. For three months afterwards Shaun had been grouchy and hard to work with.

  “I hope for his sake that this woman is how he thinks she is or life is going to be hard for the next few months.” Gerald said to no one in particular.

  Shaun walked down the street with thoughts of the last woman who had rejected him and Gerald on his mind. She isn’t like that woman, he tells himself, but he can’t be sure. As he walked, he worked his mind around possible scenarios he could use his eyes roved over everyone and everything. He didn’t think that the man they had killed the day before had any friends in the area, but one could never be too careful. Not with scum.

  An elderly lady made her way toward the library from his side of the street. He flashed her his most disarming smile and continued on. She waved back at him, but he was already past her and didn’t see her hand.

  For an hour, he walked and thought. Stopping only once to sit on a bench for a moment and think as he drank a soda purchased from a street vendor. By the time he had circled back around to the truck and Gerald, he had made up his mind about what he was going to do. He climbed into the passenger seat opposite Gerald, who had gotten behind the wheel in his absence. Shaun turned to his partner with a smile on his face.

  “I’m going to ask her if she wants to date us.”

  “What if she says no?” Gerald asked, but he knew it was useless to argue with Shaun once he had made up his mind.

  “She won’t. She’s not like the others. Something about her is special. I think that she might be one of the ones that the old stories talk about.”

  “The shapeshifter maidens?” Gerald never put much stock in the old stories.

  “Yep. If she is a maiden, then she won’t say no. She’ll jump at the chance to be with us.”

  “I hope so.” Whispered Gerald.

  *****

  Only a few customers entered the library throughout the day and Cynthia was glad for it. It gave her time to think. She thought of calling the police and telling them what had happened to her the night before, but she knew that it would do no good. They would think she was a crazy person if she called and told them that she saw a man morph into a bear and kill another man who had morphed into a weasel. She wasn’t so sure that she wasn’t crazy herself. At noon, she thought of going out to eat, but a look out the window that overlooked the street confirmed two things for her. She wasn’t hungry and she hadn’t made up the men from the previous night.

  With money from her purse, she bought a soda from one of the machines near the front of the library. As she sipped it behind her desk, she thought about the men who had saved her life. She knew that they were both very dangerous men, but something about them made her believe that they were not dangerous to her. If they had wanted to kill her, they could have easily done so the night before. They are handsome. They thought came unbidden. She tried to deny it, but she knew the truth. It had been a long time since she had been with a man or even had thoughts of being with a man. The sheer strength and handsomeness of the two men made her think thoughts that she had never thought. Thoughts of a threesome. She shook her head from side to side to clear those thought out.

  “I need to focus on work.” She told the empty library. For the rest of the day, she avoided thinking about the two men who waited outside for her as much as she could.

  The time came for her to close up the library for the day.

  She locked all the doors and windows. On her way out she grabbed her purse off the desk and headed for the back. When she opened the door, she almost screamed. Shaun stood waiting for her at the bottom of the steps. Before he could see that he had scared her she turned around and locked the door behind her. When she turned back around, he was smiling up at her.
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br />   “Would you like to go to dinner with me and Gerald tonight?”

  “Yes.” She couldn’t actually believe that she had said yes to him.

  “Great. We’ll pick you up in a couple hours at your place.”

  He walked away and she went to her car. On the drive home, she wondered over and over what had compelled her to say yes to dinner. It’s because you like them silly, she told herself. She hated to admit it, but it had been a long time since a man had shown any interest in her and it felt good to have one do so now. She hurried home and changed into a nice sweater and blue jeans. She wasn’t the kind to wear a dress. Not ever.

  Two hours later Shaun knocked on her door. She knew it was him because she had watched their truck pull up and seen him walk up the driveway. He handed her a bouquet of roses and walked her to the truck. Gerald smiled fondly at her and said hello. As Gerald backed out of the driveway, Shaun told her that they were going to a small Italian place around the block. She knew the place all too well. On many occasions, she had eaten there alone.

  The next hour flew by and before she knew it, she had finished her meal. Gerald placed his napkin on his plate and sat back in his seat. Shaun, the lesser mannered of the two, gave a hearty belch that turned heads in the restaurant. Despite being slightly embarrassed by it, the belch made Cynthia laugh.

  “Must you always behave like that?” Gerald asked.

  “Hey, man. I’ve only got one life and it is too damn short to spend my days acting all snooty and well-to-do. I am who I am. Take it or leave it.”

  “I should have left it.” Gerald spoke with absolute conviction and for a moment Cynthia was afraid the two men were going to get into a fight. Shaun stared Gerald down with a cold look. Gerald returned it for a moment, but a smile cracked his otherwise angry face and in seconds they were both laughing.