“At least come for an hour,” Allie suggested. “If you’ve got responsibilities at the office, we understand.” She gave my dad a pointed look as she said it.
He sighed, dropping a kiss on her forehead as he moved to refill his coffee. “You two always gang up on me.”
I snorted. “Are you suggesting Lydia’s always on your side?”
He tilted his head. “Fair point.”
Allie glanced at her watch. “Speaking of your sister. Can you go down to her room and tell her we need to leave soon? She slept here last night.”
“She’s twenty. She can read a clock just fine.”
My dad gave me a look.
“Fine.” I sighed. As I left the kitchen and skipped down the stairs to find Lydia’s room, I had the strangest feeling that my younger by six years sister would probably handle this dilemma better than I ever could. From the moment she was born, she seemed to have the male species wrapped around her finger.
No one looked at her like she was asexual, even the guys in Camp Two. They just didn’t try to do anything about it. Maybe because the parent we didn’t have in common genetically—Allie—had blessed my younger sister with the bombshell looks she’d been famous for in her early twenties.
Lydia’s room was immaculate, which surprised me as much as anything else, because normally it looked like her closet had puked up all over. From her old bathroom, I heard the soft sound of her laughter. When I carefully pushed open the door, I shook my head at what I saw.
She was taking a video in front of the mirror, turning her body at various angles to show off her short denim shorts, her skintight Wolves tee that she’d cut off to show her stomach. On her legs were knee-high black boots.
Once she ended the video, her demeanor relaxed, and her blue eyes found mine in the mirror.
“Oh my gosh, you are alive,” she said.
I smiled. “Been busy, sorry.” Walking into the bathroom, I picked up a tube of bright red lip stain. “That’s pretty.”
Lydia studied me in the mirror, and when she sighed dramatically, I knew she found my attire lacking. “It would look killer on you, if you’d actually try.”
I swept my hands down the front of my body. “This is me trying, little sister. I just don’t need to show the world my efforts.”
“This?” She held up her phone. “This is how I make my living, thank you. One post wearing these boots will probably pocket me about ten G.”
“Good Lord,” I muttered. “I’m in the wrong business.”
“Or,” she pointed out, “you’re not leveraging your background in a way that could benefit all your charities.” She kissed the air next to my cheek, exiting the bathroom in a cloud of beautifully curled blond hair and cleavage that would have Dad sighing heavily at the sight of her.
“My charities don’t need me to post my outfits in order to earn money.”
She stopped at her dresser, adding a stack of gold bracelets around her wrist. “How many followers does the Team Sutton account have?”
“I have no idea.”
“You should.” She leaned back, studying herself in the mirror. “How do I look?”
Unwittingly, I smiled. “Glorious. Dad’s gonna have a coronary.”
Lydia laughed. “Nah. I think he made peace with it when I crossed two million followers and had that guy show up outside the house waiting to propose.”
My mouth fell open. “When was that?”
She shrugged, wiping the edge of her lips. “A couple of months ago.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Lydia.”
She matched my stance. “Faith.”
“You need to be careful.”
“I know, I know. I watch what I post now about locations, trust me.” She gave me a wicked smile. “Not that I need to worry about today. Surrounded by big, strong, muscley men.” She shivered. “I love this family tradition, even if your dating rule precludes you from having too much fun.”
“Is that why you’re so dressed up?”
“Yes.”
With a smile, I shook my head again. “Why do you make it sound so simple?”
Lydia picked up her purse and shrugged again. “Because it is. I just like looking. Nothing wrong with that.”
That was the difference between my sister and me. She loved looking. Loved flirting, even if she didn’t really do anything about it. And I wanted to hide behind giant stacks of paper because one guy made me want to break my rule.
“What’s that look?” she asked, studying my expression with a shrewdness I didn’t expect. I must have hesitated just long enough because she gripped my arm and emitted a high-pitched squeal. “Oh holy shit, what happened? Who is it?”
I pulled my arm from her grip. “Who’s what?”
“Spill. Now.” Lydia’s eyes were bright with excitement, and I couldn’t help but smile. Even this, she made it look so easy. Honestly, if she took over Team Sutton, she’d probably triple our donations by sheer force of will.
“Girls,” Dad yelled from upstairs. “We have to go.”
She tugged my arm again. “Ignore him. We have plenty of time. Faith, you spill right now because you never have good stories.”
“I have good stories,” I protested.
Lydia’s eyebrows lifted slowly. “Yes, I heard all about the baby kangaroo, which was super sexy and everything, but you are a boss-ass bitch with a master’s degree and great legs and giant brain, and you get absolutely no action, which saddens me.”
“Ugh,” I groaned. “Okay. There’s this new player who’s kind of… a jerk, I guess. Or I thought he was. But he had to spend the day with me at the community center yesterday.”
“Dominic Walker?” she asked.
“How do you know that?”
“I watch SportsCenter every morning. He’s a total wild card, but damn, he’s good. He’s almost impossible to defend because of how tall and fast he is.”
Somehow, her immediate knowledge of him made me … edgy. Jealous. Because I had one single sort of sexy interaction with him. But because it felt good to tell someone, I gave her a brief rundown of what happened in the parking lot.
“Oooooh, yes,” she whispered, nodding slowly, “I see that spark in your eye. I am a fan of this for you. He’s all hard and tatted, and he would totally push you out of all those comfort zones you like.”
“Lydia,” I moaned, “there’s nothing to be a fan of. He was so rude when we first met. Like, he hated me just because of who our parents are.”
She shrugged. Again. Everything made my sister shrug. “He was undrafted when he started in Vegas, and in college, I’m pretty sure he was a walk-on. He’s the kind of guy who’s had to work three times as hard to prove himself, so I get it.”
“Do you?”
Lydia nodded. “Everyone underestimates players like that. Makes them even more impressive when they can dominate their position.”
I gave her a long look. “You sound like Mom right now. It’s freaky.”
She gave me a sunny smile. “Thank you. Someone has to take over the team someday.” Again, with the light, unconcerned shrug. Only the people who knew her best knew that those shrugs hid an incredibly intelligent brain and ruthlessly loyal heart. “Might as well be me, right?”
I slung an arm around her shoulder as we walked upstairs. “Sister, I would never doubt your ability to do it.”
“So you’re not going to be weird and ignore him or anything, right?”
“Ignore who?” Allie asked, meeting us at the top of the stairs with a smile. “You two look so pretty.”
Dad came out of the kitchen and froze when he saw Lydia. “Lydia Alexandra,” he started. Allie pinned him with a look, and he rolled his lips between his teeth and took a deep breath. “You look beautiful.”
I choked on a laugh. Lydia walked over and patted him on the shoulders. “Thanks, Dad. I can see how much that cost you.”
“I hate this tradition,” he muttered, under the sound of Allie’s laughter.
We piled in the car after Lydia snapped a couple of pics for her social media accounts, and as we neared the practice fields, I felt my stomach roll into writhing, nervous knots. The sounds of the players echoed in the practice fields, along with the happy chatter of families and office staff.
Before even the official start of training camp in mid-summer, these small mini camps signaled the real start of the season for those of us that were fully entrenched in the Wolves organization.
People milled around, all decked out in red, black, and white. Former players chatted with current, and Allie went over to speak to her best friend Paige, who was surrounded by a couple of Logan’s younger sisters. Logan and Paige’s son Emmett, now towering over them at the age of twenty-one, had grown into his broad-shouldered frame and looked more and more like his dad as he aged. I smiled in his direction and couldn’t help but notice that his eyes flicked over to my sister and her glorious boots when he waved.
I should call that the Lydia Effect, because he wasn’t the only one glancing longingly in her direction. More than one player gave her quick glances, hopeful that the owner they loved and respected so much didn’t notice. Or my dad. But to Lydia’s credit, she hadn’t left my side yet, her arm wrapped through mine.
Veteran players tossed the ball back and forth, while rookies stretched on the turf. And unwittingly, I found my eyes searching among them for Dominic.
“There he is,” Lydia said in a hushed tone, gripping my arm in a painful vise when I started to move my head. “Don’t look. He’s staring at you.”
I laughed under my breath. “He’s probably looking at your boots.”
“Oh no, my darling, clueless big sister. He is looking at you like you are an entire meal, and he hasn’t eaten in weeks.” She bounced on her toes. “You leave this to me.”
I gripped her arm. “Don’t you dare go over to him.”
“What do you take me for, an amateur?” she asked. Lydia carefully plucked my hand off her arm and patted it condescendingly. “Trust me.”
And off she flounced, leaving me with my mouth hanging open. Carefully, I hitched a piece of hair behind my ear and risked a glance in the direction she’d been looking.
He was wearing dark shorts and a fitted white shirt, a black jersey slung over his muscular shoulder. And his eyes were right on me.
When he noticed my gaze, his lips curled into a crooked grin.
Slowly, I blew out a breath, because that was just about the most potent grin I’d ever seen in my entire life. He could weaponize it and take over the entire free world, if he wanted to. And something about being on the receiving end of it was wildly disconcerting.
Pretty soon, I’d need a new rule. No extended eye contact with Dominic Walker.
It wasn’t good for my heart rate.
Coach called his name, and his attention was pulled away.
Once it was, I could do other things, like … breathe properly. Think rationally.
This was so, so bad.
I made my way to the sideline, where my dad chatted with Logan Ward.
He held his arm open, and I gave him a side-hug. He spoke quietly when he leaned down. “Aren’t you glad you came?”
With a glance around—if I ignored the potent presence of Dominic—I could answer honestly. The energy was infectious, warm and happy. This was home, it was our life. “Yeah, Dad. I’m glad.”
Logan watched us with a smile. “Someone thinking of skipping this year?”
My face felt warm. “Just have stuff waiting for me at the office.”
Dad’s hand tightened on my shoulder again. “Faith has more than doubled the reach of the Team Sutton grants since she took over. We’re dispersing funds to schools and day programs in fifteen states now. She’s the best thing to happen to that place.”
Logan gave me a wry grin. “Don’t you love when your board members are unbiased about your performance?”
A loud, hysterical-tinged laugh burst out of me, drawing the attention of some of the people gathering around us. He meant it as a joke, but unconsciously, my gaze flitted quickly to Dominic because it was exactly the kind of thing that made him dislike me in the first place. How many twenty-somethings could make statements like that and have it be true?
None that I was aware of.
I cleared my throat. “I meant to reach out to Paige and see if she’d reconsider taking a seat on the board,” I told him.
Logan glanced over at his beautiful wife, who was telling a story to Allie and one of Logan’s sisters—I couldn’t tell who it was—and had them laughing loudly. “She should. Emmett's out of the house now, and I think she's going to lose her mind without anyone else living under the roof.” His eyebrows rose in concession. “Though, the girls have more than enough kids to keep us busy.”
“Emmett's almost done with college?” I asked, placing a hand on my chest. “Oh, that makes me feel old.”
Logan laughed. “Makes you feel old?”
Dad lifted his chin in Emmett’s direction, where he was tossing a ball with one of the rookies. “He’s starting at Stanford again this year?”
Logan nodded. “Paige can’t stop telling everyone she knows.”
I watched him drop back and throw a perfect spiral to Mack, one of our rookie receivers. “I'm assuming he's going to enter the draft.”
My dad whistled when Mack stretched out to catch it, the ball exactly where it needed to be.
“Oh yeah,” Logan assured us.
“Maybe he’ll end up at Washington someday,” I teased. “We can really keep this place in the family.”
My dad laughed.
From the corner of my eye, while the two men continued chatting, I caught a glimpse of Dominic. He’d finished talking to Coach, and was stretching his long arms over his head. The motion brought the hem of his white shirt up, and the glimpse of hard squares of muscle had my mouth going dry. Splitting down the middle of those muscles was a dark line of hair. That didn’t make my mouth go dry. It had my entire body lit like the Fourth of July.
His gaze rose, connecting to mine with a forceful clash that did more than make my throat go dry. It had all my fight or flight systems ramping up into overdrive. That same desire to hide from whatever this was came back with a roar.
I was not the kind of person who wanted the attention of a man like Dominic.
Yet, as I refused to drop my gaze, and he seemed to do the same, I wasn’t sure hiding was an option anymore.
Dominic
Everywhere, there were people laughing and talking and enjoying the atmosphere. An event like this never would’ve happened at my old team, a gathering of people who wanted nothing more than to celebrate an unofficial start to the season, months before training camp kicked off. It was a reunion of sorts, and not just current players.
All around the practice field were legends from past Washington Wolves teams, some that had won trophies, and some that hadn’t. Hall of Fame players. Legendary quarterbacks and receivers and linemen, their families, all decked out in red and black.
The fact that I’d been off to the side by myself wasn’t lost on me, another disparity between me and the rest of my teammates. There were other current players without families present, but I had to guess that their families didn’t live within thirty minutes of the practice facility. Taking in the atmosphere, the buoyant energy that crackled through the air, it was like a blade through the ribs when I thought of how much Ivy would’ve loved this. A few younger kids ran around, playing tag, throwing a ball back and forth, on the shoulders of whichever player they came with, and if she’d been alive, my sister would’ve been almost sixteen. Too big to ride on my shoulders. But at the age where, knowing her, she would’ve been trying to out-throw every single boy there.
My jaw was tight as I watched two college-aged kids do exactly that. Someone passed in front of me, and I blinked at the confused look on his face.
“Fuck,” I whispered under my breath. I probably looked like a raging
jackass. In reality, I was trying to wrap my mind around the fact that I hadn’t even thought to invite my parents to be a part of this. My dad probably wouldn’t have taken the day off for it. My mom, either. But I hadn’t even asked.
No wonder the other players didn’t want me around. There I was, in the middle of a giant party, glaring at anyone who came too close without even realizing.
A fragile ceasefire existed in the locker room since my conversation with Coach Ward and James. Only a couple of guys gave me looks of outright disdain, but most of them left me alone while we were still in these early days of solidifying what this year’s team looked like.
That was the kind of stuff I should have been thinking of and planning for. But instead, I thought of Faith. It was impossible not to.
In the middle of everything—the sun that held court while everything shifted around its orbit—was Faith and her family. They were royalty here, and it was obvious. Even some of the most recognizable names in football history hung back, waiting their turn to talk with her parents, and she and her sister knew every single one of them.
All night, I’d tossed and turned, unable to banish her from my thoughts.
Unable to sleep, I’d scrolled through my phone as I laid in my quiet, starkly decorated apartment, trying to separate what I’d known of her for the past few years from what I knew now.
Like me, Faith had never outright lied in our chats online, and I took a lot of comfort in that. Now that I knew who she was, one particular conversation stuck out to me, so I scrolled back to find it. It was just after I’d started playing in Vegas but hadn’t ever actually told her that I’d moved away from Texas. From what I knew now, it was just after she’d taken over at Team Sutton and worried that maybe leadership wasn’t for her. According to our history, Faith thought Nick was a college grad who’d worked construction to pay his way through to a business management degree, something that could’ve been used in a million different ways.
The Lie : a bad boy sports romance Page 9
