Page 43 of Wicked Player

Fourteen

Gage

A shadow darkening the screen in front of me made me jump.

Ripping off my noise-canceling headphones, I wasn’t at all shocked to see Beaux Hale, our quarterback, standing off to my side, arms crossed over his chest, eyes flicking from me to the screen.

“What?” I’d been a jerk all day at practice. Sullen and for God’s sake I’d even been pouty.

Why? Because freaking Elizabeth Hayes asked for an exclusive. All reporters did, but I hadn’t expected it from her, not when I‘d clearly stated I didn’t give them. Ever.

Too many reporters dug too deep into personal things I refused to discuss and when I said no comment, I was the one who ended up looking like a jerk.

That Elizabeth had already crossed a line in asking about Harrison already made me wary of her. But it’d felt so damn good to talk about him, too. It didn’t matter he’d been gone for over twenty years. He was and always would be my brother.

“Hard day,” Beaux said. He pointed at the screen where I paused it. It was a pass from last week’s game. Damn ball slipped right through my fingers. I was double-teamed, but I still should have caught it. I was still pissed I missed it. Probably because before the play had started, someone had called me a pussy. Which had made me think of burying my dick in Elizabeth so I was a half-second slow jumping off the line. “You figuring your shit out?”

“Yup.”

Beaux was a decent guy. One of the best. He had way too much fun in life, enjoying the ride and the high of not only his career but his new wife, Paige. They were married in the off-season and watching him get married, some guy who’d gone through way too much crap in his life, find the woman he wanted to spend the rest of it with, somewhere deep, that had splintered inside of me. Opened a yearning I’d always figured would never come.

Beaux also wasn’t good at letting crap go when he had something to say. He walked around the tables in the film room and pulled up a chair next to me. Sliding on his own headphones, he left them hanging around his neck.

He didn’t look at me as he linked his hands together. “Next couple weeks are going to be rough for you I would imagine.”

“It’s fine.”

“Really?” Doubt and sarcasm rang thick in my ears. “Because if it was me, having to spend a few weeks constantly thinking of my mom and how she died and if there was anything I could have done to make her life better when she was alive, any joy I could have given her, any way I could have been less of a dick when she was truly sick.” He shrugged, played it off like it was no big deal. Beneath my skin, ants started marching. Fire ants with tiny, vicious bites. “Well, that’d fuck up my game. You must be a better man that I am.”

“It’s not Harrison or the hospital screwing my game. And we won didn’t we?”

“Yeah because Jones picked up your side.”

Kolby Jones was always his second target. After I’d missed that pass, he became Hale’s first target when he wasn’t lobbing it to Powell in the end zone.

“Fuck off, Hale.”

He drummed his hands on the table. “See…you mention fucking, and the fact it’s not Harrison who has your nuts twisted, and I’m thinking it’s a woman who’s got you all screwed up. Man, been there.”

He still hadn’t even glanced at me. But what in the hell was with the pep talk from hell? I’d still had over one hundred receiving yards. So what if Kolby became his prime target in the second half. We won the damn game.

I was not talking to him about Elizabeth. I wasn’t talking to anyone about her. Ever.

I grabbed my headphones, intent on sliding them back on and drowning him out when he said, “It was a great party last weekend. Paige and Shannon loved it. Had so much fun Powell and I had to carry them to the cars at the end of the night.”

“Glad you enjoyed it.”

“Yeah.” He faced me then and his blue eyes gleamed with something I knew I wouldn’t like. “But see my favorite part of the night was watching you on your knees in front of a sexy little reporter. And I think, she’s a tiny thing, maybe not quite your type, but damn…if I was single, I would have been jumping all over that.”

Yup. I’d called it. A fire punched my chest so fast so quick I didn’t have time to school my reaction to one of disinterest. “Watch it.”

Beaux threw his head back and laughed, ran a hand through his blond hair. “Knew it. Fucking knew you had something going on with her.”

“It’s nothing.”

Last night I left pissed after our time together when she screamed John as she came. I’d wanted it to be mine, just to see her face pinched with pleasure, exploding into ecstasy and hear my name roll from her lips with a guttural groan. I’d felt like a jerk after. Wanted to somehow make it better today even if she didn’t know it’d been me that treated her like she was nothing.

But then she looked so damn cute, struck mute when I walked up. She’d flipped on her reporter hat and flashed me her professional smile and that had pissed me off more.

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