Page 42 of Wicked Player

His eyes closed and that hint of a smile he wore evaporated. A mask slammed down into place and until he opened his eyes, black lashes rimming his eyes opening every so slowly, I fought against apologizing. I should have, but personal curiosity stopped me.

He held up the ball in his hand. “Basketball. He’d be here as much as possible.”

“Not football?” I gestured to the football game where a ball could be thrown through several different holes, each target a varying degree of points. “You told Brandon that was his favorite.”

His steely eyes didn’t waver from mine. There was no hint of familiarity between us anymore. It’d frozen like a block of ice as soon as he closed his eyes.

I wouldn’t think about why that hurt so much.

“It was. Knew everything about the game, but more than knowing and loving something, he was a competitor.” He turned and threw the ball, swished it through the net again and ignored it as it rolled back to me. “On his healthy days, he would have been here, egging me on, giving me shit about how I’d never be able to beat him. On the days he was too sick to throw, he’d sit in a wheelchair next to me, challenging me to beat my time.”

My brothers had that relationship. Always pushing each other. Always trying to outdo the other. “Brothers have a special bond,” I said, thinking of mine. There were times in my life when I was pretty irrelevant even if I was the third born. Older than Tanner and I by five years, Blake and Jaxon were born only eleven months apart. They were fiercely competitive in everything they did. Always trying to outplay and outlast. To say my home was likeSurvivorwas putting it gently.

“You have brothers.”

It wasn’t a question and I nodded, grabbed the ball in front of me and shot it. It bounced off the rim, hit the backboard, swam in a circle and dropped in. It was a messy shot, but I bit my lip to keep from grinning.

“Yeah. Three of them.”

“What are they like?”

My eyes slid to Gage. He was facing me, hands on his hips, head bent. Our voices were low and this conversation had jumped the track. I didn’t mind we’d gone off the rails.

It fit how I’d been feeling for a week.

“Fierce. Protective. Loud.” The ball rolled back to me and I picked it up and shot it again. I missed it by a mile. “Idiots. They’re all idiots.”

“Most guys are.”

“But not you?” I grinned at him. It couldn’t be helped. I wouldn’t be me if I wasn’t a smartass at least once during a conversation.

He tilted his chin and smirked. “I have my moments.”

I tried for my most disappointed look. “Figures.”

“Anything else you want to ask me?”

“I’d like an exclusive.” The words popped out before I knew they were coming. Too fast for me to stop them and had I thought for a single second, I never would have said them.

His arms crossed over his chest. Scowl slammed in place. “No.”

He took a step back. It felt like a mile. I’d just crossed a line. All over the agenda and rules, we were made known two things. No personal questions. No exclusives. He’d give us what he gave of his personal life and nothing else.

But I’d already crossed the line with asking about his brother. I blamed that brain fart on going for the other. Somehow I was too comfortable around him. Perhaps it was because he’d tried to pick glass out of my foot.

“I apologize,” I said. “That went too far.”

“Anything else?” His jaw jutted out ferociously.

I felt like a steaming pile of dog shit. “No. I have everything I need.”

He spun on his heel and left the room. I forced him to flee the entire wing and as he walked away, stalking like he needed to go hit something, all eyes in the room swung directly to me.

Including Connor’s.

“I think you screwed that up, Elizabeth,” Jason said.

“No shit?”

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