I felt my heart sink, and then picked up the remote and rewound it until I could watch the play.
Linc did, indeed, score.
He also didn’t look happy about it.
He didn’t celebrate like he usually did. He didn’t smile. Didn’t even stay on the field long enough for any of his crew to congratulate him. And when the kicker completed the kick yielding them another point, he didn’t even clap.
Holy shit, did he look like he was in a bad mood.
But so was I!
“What was that look for?” Steel asked me.
I sniffed and fast forward again, ignoring the way that the cameras kept going back to Linc, again and again. I also ignored the way his eyes scanned the crowd, almost as if he was searching for someone.
“You’ve seriously lost your freakin’ mind,” Cody grumbled. “Just get on with it already. I’m tired of sitting here watching her eat her body weight in junk food. It’s honestly disgusting.”
I looked down at the Cheetos, Fig Newtons, Oreos, cheese platter, and buffalo dip that I’d set out to watch the game, and then back at my brother. “Are you calling me fat?”
Cody gave me a level look that looked really close to the one that Steel sometimes aimed our way.
“Um,” he hesitated. “No. What I was calling you was pathetic. Everyone else knows that what happened to Linc was a bunch of bullshit. Especially since he’s been in love with you forever. Steel practically had to beat him off with a stick to keep him away from you. Did you know that he called Mom every week to ask how you were doing, regardless of whether you were talking to him or not, and nearly always asked if he could ask you out on a date yet?”
I felt something inside of me loosen just the tiniest bit.
“What are you talking about?” I asked, finally peeling my eyes away from the game and turning them toward my mother. “Linc used to call you?”
My mother smiled. “Every Sunday for the last few years.”
I blew out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding and turned to Steel. “What’s your take on all this?”
“Do you want honesty, or do you want me to sugarcoat it?” he asked.
I snorted. “Since when did you sugarcoat anything that you’ve ever told me?”
He shrugged, then let me have it with both barrels.
“I think that both of you are too stubborn and bull-headed to see what’s right in front of your faces. You’re trying to protect yourself, while he’s trying to protect you. He won’t watch his own back because he’s pulling double duty making sure yours is covered. He won’t ask for help. He’ll ruin his career and possibly get himself hurt in the process. While on the other hand, you’re fighting so hard, sabotaging your own relationship, because you don’t want to get hurt like your mother was twice.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but he continued speaking before I could get a word out edgewise.
“I think that you are incredibly naïve. I think that you’re fighting something that’s inevitable. You both love each other. You know damn well that he didn’t cheat on you. Plus, all those hospital photos of him looking like absolute shit are the result of him being drugged.”
Everything inside of me stilled.
“What did you just say?” I tilted my head and gave him a look that clearly said exactly what I was feeling.
Terror.
“I said that he was hospitalized for drugs in his system. It was clear to everyone and their brother that what happened to him was the result of Tantor’s scheming and conniving. I’m just surprised as hell you didn’t force him to tell you what the hell had happened.” He shook his head. “I’m honestly more disappointed in the way you didn’t react. I thought for sure that you would’ve been a whole lot more pissed off that Tantor fucked with the club, again, via Linc.”
It felt like a bomb had just exploded in my mind.
“He was DRUGGED?!” I screeched, standing up so fast that I knocked the entire coffee table back a whole foot. “By that woman in the pictures?”
Steel’s eyes regarded me for a few long moments.
“Yes.”
“Because of Tantor?” I confirmed.
He nodded without saying a word this time.
“And he knew, all along, that something had happened?” I asked. “He knew that he was violated, and he didn’t tell me?”
“From what I understand,” my mother said softly, “you’ve been avoiding him like the plague.”
I had.
I’d turned my Google Alerts off. I’d avoided social media for two entire months, not wanting to see anything that had to do with Linc James and his lying self—though, I guess, lying was a relative term. He’d lied, of course, but not about anything that had to do with cheating. He hadn’t lied and then allowed me to think that he had.
He hadn’t even tried to get me to understand!
He’d let me believe the lie, but why?
“Why did he allow me to believe that?” I asked carefully.
I remembered all the times that Pru had looked at me oddly over the last month. When I’d almost break down and go on to social media to see what Linc was up to on his fan page. To just get a tiny glimpse of the man that had broken me into so many tiny little pieces.
She’d gone out of her way to help me be strong. She’d even given up her own social media account!
All the sneaking around on her phone, as well as the covert glances, and having her father talk with my landlord all made a sick sort of sense.
She was in on it.
Everyone was in on it.
I allowed myself to be shoved into a dark closet and had nobody to blame but myself.
Skirting around the coffee table, I walked to my room and said over my shoulder, “Feel free to hang out. I have something to take care of.”
Steel started to laugh. “That’s the girl I know and love.”
***
Let’s just say the next thirty minutes didn’t go the way I’d planned.
Firstly, with the way I’d been dressed, I’d never intended to leave the house. Hell, I hadn’t even meant to go outside and check the mail.
Had I planned on going outside, I definitely wouldn’t have worn my shortest, tightest, most comfy shorts I owned. But, as it was, I’d put them on this morning planning to not go anywhere. They were honestly not much more than a pair of slightly longer boy-cut underwear.
Hell, I had to wear a thong with them just so the hem of the panties wouldn’t show along the bottom of the shorts.
Secondly, I wouldn’t have been wearing Linc’s jersey that he’d gotten me the year that I turned seventeen.
It was an old one from his college days and fit me like a glove.
I’d put on quite a bit of weight since those days and had grown two boob sizes.
Needless to say, it fit me more like a crop top if I was doing anything in it that required my arms to lift in the air.
I’d felt so blah lately that I hadn’t done my hair in at least three days, and I was on day four of not washing it.
Granted, it did look good up in a messy bun, but that was it.
Oh, and let’s not forget to mention I had zits from hell on my face.
I had no clue what had happened in the last two months, but the goddamn things had popped up, one after the other, until I had a bad one at least once a week. The moment that one healed up, another would replace it somewhere else on my face.
Luckily the one I had right now was on the lower part of my jaw and easily covered up by a smattering of concealer.
But, having left the house in a rush, I hadn’t been able to cover it in my haste to leave and get to where I was going.
It was only when I was pulling into the parking lot and parking that I realized I had no freakin’ clue how to get into the stadium.
Did they sell tickets at the gate?
Figuring it was worth a shot, I snatched my phone and my keys off the sea
t of my car, and then bailed, barely managing to lock the car with my key fob in my haste to get where I was going.
It was only when I arrived at the gate that I realized I didn’t have my wallet.
Shit.
I pulled up my phone and started to pull up my Apple Wallet thingamajig as I waited in line to get to the woman behind the glass.
She smiled at me, taking me all in when I arrived.
“I need one ticket,” I told her.
She smiled. “Tickets are sold out but for the front row seats, and those are about a thousand dollars a pop…”
I swallowed back the cry of alarm that threatened to spill out of my throat and offered her my phone. “Do you take Apple Pay?”
She nodded, a smile on her face. “I do. You pay right there.” She paused. “What’s your name?”
I gave it to her, and her mouth dropped open.
“Oh!” she cried. “You don’t have to pay then. You have tickets that have been waiting for you at each home game for two years! I’ve always been wondering if I’d ever meet the infamous Conleigh Reins.”
She quickly did something on the computer, and printed out tickets, before handing them to me.
All the while I looked at her with bafflement.
“Enjoy your game. Do you know where seat 36A is?”
I had no clue, which I indicated with a shake of my head.
“It’s front row, middle of the field, and at the fifty-yard line on the home team side.” She pulled out a map and started to draw a line with a Sharpie marker to help me find my way. “Oh, I’m so glad that you’re here! Enjoy the game!”
The woman’s smile was infectious, and I found myself smiling back even though my heart was pattering like a battering ram in my chest.
But the moment I got into the stadium and saw all the people, I had a mini panic attack.
That was until I heard Linc’s name called over the loudspeaker as a particularly bad hit took him down, and then saw him on the big screen along the top of the opposing side’s stands lying there unmoving.
That’s when I truly panicked.
Before I could give it much thought, I was practically running down the stairs.
I’d made it to the front of the stands, practically at my seat, in less than five minutes.
It took me longer than I would have wanted because of all the goddamn people. Even worse, I’d spilled something on my tennis shoes as I’d hastily passed a man carrying four cups of beer.
My guess it was likely the beer he’d been holding, but I hadn’t given it much time to look at as I’d made my way by him.
Once I was at the railing that separated the field from the front row seats, I looked around for Linc, finding him sitting on his ass at the fifteen-yard line as a couple of athletic trainers asked him questions.
He took his helmet off moments later and then shook his head as he held out his hand to a teammate and waited to be helped up.
It didn’t take long, and then he was standing.
The stadium around him roared at finding out that he was okay, and he walked gingerly off the field, slightly favoring his left foot.
He barely made it to the sideline before an irrational surge of anger surged through me.
“Linc!”
There was a one in a thousand chance that he’d hear me, but I wanted him to know that I was there.
I also wanted him to know that I was pissed at him.
Linc’s head snapped up as if he’d heard his name called and started to look around.
His eyes stopped on the empty seat that likely was where I was supposed to be sitting and then moved on.
His gaze roamed over me, passing me almost as if he didn’t see me, and then returned to me a split second later.
When he was staring at me in stunned silence, I raised my hand and flipped him off.
His mouth dropped open farther.
“Ma’am.” I heard from my right. “Gonna have to ask you to find your seat. You can’t stand here.”
I did so, ignoring the man on my right, and making my way down the row to my seat.
I had no clue who I’d passed on my way to the chair, but I felt their eyes on me as I moved.
I also felt somewhat exposed in what I was wearing. Especially with the way Linc’s eyes never once left me as I moved.
I pushed the seat’s bottom down and turned, placing my ass in it, only then realizing that the reason Linc had heard me was because we were less than ten yards away from the team.
I crossed my arms in front of me and offered him my best glare.
He looked at me worriedly.
But, what he did not look like, was unaffected like I’d seen him look so many times over the last couple of weeks when I’d watched his games.
Honestly, he looked like he’d like nothing better than to run up and hold his hands up for me to fall into his arms.
Something that, despite being mad at him, I wanted to do very badly.
God, I was so fucking furious with him.
Honestly, I could happily sock him straight in the face, and not feel the least bit bad about it at this point.
But what I also wanted to do was wrap my arms around him and tell him how sorry that I was for being such a selfish cow when he had no control of his situation. When he’d been so thoroughly violated.
I drew in a shaky breath and felt the first tear slip down my cheek.
He saw that tear fall, and he closed his eyes, looking like I’d just dropped a ten-ton boulder on his shoulder.
I hastily wiped away the tear and hoped that my being there wouldn’t affect his playing.
Then I decided that I didn’t care if he wanted me there or not, or whether he played like shit.
We had some things to talk about, and me being there, alone in a crowd as large as the particular one I was in, wouldn’t have gone unnoticed.
He wouldn’t leave me alone because there was no way in hell that I could be at his game, sitting in my current seat, and not garner the attention of plenty of reporters.
No, he wouldn’t leave me alone.
That I knew with certainty.
I crossed my leg over my opposite knee and felt my shorts ride up even higher.
It didn’t go unnoticed by Linc, either.
In fact, I think he became more alert.
His eyes swung to someone behind me, who I’d been paying zero attention to the entire time I’d been sitting there, and his eyes narrowed.
And suddenly he was stalking toward me with a towel in his hand and tossing it at me once he was close enough.
“Cover your thighs,” he ordered.
My brows rose. “How about you make me?”
His jaw clenched, and I noticed that the sweat that was plastering his hair to his skull was making him look like he had a Mohawk going on.
“Put it over your lap before your entire crotch is plastered on national television,” he growled.
I leaned forward then, getting down on my knees so that I could get my face as close to his as possible.
Unfortunately, seeing as I was in the stands and raised a few feet over him, the only thing I could really see was the top of his head with how close he was standing.
I leaned through the bars that were supposed to stop the fans from jumping out onto the field and reached forward until my hand was hooked into the V his jersey made with his shoulder pads. I yanked him to me.
“Unless you want the entire goddamn world to know that I’m really pissed off at you, I suggest you stop telling me what to do and go play your little game. Then, when you’re done, you come get me so I can chew your ass out in private.” I paused. “And I can’t believe you would keep your hospital stay so quiet. How could you do that to me?”
Linc’s eyes narrowed. “Who told you?”
I laughed and sat back, or I would have had he not caught me much the same way I’d been holding onto him.
And before I could so much as blast him with a protest, he slammed his mouth down onto mine.
“I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to get hurt,” he said. “We needed to figure shit out, and honestly, it was easier to have you think I was a piece of shit than to have you in the line of fire.”
Before I could condemn him for his overprotectiveness, he let me go and jogged backward, straight onto the field where he was up to play next.
I gracefully got back into my chair, but I did cover my lap with the towel he’d given me.
It still had his sweat on it, and I swear, I only brought it to my face once and smelled it.
Chapter 20
Telling her to calm down is child’s play. If you really want to see her eyes spit fire, tell her she’s acting like her mother.
-Linc’s secret thoughts
Linc
Elation poured through my veins as the game clock ticked down, and the final buzzer sounded, signaling the end of the game.
While everyone celebrated, I walked over to where Conleigh was still waiting, looking just as pissed as when she arrived over two hours ago.
Nodding at the security guard who was standing beside the barrier, ready to stop anyone trying to throw themselves onto the field, I held my hands up for Conleigh to come to me.
She didn’t hesitate.
Instead, she climbed over the railing, then jumped down to me almost before I was ready for her.
She hit me with an “oomph” of exhaled breath and tightened her arms around my neck.
Her arms were resting on my shoulder pads, and she was staring at me like I’d just broken her heart.
I might have.
Multiple times at that point.
“I’m going to kill you, stupid,” she whispered.
Her words weren’t nice, but the way she sounded saying them said more than the words themselves.
“I’m sorry,” I repeated.
I’d said that so many times at this point, it was probably not holding any meaning whatsoever.
But I’d say the words until I was blue in the face, because I was goddamn sorry.
The last two months had been sheer hell being away from her.
At first, it was because the paparazzi had a field day with the pictures.
Talkin' Trash (The Bear Bottom Guardians MC Book 2) Page 19
