I stumble out of bed, the groan of the floorboards making me pause half in, half out, waiting for those doe-blue eyes to open and face my ass crack, but relief comes instead when I notice she’s still out cold.
Tiptoeing is not something a twenty-four-year-old man should be doing, especially one with a bum knee, but here I am, doing a creep-limp out of my own bedroom and exerting mental gymnastics to figure out where my phone is. That way, I can text her good-bye and good luck after fleeing my apartment in search of some bacon, the best hangover cure there was.
I give my pits a sniff while heading to my bathroom. Definite shower needed first. Risky, but hell, I brought her all the way over here, maybe I deserve to look her in the eye when I request she leave without so much as a prompting of her name.
I pause, scoff at my reflection in the mirror above the sink. Nah.
Locking the door behind me, I croon as I duck under the spray. “Ah, sweet, sweet lady goddess of warm water…”
I scrub at my skull and give my chin a good scratch, phantom strands still tickling. Eyes closed, I take my time, loving a good clean, giving my jewels a good tug and some soap.
Hmm. I glance down at my half chub. Maybe Candy-Tara didn’t have to be dismissed outright. She could be up for another go around…
Pounding at my door halts any further fantasy.
“In a minute!” I call.
“No, right now!” Candy-Tara yells back.
Water gets in my eyes when I freeze mid wash. She doesn’t sound tired. Or hungover. Or confused. She’s…
Pissed.
“Gimme a sec.” Squeaking off the tap, I step out of the bathtub, giving my hair a good shake, like a dog coming out of a pool, and use a towel to do the rest before tying it around my waist. The pounding hasn’t stopped.
“All right.” I turn the knob, and the door unlocks with a click. “What’s the—”
“You could have told me, you fucker.”
Angry, red-rimmed blue eyes glare at me. Candy-Tara’s hair is a nest around pale skin. A slight layering of freckles adds to her pissed-off charm.
Damn. She’s even hotter when she’s flushed. My dick gives a little tug in agreement.
“Told you what, babe?” I offer her my best smile. “I was just thinking about you and how lonely I was in that shower.”
“Not gonna work on me this time, Locke,” she spits. Then levels that spit by smacking me in the shoulder. “Why didn’t you tell me you had a girlfriend?”
“A…what?” I cock my head, but not in the usual sense that gets women biting their lower lip. “Believe me, sweetheart, I do not have one of those.”
I lay my hand on her shoulders, brush down her arms and give an encouraging grin upon feeling her goose bumps. “Come on, I’ve been picturing your ass naked and wet all morning.”
“Locke,” she fumes.
I add further inducement by dropping my towel and showing her just how much I want her again.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
I frown. I hear a woman’s voice, except Candy-Tara’s lips aren’t moving. In fact, her arms are crossed, and she’s completely immune to my slick, scented, muscular body, standing at attention for her in exactly the way she’d moaned for it to do last night.
Candy-Tara inclines her head and gives a cat-like purr. “That not-girlfriend you were talking about? I just let her in.”
“Wha…” Slowly, my gaze travels from her plump lip fillers—which never really turned me on until I saw them around my cock—to another girl, standing in my small space, arms also crossed, but appearing mighty more enraged.
The new girl doesn’t even ask me a question. She just says, “Nope. I am not doing this. No fucking way.”
And spins once on her heels and goes for the door without looking back.
I almost gape at her departure. Never have I been dismissed so entirely.
“Wait, who are you?” I ask her retreating back.
Candy-Tara cuts in to say, “I’m not an idiot, so stop playing dumb.”
“I don’t know who that girl is!” I say to her while grabbing my towel. I fumble it closed while I chase after the other girl—the one who’s actually nameless—before she disappears from my life forever.
Because if Candy-Tara is hot, the angry girl is downright sexy.
Her fury is like a magnet, sizzling with electricity. It scores her cheeks and narrows her eyes in a way that if her tongue darted out, I’d be over there in two strides, pulling her hair back with one hand and tonguing the sensitive corner of her neck until she moans. Add to that thick, brunette waves almost reaching her elbows, the widest caramel eyes I’ve ever seen, tits that are at least a C cup, and an ass I’d kill any man to get to.
Holy shit, I want those cheeks in my hands.
“Where are you going?” I call as I sprint out of my apartment into the hallway, hoping this isn’t a hallucination, that a girl this gorgeous actually exists.
I find the top of her head on the stairs, heading down.
“Wait!” I say again, chasing after her barefoot. I curse when I hit an exposed nail on the staircase.
She stops at my yell, turning with a perfectly arched brow. “Wimp.”
Then keeps going.
“No…wait! Fuck.” I hop on one foot but shake the excess pain off, still scrambling, following this mythical creature out into the city streets.
She’s at the light half a block away.
“Jesus, you’re fast,” I say to no one, then call over the people dodging me as they curiously look at the man in a towel. “Who the hell are you?”
She deigns a look my way, stuck while she waits for the light to change. “You don’t remember me?”
Second head-cock of the day where I’m not trying to get laid, and it’s not even eight. There’s something familiar about her, I just can’t put my finger on it. And, if I’m honest, there’s been so many girls in my past…“There’s no way I’ve slept with you. I’d remember you for sure.”
The way she surveys me, it’s like…oh man, it’s like scorn. For once, I’m caught unawares.
“We’ve never slept together,” she says, but when the traffic stops, and she can cross, she comes closer instead.
Yes, come to me, sexy lady.
“But you’ve slept with my best friend.”
My dick shrivels. No.
“Paige Tobias. The name mean anything to you?” she continues.
“Not even a little,” I say blithely, and that sets a sexy firelight in her eyes. “Unless it’s yours.”
The girl gives a nod as if affirming something. “You don’t deserve this. I sure as hell don’t deserve this.”
I’m honestly confused. “Deserve what? Need I remind you, you came into my home, disrupted my private time, only to yell at my dick. Yeah, I saw you looking.” My smile is like a sideswipe; knocks girls flat.
Not this one.
Her cheeks stain pink with irritation. She visibly shakes with it. Her eyes glitter—literally sheen over—with tears.
Part of me is impressed with her passion. Not many people would step up to the plate for their friends like this. I kind of wish my guys would take up arms, but they’re more likely to search for a six-pack in my apartment than defend my honor—if I possess any, that is.
Then realization sets in, and I feel bad for a girl wanting so desperately to defend her friend, some chick I can’t remember for the life of me but is worth enough to send this girl over here in a rage. “Your best friend. If I hurt her, I’m sorry. Really. It’s never my intention. I always make sure the women I take home understand I’m not the boyfriend type—”
“You didn’t hurt her, asshole. You had a daughter with her.”
The girl covers her mouth abruptly like she didn’t mean to say what she just said.
Candy-Tara picks that time to come out of the apartment building, hearing this girl’s words. Before I can blink the fact she’s beside me into existence, Candy-Tara slaps me acro
ss the face. So hard the angry girl in front of me gasps like she hasn’t expected this moment but kinda enjoys it.
“You have a kid?” Candy-Tara cries.
But the sharp crack against my cheek is needed. My brain has put on the brakes, my jaw’s unhinged, my towel might as well come off again because, What the fuck did this girl just say to me?
The girl sighs, energy seeming to expel out of her in one wave, and says, “My name is Carter Jameson. And you have a ten-month-old daughter.”
Oh, Jesus.
Where’s my bacon.
3
Carter
It took me days, weeks, to muster up the courage to get on a plane and confront Paige’s baby daddy, Lachlan Hayes.
I thought of ignoring it. It was so tempting to dismiss this dude and let the courts handle him. Child Services could inform Lachlan of his DNA match in the form of a baby. This guy means nothing to me—not one iota after I finished my research on him before booking my flight.
Especially after looking him up on the internet.
“Ugh,” I mumbled while reading, giving a vigorous syllable to my distaste.
This king of his college days, man of the football field, running back of record-breaking NFL dreams, is still an ass almost two years later. Every social media pic I spotted of him on my computer, he had his arm draped over a girl, and always a different one. Seemed he didn’t have a preference. Blonde, brunette, pink, rainbow…as long as they were hot, he’d bare his chest for them.
“God, Paige, what did you see in this jerk?”
Yet, I couldn’t look away. My finger just kept scrolling and scrolling, my eyes eating up all the words and pictures, the girls and tailored suits, until the last article I came across, referring to some kind of injury. My finger hovered over the mouse as I read.
Lachlan was hit hard, the wrong way, his knee blown out, during his very first game in professional football.
There was a link under the article that read CLICK HERE FOR GRAPHIC DETAIL. And like the bait it was meant to be, I clicked.
It was a video, with close to a million views. I turned the volume up and bent closer to the screen. The thunderous white noise from the crowd sounded first, then the official announcer, discussing the set-up for the next play. Lachlan was number 18 according to the article. I tried to find him on the field. I thought he was the player running back and forth behind the line of large, padded men readying for the quarterback to hoist the ball.
That’s the extent I can talk about football. Paige and I attended many college games, yet I couldn’t tell you the plays, the yards, the positions. I could tell you when a touchdown happened since that’s when the stadium went wild and a ton of beer spilled on me.
“We’ve got a rookie on the field, Lachlan Hayes, who comes with plenty of pressure on his shoulders,” the announcer said through my computer’s speakers. “Heisman Trophy winner, captain of his alma mater, he’s got plenty of stats to his name, too. We’re looking forward… Plenty of fans are eager to see what he can do, especially after his magic on the field during pregame season…”
While the announcer’s jabbering, the QB punts the ball between his legs, immediately redirecting the announcer’s chatter. There’s a scramble, some confusion, then—there—Lachlan had the ball. He was running close to the sideline, ball tucked under his arm, gaining yards, leaving the opposing team behind, when—BOOM—out of left field, literally.
He…he’s…
Oh, God.
I thought only dolls could bend sideways like that.
And break.
The viral video had me cringing. Lachlan’s writhing in the field, the cameraman unable to pan out or focus anywhere else. He, like the rest of us, was plenty human and wanted to see it all, regardless of how grotesque it might be.
I tilted my head, following the new angle of Lachlan’s leg. God, that was some career-ending shit.
I’d’ve felt sorry for the guy if the pictures of him and various women had also stopped. But, of course, they grew in proportion the day after it was announced he couldn’t play football anymore. In these recent pics, his eyes were more hooded, his shirts not buttoned properly—if they were at all—his drinks frozen in mid-slosh as he posed, mouth mawing open like he’s one second away from insulting the person behind the camera phone.
Drunk.
“A drunk, dastardly bastard. And you slept with him, Paige.” I shook my head, my finger tapping against the mouse.
No wonder Paige never mentioned who Lily’s father was.
To be fair, online accounts alone weren’t enough to put him into asshole territory. At first glance, anybody would think he engaged in pretty typical college-guy, then pro-athlete, debauchery. It was also the remembrance of him that gave him the dick flag. The fact that it was almost two years after college and he’s still babooning through life the same way he did during our senior year when Paige and I first had the chance of meeting college royalty.
Oh, did I ever remember Lachlan Hayes. Got to witness firsthand how he captured that dick flag and kept it close. I just didn’t know Paige slept with the guy that same night.
We’d always talked about how hot he was, laughing as we took cringing sips of Fireball and munching on M&Ms and Skittles on our dorm room bed. But that’s all Lachlan Hayes was in our conversations—gorgeous, unobtainable, a guy who absolutely, one hundred percent, ran with a different crowd. It was no secret most co-eds crushed on him, and he knew it.
What Paige didn’t know was, I crushed on him, too.
Stupidly. I tell myself now it was more in a celebrity way, with no chance in hell of ever finding out if he and I could work. I mean, the chances of meeting the guy were slim, never mind engaging in conversation with him or—gasp—dating him.
So, imagine my surprise when the last college party we went to, he was there. Lachlan Hayes, in all his glory, with all his buddies, drunk and twisted on championship fame.
He’d seen me that night. Our eyes clashed and held—mine widening the longer I realized he was staring. Then, like a lizard unable to blend into its surroundings, I scurried away, too scared to do anything about Lachlan’s clear and sudden interest.
Little did I know, Paige was able to conquer that same fear.
Realizing this makes me feel like I never truly knew her. Not in the way I thought.
So, when I got off the plane to New York City, when I stepped up to Lachlan’s door this morning, finger trembling as I buzzed, fist shaking when I took the stairs to his apartment door and knocked, I didn’t think he’d recall who I was.
Now here we are, sitting awkwardly in Lachlan’s living room—and that’s putting it kindly. Old, stinky clothes are flung over the upholstery; single socks discarded on the floors like they were forced to search on their own for their mate since their owner gave up on them. And… do I see? Yes, I see. A woman’s lace thong hanging over the kitchen faucet.
“Um,” Lachlan says eloquently.
He leans forward in a wooden kitchen chair he dragged over from a table two feet away, facing me on a sofa that I hope, hope, hope, did not feature in his sexcapades last night. Sadly, it smells like it might’ve.
“Can I get you a drink?” he asks.
“Sure,” I say. “Coke, if you have it.”
He lights up. “I do.”
Lachlan practically leaps out of his seat, and I notice the slight, almost indiscernible limp in his left leg as he strides six feet into a small kitchenette. Bottles rattle as he opens the fridge. Beer, probably.
I should take this time to further survey this apartment, a second-floor walk-up in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, but I don’t need to. It all adds up—the smells, the tangled clothes belonging to both sexes, the mussed-up hair, the face of Lachlan Hayes. I know enough.
He returns, cracking open the can of Coke and leaving the tab up as he passes it to me.
“So…” Lachlan sits back down, rubbing his palms against his knees.
He’s dressed in black-and
-red athletic shorts and a vintage Van Halen tee. I’m trying to reconcile the college eye candy he was to the man who’s in front of me, with one eye half-closed like he’s attempting to reconcile this day with real life.
There were two ways this could’ve gone. Lachlan’s instant denial coupled with a good few seconds of blubbering. Maybe the paleness of shock capped off by cracking his head on the pavement when he passes out. Or, Lachlan could be stunned senseless, stupefied by the fact that of the many, many women he slept with, he shockingly happened to knock one up.
I see he chose the latter.
“Do you want to know her name?” I ask.
“I want to know…everything.” Lachlan shakes his head, dislodging some stupor. “So, it’s a girl? I have a girl baby?”
I angle my chin in an attempt to soften my scorn. I must remember, this guy has no clue. He didn’t expect me to come into his home and scope out his place like he was a father needing to take care of a kid. He didn’t know when he woke up this morning there would be a baby somewhere that needs him.
“Yes,” I say. “Her name is Lily. Lily James Tobias.”
“Cool.” Lachlan nods. “That’s a cool name.”
“Uh-huh.” I scold myself to cut back on the sarcasm.
“So, um…” Lachlan licks his lips, and I almost want to pass him my Coke so he can take a drink and collect himself.
“I’m sorry to show up and drop a bomb on you like this,” I say instead. “If it could’ve been any other way…I mean, had I known earlier, maybe I could’ve prepared you somehow…”
“You?” Lachlan sits back, his legs splayed out in a wide V. “But didn’t you say it was another girl whose baby this is? You’re not—”
“No. Definitely not.” I set the can down on the scuffed glass coffee table. “My best friend, Paige, is Lily’s mother. You heard right.”
“Okay, so, why are you here instead of her? Why are you telling me this? Is she afraid to confront me or something?”
I’ve been dreading this part. “Paige is dead.”
His hands fall right off his thighs, hanging loose as if without bone. “I’m sorry, what?”
Players to Lovers (4 Book Collection) Page 2
