Page 2 of Delayed Penalty

Wish I had options right now, but apparently my cock disagrees.

“You’re just saying that because Nicole is here. As well as Stephanie,” I joke, knowing damn well he clocked both of those girls the moment they walked through that door.

“Don’t forget about Maddie; although, she seems pretty happy in O’Neil’s lap right now so she might be out of the gametonight,” Cade adds, and without question all of our eyes fall to the corner where they’re sitting.

O’Neil is the star quarterback for the Seattle Raptors, but he went to college with us since he grew up in New York so every once in a while when it’s their off season, we end up hanging out. Tonight, though, it looks like he’s out with some of his old teammates since they are in their off-season.

“Yeah, she definitely looks happy where she’s at right now.” Miles laughs as Maddie turns to straddle O’Neil and they start making out. “What do you say, Harris? You want to go over and talk to Nicole and Stephanie with me? They’re usually down to get in some trouble.”

I turn to look over at the girls who are still at the bar sipping what I can only assume are cosmos while talking to a group of friends. They keep looking over here at us, but I can’t find it in me to beckon them over.

It’s not that I don’t want to… okay, that’s a lie. I actually really don’t want to, and for the life of me I just can’t figure out why.

“Maybe. We’ll see in a bit. We just got here, and I’m sure as hell not going to start looking desperate by picking someone up for the night already,” I say with a shrug, not wanting to explain the truth to them.

I’ve never had any problems picking up a woman at the bar. Hell, I’ve picked up more than one at a time and never thought twice about it. The thought of being with two women at once is usually enough to get me going, get the blood rushing down to my cock rearing to go.

Not tonight.

Hell, not since the night at the gala earlier this month when I got to watch that douchebag Peter parade around the party with a beautiful woman all over him—only the woman wasn’t his fiancée. No, it was all wrong. Where was the woman I left six years ago, heartbroken and devastated, believing lies Iwas forced to tell and have spent every moment since that day regretting?

No, that night, Peter was there with someone else. This woman had black hair and the brightest red lips I’d ever seen in my life. She was beautiful, her smile bright, but at the end of the day, she still wasn’t Avery.

No one is.

And if another woman was there on his arm, then where the fuck was my Avery?

That’s all I’ve been able to think about, and knowing there’s a chance they aren’t together anymore gave me the kind of hope I wouldn’t wish for anyone. It felt like finding water after walking for weeks in a desert. Like a warm blanket after a day full of snowboarding in weather cold enough to freeze your beard. Now, she’s all I can think about, and my cock refuses to respond to anyone else with a vagina, because they aren’t her.

Based on the smirk the guys gave me when I answered Miles, it’s definitely possible they’re starting to notice something’s up with me.

I’m not as much of a manwhore as everyone makes me out to be, not that there would be anything wrong with it if I was. Sex is incredible in whatever quantities you’d like to have it, as long as it’s consensual. I had a couple of girls I would see at a bar and go home with for the night, or bring back to my place, but it wasn’t frequent by any means.

I’m lost in thought as the guys continue drinking around me, my eyes bouncing around to the groups of people, many of them women who are looking our way, but no one interests me in the slightest. I don’t mean this in a rude way, there’s nothing wrong with any of these women—at least, not something they can change. It’s not their fault they aren’t a short little brunette with the lightest blue eyes that often look gray.

I need to stop looking for her. I need to stop waiting for someone who never waited for me.

“Did you ever find out what was going on with Stella?” Trevor asks across the table toward Rex who looks up from his phone with a devilish smile and a raised finger.

“Hold on,” he murmurs before looking down at his phone where his fingers fly across the keyboard.

“Sorry, Trevor, your question isn’t as important as his sexting.”

“Is anything?” Rex jokes, his eyes full of glee. “No. Though, I haven’t heard much after she mentioned she might be moving. My dad mentioned something about her getting an offer on the place she’s at right now, but she’d be a damn fool to accept it. She’ll never find a place like that in such an incredible location for that price again.”

“Damn, I hope everything is okay. This isn’t typical of her,” Trevor says with a shake of his head.

Stella, Rex’s sister, has always been super close with him but in the last couple of months she’s started to bail on hanging out with us, usually saying she’s trying to get together with a friend who was trying to be business partners with her. As soon as we voiced we thought it was a bad idea to get into a business arrangement when she had no need for one, she started to shut us all out.

“Yeah, I’m just trying to trust her, let her figure it out on her own. But I can only allow that to happen for so long,” Rex says, but I’m no longer listening.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see a glimpse of brown hair moving toward the bathrooms, a woman with long legs and a tiny little dress that looks like it was made for her, and damn… it looks like her.

Without saying anything, I’m standing up, ignoring their questions as I head in the direction she just went. My heart starts racing as I get closer to her, but I don’t want her to slip away.

“Excuse me,” I say, her head quickly turning around to look at me and the moment those light blue eyes meet mine, all the air is ripped from my lungs.

“Avery?” I rasp out. Although I thought and followed her in hopes it was her, I didn’t actually think I’d be lucky enough to run into her here.

---