Page 12 of Hot Receiver

“I thought you were all football.” I finally find my voice after the shock of his words settles in. “What’s with the baseball metaphors?”

He shrugs. “I was really good at baseball when I was young. Maybe I should’ve stuck with it, but I needed a scholarship, and football brings in way more money than baseball.”

The dead silence that follows deafens me. But he’s right. About most of it, anyway. One day, I thought I had everything. Then when I was faced with my biggest challenge, I crumbled instead of dealing with it. I let the hatred poison me and leak into every other part of my life that was good.

I grit my teeth.

It doesn’t matter. Betrayal is betrayal. I may not have handled things well when I was outed, but it happened because I put all of my trust and faith into someone who didn’t deserve it. That was the most jagged fucking pill to swallow. And it’s one that still catches in my throat every time I look at Matt.

Because I’ll never forget the way he so easily turned his back on me after what we shared.

So, fuck him and his hopes for redemption. That ship sailed a long goddamn time ago.

“Did you hold onto the team because of me?” He swerves into the right lane and horns blare out in the night air. His jaw tenses and he stomps the brake next to the curb while cars whizz past us. “You could have re-sold it once your father died. But you didn’t. Is it because you wanted, I don’t know, revenge or something? To punish me? Because you think that driving me out of a sport I love will somehow make up for what happened back in college?”

“Don’t flatter yourself. I kept the team because it meant something to my dad.”

But now I have to live with the elusive “why” since I walked out on him before he could tell me. His tone, his posture, his worried expression that day at the restaurant…all of it pointed to something more than just “hey, I bought a team because I love the sport.”

I felt like I was under attack, so I got defensive and ended the conversation.

I did the same thing to Matt years ago. Shut him down when he tried to explain because he shattered my heart and soul when he turned his back on me. His explanation couldn’t ever fix what he’d broken.

Now, my dad’s gone, and I’ll never know his truth, which breaks me even more.

So, out of guilt and obligation, I kept the goddamn team.

And now I own all of the heartache that comes with it.

Chapter 6

Matt

Zak stares at me, his dark eyes glittering with disgust. His longish dark hair falls around his face, framing his antagonizing gaze. “And just so we’re clear. You don’t have a right to ask me personal questions. You gave that up a long time ago.”

I ball my fingers into tight fists, but it doesn’t stifle the twinge in them, the urge to stroke his strong, defiant jaw. Christ, the longer I look, the more vibrant the memory of his lips on mine and the delicious scratch of his beard against my skin.

I gave it up because I was scared, dammit. Because I couldn’t justify jeopardizing my future. I couldn’t figure out how to have my cake and eat it, too. It was wrong, but I was a stupid kid hiding myself from the world.

So I let go of the one thing that truly made me happy, just so I could hang on to the hope of a future that was still pretty much unknown at that point. Zak has hated me ever since, and it kills me a little bit each day, knowing what I gave up andadmitting to myself that I’d have done it all over again if given the choice.

Because underneath the bullshit glamorous celebrity façade, I’m just a liar.

I do care about Anna. That was the truth. But what we have is more like a friends with benefits thing. Same arrangement, different girl. Zak is the first person I ever really connected with, and when he needed me most, I ran out of fear of what it would mean for the rest of my life.

The crackle of static between us now sends shivers over my skin. The way he looks at me and tries to see what’s buried in the deep recesses of my soul… he’s always been the only one to uncover it.

Can he still see through me?

Does he still have the power to undo me?

The way my body tingles under his fiery glare tells me in no uncertain terms that he absolutely can.

I force my body to twist back around, the only way to break the spell he has over me.

He wasn’t given a choice, but he still gave me mine.

He chose truth.

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