Prologue

MATT

Five Years Ago

Ilook forward to guys’ night at Brody’s Bar. Just me, my best friends, a cold beer in one hand, and a smoking hot blond in the other.

It was a rough week and football practice nearly kicked my ass. Football doesn’t give me that thrill like it did when I was in high school. I don’t play for the best high school team in the southern part of Alabama.

Nope. I play for a shit team at the local junior college. Not many junior colleges have football teams and if they do, their program is kind of shit –just like Oakridge Community College. We’re on a losing streak – eight losses and one win by forfeit – and half of the team spends their nights after practice getting so drunk that they can’t make it to morning practices. Not like coach is at practice half of the time anyway. He cares about the program about as much as us players do.

“Hey Matty,” a shrill voice calls from behind me. I turn around and come face to face with the blond I took home after last week’s game. My memory is shit, but I try my best to remember the faces of the girls I hook up with. Do I remember their names? Not a chance.

“Hey, babe.” I study her heavily made-up face. She has extremely long lashes that must be heavy because I can barely see the color of her eyes –they might be green. Her hair is pulled into a ponytail and she has giant hoop earrings on. The bar is slightly humid, so to combat it she’s wearing a black tank top and jean shorts. She has heeled boots on that add a little height to her.

Blondie pulls her bottom lip between her teeth and takes a step closer to me. “I had so much fun with you last week, I wanted to see if you were free later on tonight.”

I smile and wrap my arm around her waist and pull her closer to me. She giggles and I flash her my signature smile to let her know that I most definitely plan to take her home tonight.

“Aye! Get your hands off my woman, dickhead!”

Blondie and I snap apart and we turn to the direction of the angry voice. I gulp when I see that an angrier and bulkier man marching over to where we’re standing, his face red with rage. I swear he’s foaming at the mouth, but that might just be the beer talking.

“Sorry, dude. Didn’t know she was spoken for,” I say, throwing up my hands and backing away.

“Uh, yeah you did. I told you last week I had a boyfriend and you said that wasn’t stopping you from fucking me six ways to Saturday,” Blondie says, batting her mega eyelashes at me.

Blondie’s boyfriend growls and grabs me by my collar, causing me to stand on the toes of my cowboy boots. For his sake, they don’t crease these before I properly break them in.

“Take your hands off of me. Take your bitch and leave,” I grind before shoving Blondie’s boyfriend.

“Excuse you! I’m not a bitch! Baby, beat him up!” Blondie shouts, her face turning red to match her boyfriend’s.

“Shut up, Rachel! We’ll talk about you cheating on me later. As for right now,youare gone learn a lesson, boy.” He gives me a harder shove and I stumble into the bar stool behind me.

“Touch me again and I promise you that the last thing you’re gonna see are these lights above us when you’re looking up.”

The jerkoff has the audacity to laugh before he throws a punch, connecting with my cheek. I stumble again, holding my face before setting down my glass and tackling the guy to the dirty floor. We exchange blows for a couple of seconds, him landing more than me, before we’re broken up and dragged away from each other.

“Enough,” a gruff voice sounds from behind me.

“Get the fuck off me!” I shout as I pull myself free from this person’s hold, sending him into one of the tables. A few glasses fall to the floor, shattering on impact.

“Alright, that’s it. You’re coming with me,” the voice says again. This time, I’m grabbed and slammed face down onto a table. My hands are pulled behind me and I hear the unmistakable click of handcuffs. I immediately close my eyes because I know what’s coming next.

My mom’s totally gonna flip her shit once she hears about this.

Chapter One

MATT

Present

Ifucking love mornings.

Ever since I started working in construction, I’ve come to appreciate the early mornings and dread the late nights. This is the total opposite of younger Matt.

Back then, I would dread waking up in the morning to go to school, but I came alive at night, especially on Fridays when it was gameday. There was something about the crowd cheering on the team as we scored touchdown after touchdown that got me hyped. But those days, the “glory days,” are over.