Page 3 of Jilted Jock
“Mikey and I are going to Bora Bora. It’ll give you time to get your stuff out of the apartment and when I get back, we can figure everything else out. We’ll need to make a statement to the media.”
The woman was taking him on our honeymoon. Jesus. How had I not seen this coming? My pathetic face would be splashed about with sad headlines and assumptions about why she hadn’t wanted to marry me. Was I bad in bed? Was I a controlling arsehole? And everywhere I went, she’d be there, and on freaking Martins’ arm apparently.
Foster reappeared, set the cat carrier on the ground in front of me, and then pulled out the kitten and offered it to me totally unaware of the situation.
“Finn? Finnie?” Cindy’s voice echoed through the phone. I missed whatever she’d said before, but it didn’t matter. I’d heard enough.
I stared at the kitten, sweat dripping at my temples. It meowed, eyes big, like it wasn’t too impressed with what was happening either. I took her, cradled her to my chest with one hand, then hung up the phone. Cindy’s parents came into view walking up the aisle with matching grim expressions.
“Everything okay?” Chance asked. “You look a little pale.”
I shoved the cat at him and then heaved next to the fancy white tent. But when I stood up straight to tell my hero that I’d just been left at the altar, I didn’t get that rush of calm I got on game day and I didn’t feel like I could dominate anything except maybe a bottle of Macallan.
Adele
I breathed in the top of CJ’s head. A sweet mixture of dirt, sweat, and innocence made my heart squeeze in my chest. Mouth open like a baby bird, my nephew was sprawled out on top of me fast asleep.Finally.
I was contemplating how to get him from the couch to bed without waking him and had almost worked up the courage to lean forward, when the sound of keys jingling in the front door made him squirm. As quickly as I could without jarring him, I eased us to a standing position, clutching him tightly to my chest. CJ’s limp body seemed to weigh twice as much as I carried him to his room and put him down in his bed. I let out a sigh of relief when his eyes stayed closed.
Aubrey’s voice filtered through the house as I quietly shut CJ’s bedroom door behind me. “Easy. Oh, watch the… well, it’s just the floor. You tripped over your own feet.”
I laughed softly and smiled. It was impossible to be around my brother and his wife without either turning to goo at how perfect they were together or being completely annoyed…again at how perfect they were together. I was squarely in the first camp. Their love made me insanely happy. They were proof that love could prevail even through hard times and years apart.
I walked down the hallway toward them, but then halted abruptly when they came into view. I swallowed my laughter and my breath caught in my throat. My gaze was held captive by the scene. Chance and Aubrey had gone out for a date night to a wedding in LA, but it wasn’t Chance that Aubrey was helping into the house now and my brother was nowhere to be seen.
The guy stumbling beside her was unbelievably handsome. Disheveled and obviously drunk, swaying from side to side.
Hello bad boy fantasy of my youth.Five years ago, this was exactly the type of guy I would have fallen for at first sight and then convinced myself he was perfect for me regardless of what I found when I got to know him. Which was usually some major red flags. If there was one good thing that came from hitting rock bottom, it was the wisdom and scars that kept me from repeating those mistakes. Sadly, it didn’t stop my body from reacting.
“Oh, thank God,” Aubrey said and audibly exhaled. “Can you help me get him to the couch?”
I moved to action and not a moment too soon because as I reached him, he fell into me. I managed to get my arms around him and stabilize us so we didn’t crash to the floor, but the position left his lips inches from my own and his blue eyes so close to mine I could pick out the exact shade in relation to the paint colors I’d been trying as an accent on my living room wall. Hyper blue.
He smiled and tried to right himself, but it was more of a hinderance than a help. I looked around him to Aubrey.
“Who is this?” I whispered, though I don’t know why it wasn’t like he couldn’t hear me since he was standing between us. “Awkward question, but my brother knows you brought another man home, right?”
This guy was probably the kind of man who got welcomed into threesomes, but I couldn’t see Chance sharing his wife with anyone. He was completely over the moon in love with Aubrey. Even more so it seemed than when they’d first married. How that was even possible, I didn’t know.
“This isFinn,” Aubrey enunciated his name, her eyes wide, and then it hit me.
Oh,I mouthed.
Aubrey nodded, confirming my train of thought. This was the groom from the wedding they’d attended. The famous Finn McCash. Soccer star and right winger for the LA team. He and Chance had struck up a friendship over the past year as my brother had been eager to meet the Aussie born soccer player.
At twenty-four, he’d already broken loads of records and won a World Cup, but he’d really made headlines when he’d given up a spot on the top-ranked Australian league to move across the world and join the club in LA. Chance said he did it so he could move to America and be with his girlfriend. Presumably the one he should have married earlier today. I checked his left hand – no ring.
This guy wasn’t anything like I expected. I’d seen a photo or two, he was splashed on every magazine and website imaginable making him impossible to miss, but the pictures didn’t do him justice – even in this state.
“Mommy,” CJ’s sweet sleepy voice came from the doorway of his room and Aubrey looked at me with big, pleading eyes.
“Go on, I’ve got Finn.”
She ran toward my nephew’s room and I wrapped my arm tighter around Finn’s waist. He was easily six feet tall and though he was lean like a soccer player, he was still a wall of muscle that was trying to crash to the floor as I practically dragged him to the couch. And I thought a limp CJ was heavy.
He was still in his tux – crisp black with a white shirt. The bowtie hung loose, and the top buttons were undone. He had a hint of a five o’clock shadow, hair messy. I was certain it was the result of running his fingers through it, but it gave him a just sexed look that really worked on him.
I heaved a sigh when he laid back on the couch, head thrown back. He looked at me, really looked at me. Now that I wasn’t trying to keep him upright, the smell of him was doing a number on me. Liquor and a hint of male. A combination I could, and often had, overdone it on.
