“I carry this everywhere. I hope you like Transformer Band-Aids,” she smiled timidly.
Gentry held out his hand, which she reached for, and she pressed a white gauze pad against it before covering it with the Band-Aid.
“Bumblebee,” Gentry murmured. “My favorite.”
The woman started to laugh.
“You and Cailean,” she pointed to the back seat where I assumed her son was sitting.
Gentry looked through the glass, and his eyes widened.
“You’re not kidding.”
The woman shook her head.
“No, I’m afraid I’m not,” she grinned.
I took a look myself and smiled when I saw the kid fully decked out in Transformer clothes—Bumblebee to be exact—and waving at us.
“Happy kid,” I mumbled.
“He thought it was fun,” she sighed. “Now I have to go beg my dad for a ride.”
“You sound like you’d rather saw off your own foot,” Gentry observed.
“I would,” she confirmed. “My dad’s a mechanic, and I’d rather not hear him say ‘I told you so’ about buying this car.”
“Why?” Gentry asked. “What’s wrong with it?”
She grinned.
“It’s not American made.”
Gentry and I both nodded, understanding clear now.
“He a soldier?” I wondered.
She nodded her head again.
“Army. Retired after twenty years,” she confirmed.
“Well, we’ll wait until someone comes. As long as you’re comfortable with that,” Gentry offered.
The woman looked relieved.
“Thank you,” she whispered, and then pulled out her phone, a look of pain on her face. “I’ll be biting the bullet over there for a few seconds.”
With that, she walked away, and I looked over at my still staring friend.
“You might want to wipe that drool off your face.”
Gentry’s head whipped around to stare at me.
“Fuck off.”
***
“That little fucker is about to have his ass handed to him,” I murmured to Gentry as we walked into the locker room half an hour later. “What’s his deal?”
Gentry’s eyes went to the kid in question.
Croft was shoving his shirt into his pants, making sure he was tucked in completely all the way around his body, before he turned to grab his glove.
A glove that looked exactly like mine, even down to the red nail polish on the tip of the left finger.
That was something my mother used to do to all of our gloves as a way to distinguish my glove from all of my brothers. I had red. Hannibal had green. Hunter had blue. Harrison had orange. And Holden had yellow.
Which made me wonder…why the hell did that kid have a glove with red tipped fingers? Nobody else did that, and I began to ponder the likelihood of him doing the same thing with the red paint. It wasn’t a fucking coincidence that that kid had it and I did, too.
Which got me to thinking.
I hated the glove.
There was something wrong with it since I’d gotten it back, and I didn’t like it one freakin’ bit.
“What’s wrong?” Gentry pushed.
“Fuckin’ glove has felt off since I got it back,” I grumbled. “Gonna have to switch to my back up.”
“You should start breaking in a new one,” Gentry suggested.
I sighed.
“I am, and I will,” I mumbled. “How’s your hand doing?”
“Fine,” he murmured. “Better since I got the Band-Aid, unbelievably.”
I snorted and hunched my shoulders as I ripped my shirt over my head, throwing it in the bag at the bottom of my locker.
“Do you think she’ll come to the game next week?” I questioned him.
He’d invited her to the game when he’d seen her face after she’d spoken with her dad, and her eyes had gone all round as she looked from me to Gentry.
“Yeah,” Gentry nodded his head. “I do believe that she will.”
Turning my smile away from him so he wouldn’t see it, I bent down and grabbed a clean shirt just as I heard Rhys clear his throat directly next to me.
I turned only my head and raised a brow at him. “Can I help you?”
“You might want to head to the training room,” he mentioned. “Stop right outside the door.”
Brows furrowed, I did just that, leaving my clean t-shirt on the bench behind my locker as I weaved my way through the people milling about here and there as they trickled in from their workouts.
At first, I wasn’t too concerned.
Rhys looked fairly calm.
Nothing could be too wrong with Sway if he was that calm, right?
Wrong.
I realized about thirty seconds after arriving at the doors to the training room why he’d been so calm.
He didn’t want to say anything and risk taking the brunt of my anger. So, he’d sent me here, knowing I would hear.
“Look at her trying to lift that box of supplies. Seriously. How hard is it to lift forty pounds? I had to sign a sheet saying that I could lift up to sixty pounds to even get signed on,” another trainer I didn’t know very well said.
“She’s a fat ass,” I heard Sinclair snap. “Sway can’t even do the most basic tasks. How is she still allowed to work here?”
“Excuse me? She’s my fat ass,” I heard myself saying. “Now get the fuck out. You won’t be working here in an hour. You might want to go ahead and pack your stuff.”
Sway turned the moment she heard my voice, and then her eyes narrowed at what had come out of my mouth.
But I had no time to soothe the hurt I saw on her face.
Not when I was this fucking mad.
“You have no authority to get me fired,” Sinclair snapped. “Now if you’ll excuse me.”
“Siggy!” I bellowed.
Siggy, who I’d seen in his office on my way to the training room, came barreling out of his office like he’d been shot from a cannon.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, jogging over toward me.
“Your assistant trainer just called my woman a fat ass.”
Sway gasped, as did everyone else in the room.
I hadn’t actually claimed her publicly before, and that showed on her face, making me realize what an incredible shithead I’d been for not doing it before now.
“Since when is she your woman?” Gentry teased from behind me.
“Since a couple of weeks ago,” I answered quickly. “Now shut up, and go get your hand looked at.”
“I’ll do it,” Sway volunteered, her eyes going wildly around the room.
I nodded. “Thank you, baby.”
Everyone stayed quiet until Gentry and Sway had left the training room.
“Sinclair,” Siggy started. “I suggest you pack your office up now. You won’t be working here by tomorrow afternoon.”
“You can’t fire me,” Sinclair snapped.
“I can’t, no.” Siggy agreed. “But I can suggest it to the people who can, and trust me, I will be doing that. If I can’t trust you to treat Sway correctly, how can I trust you to treat my players?” Siggy paused. “And honestly, Sway could fire you right now, seeing as she’s your superior. The question is, why hasn’t she?”
Sinclair’s eyes narrowed.
“I’ve worked here for four years now. They’re not going to fire me because of one insignificant comment,” Sinclair snapped, looking wildly around the room now for support.
“An insignificant comment that you made about the coach’s niece and the girlfriend of Hancock Peters,” someone muttered.
Sinclair’s mouth twisted in fury at hearing that comment.
“We’re not allowed to fraternize with the players. This…” he gestured to me and where Sway had disappeared into her office. “This isn’t even allowed. How, and why, she should get special treatment does
n’t even compute in my brain.”
“Maybe it’s because your brain is malfunctioning,” I murmured, crossing my arms tightly over my chest. “Never once, in my years of life, have I seen someone act so uncaring to another human being. You need to rethink your choices and start acting like a decent human being to people who don’t fit into your nice, perfect little box.”
“She disgusts me,” Sinclair sneered.
“That woman is the most beautiful person in this whole entire world. She makes my heart skip beats when I look at her across my pillow in the morning.” I cleared my throat. “I’m lucky to have her as my girlfriend. I’m lucky to have her as my friend…and you would have been her friend as well had you treated her with the respect she deserves. Now you’ll never know and not because she wouldn’t forgive you if you worked for that forgiveness, but because I won’t let you near her again. You’ll never get the chance to apologize, and I can’t find it in me to care.”
His eyes settled on Croft, who was busy looking between me, Siggy and Sinclair before starting the cycle completely over again.
“Say something,” Sinclair demanded of Croft.
Croft’s mouth opened and then closed.
When nothing came forth, Sinclair’s eyes narrowed.
“You’ll regret this,” Sinclair promised. “You should be careful who you share your discrepancies with.”
With that, Sinclair left, not bothering to clean his office out.
It was obvious that he thought he’d be back.
If I had my way, though, he wouldn’t. Not now, and not ever.
Siggy and I watched him go, as did about five other players, including Rhys.
“Thank you,” I said to the man who’d told me about the situation in the first place. “I appreciate it.”
Rhys shrugged. “You’d have done the same had the situation been reversed.”
“Now I have to go apologize for calling my woman names when I really didn’t mean what came out.”
“I hope you meant some of them,” Sway replied from behind me.
I turned.
And then the words started to fall out of my mouth without me being able to control them.
“The words…they came out wrong,” I apologized. “I swear. I don’t think you’re a fat ass. In fact, I think you’re beautiful. I think you’re perfect. I love your curves, and the way they cup my hardness. I love the way you feel when I lay next to you. I swear, I didn’t really mean those ugly words.” I promised her.
“Did you mean it?” she asked.
I blinked, surprised by her understanding tone.
“Mean what?” I asked, confused.
She smiled. “That I make your heart race.”
I pulled her hand to my body, and flattened it against where my heart was thundering in my chest.
“Does that answer your question?” I asked.
She smiled.
“I love you, Hancock.” She threw her arms around my neck. “Now it’s time to get you dressed so we can go to the house for a few. We have dinner with your friends in a few short hours, and I forgot something at your place.”
My brows furrowed.
“That’s three hours from now,” I said. “What did you forget?”
She leaned forward, her lips deliberately brushing against my ear, and her whispered words had the power to make my heart hammer.
I’m starting to forget what it feels like to have you inside of me.
***
“Do you remember yet?” I asked, thrusting so hard into her that her breasts jumped.
She arched her back, her eyes closing.
“No.” She shook her head. “Fuck me harder, it might come back to me.”
I grinned and did just that.
Chapter 24
I just like baseball. Baseball’s my favorite.
-Sway’s secret thoughts
Sway
81st game of the season
Texas Lumberjacks v. San Diego Devildogs
Home Game
My eyes widened when I saw the sheer amount of man flesh around the table where we were seated.
They’d been the same way at dinner last night. Intimidating. Handsome. Strong. Silent.
Definitely a lot more strong and silent than I was sure they were used to being.
Today they were a little more outgoing, but their eyes scanned the restaurant around us like they were waiting for the doors to open and bad guys to start pouring in.
Especially Hancock’s brother, Hannibal.
Hannibal’s entire body was twitching and flinching each time a loud noise sounded around us.
Acting like I didn’t notice the fourth time he jumped in the last three minutes, I held out my phone to him.
“I took a picture of your brother last night that I thought you might like,” I showed him, hitting the home button on my phone.
The phone’s screen lit up, and I had to stop myself from laughing.
Again.
“Ruby was supposed to be mine, but I was deployed when she was about seven weeks old. So, I just gave her to him. Looks like I made a good choice,” Hannibal observed.
I grinned.
“I’m not actually sure how she got up there, or what was funnier. Her attempting to get down when she saw him, or him trying to climb up there to get her, scared that if he didn’t go after her she’d fall over the edge,” I told him.
The photo was of Ruby in one of the many weird places that she has gotten herself into since I’d been in her life, but this one was definitely the most adventurous and unusual.
“Let me see,” another man—I thought his name was Tucker—ordered.
And it was an order.
It definitely wasn’t a request.
I showed him anyway, though.
“Wow,” Tucker said in surprise. “How did she get up there?”
I grinned, bringing the picture back to look at it.
“Well, we think she jumped up on the grill, and then walked along the deck railing like a balance beam to the awning, which she jumped up on,” I murmured. “Do you think you’ll get another dog?”
Hannibal looked at me, his eyes so much like the ones I loved, that it startled me for a long second.
“Yes,” he agreed. “Once I decide if I’m done doing what I’m doing, that is.”
My smile was small.
“Your brother was hoping that would be sooner rather than later,” I murmured.
Hannibal shrugged.
“It likely will be,” he mumbled. “Though it’ll probably take a bullet bringing me down permanently to make me see reason.”
My heart rate sped up.
“Almost bit it before my brother had to come and rescue me,” he continued speaking, almost as if he wasn’t even aware of what he was saying.
His eyes were focused on something in the distance, and definitely not the Japanese hibachi chef right in front of us, frying up the rice for our meal.
“Never thought my brother could take a life like he did.”
My belly somersaulted.
He’d taken a life?
I didn’t dare interrupt him, though, in the hopes that he would continue instead of stopping once he realized who he was talking to.
“Looked up, saw all my boys around me…and there was my brother, a gun in his hand, and his heart in his eyes,” he sighed. “Jesus Christ. The man is worth millions, and he came out there to save my ass? Do you have any idea what would’ve happened if he’d died over there?”
No. No, I didn’t.
“But my brother showed his face around town. Got some people scared. And they started to scramble,” he sighed. “Knew it the day that they first spotted him. Had my captors come and check on me every single hour on the hour. Then there was a lot of chattering about them killing me off to save themselves the headache, but the big guy…he didn’t want to kill me right away. He wanted to do it publicly, on a d
ay that was significant to the US.”
My belly rolled.
“It would’ve been bad if he didn’t come.”
That wasn’t news to me.
I’d gotten the same feeling from Leslie when he’d explained the mechanics of it.
Now I just wondered if the people responsible were caught, or if I had to continue to worry about Hannibal.
But Hannibal answered my question without realizing I’d wanted to know the details.
“They found the leak in the chain of command and fired him. Now he’ll probably spend the rest of his life in a place like the hellhole where I was held captive in for three weeks,” Hannibal spoke.
“What are y’all whispering about over here?” Tucker—now I was sure that was him—asked as he took a seat next to Hannibal, his eyes on my face that I was sure was white as a ghost.
“We’re talking about how the Lumberjacks won tonight,” I continued, lying through my teeth. “And what that means for their chances at making the playoffs.”
“Let’s not talk about this,” one of the men, Tim Teague, the leader of this band of misfits, groaned. “That’s all we heard about the entire time we were with this joker.”
He pointed to a bashful looking Hancock, who was staring at his hands like he was about to strangle Tim.
The rest of the group laughed, as did Hannibal.
“They hate it,” Hannibal added. “I made them watch the games, even though they couldn’t stand watching the Lumberjacks. But since I forced them, they’ve become unwilling fans.”
“We got rid of you and then your brother shows up, forcing us to watch the same shit. It was like you were still there,” Park grumbled.
Instead of the blow up I expected, it only caused relieved chuckles all the way around, and I wondered if this was some weird way that they relieved stress.
“Where are you from, Park?” I reached out for my drink and brought it to my lips. “You sound like you have a southern twang to your speech.”
He grimaced. “Florida.”
“Do you have any family there?”
Another darker grimace rolled over Park’s face.
“What Park isn’t telling you is that he was a gang banger when he was younger, so he has family, just not any that likes him,” Hannibal added when he was sure that Park wasn’t going to say anything on the subject matter.
My mouth dropped open.
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