Page 30 of I'm Your Guy
“Everybody needs some Netflix therapy after a long day. Even super-stud athletes.”
I snort. “What’s your favorite show? Wait—I bet you watch HGTV.”
“Not often. Some of those designers are hacks. You probably don’t go home and watch hockey after work, either.”
“You’d be surprised.”
He turns his handsome face toward mine. “Seriously?”
“Well, yeah. I have to play most of those teams twice a season. Watching them is good preparation. It’s, like, homework. I’m checking to see what mistakes they make. Where they’re vulnerable. How they fight when they’re angry.”
He gives me a sideways glance. “Of course.”
Oops. The mention of fighting has made him go quiet. “Let me guess—you finally googled me?”
“I might have.”
“And the first thing you saw was me whaling on my cousin. And then my uncle, when he decided to try to break it up?”
He clears his throat. “That might have come up.”
I’m so tired all of a sudden. “And now you’re sorry you took this job?”
“No way,” he says softly. “You’re not that scary. So far, since I’ve met you, you’ve fed me twice, you’ve dug me out of a financial hole, and you’ve been super nice to my pesty friend. So I figure whatever happened in Trenton, they had it coming.”
My throat is very scratchy all of a sudden. “I like to think so. Not my finest hour, though.”
“What happened?”
That question again. “I kinda snapped.”
“That happen a lot?”
“Not to me,” I assure him. I don’t know why I’m still talking, but I don’t want Carter to think badly of me. “That was, like, twenty years of payback delivered in two minutes. Unfortunately, I’ll be living it down for the rest of my career.”
“What did they do? Just so I know not to do the same thing.”
I let out a bark of bitter laughter, and then I surprise myself by telling him a tiny sliver of the truth. “My personal life had just imploded. My cousin, who is the biggest turd you’ll ever meet, spent several weeks taunting me about it. And then I lost my mind.”
Carter gulps. “That’s pretty ugly. I’m sorry.”
“It was ugly,” I admit. “Broke Marco’s jaw. Landed a couple punches on Vin, too, before it was over. He wanted to press charges, but the franchise bribed him not to.”
“So you’re saying that I’m sitting beside a troublemaker?”
“Pretty much.”
“Hmm,” he says. “Google says you got traded after that fight.”
“Yup. No man was ever as happy about a trade. Worked out great.”
“Except for your lack of furniture,” he points out.
“I told you—I had rental furniture. And my ass never knew the difference until I sat on this sofa. What is this thing stuffed with? Clouds?”
“Memory foam and down feathers.”
“You’re ruining me for all other sofas.”
