Hearing a catalogue of my sins being rattled off wasn’t amusing. My laughter soon turned to guilt as a knot formed in my gut. As Andy continued listing off our ‘glorious pranks,’ I realized I’d been nothing but a raging dick in high school. I’d lashed out and hurt my fair share of people during my not-giving-a-fuck days when my father kept using me as a punching bag. I started remembering all of their names. Their faces. The tears streaming down their cheeks as they begged me to stop. To stop tossing them in trash cans and locking them in lockers and chasing them down for a swirly or some other humiliation.
I downed my beer, seeking solace in the drunken haze that soon overcame me.
One beer became two, and two became four. Before I knew it, Andy and I were throwing consequences out the window just like we used to. I was a fuck up in high school. I was a fuck up when I trashed Anton’s car. I was a fuck up when it came to Michelle. So why the fuck was I trying to act like I wasn’t a fuck up? I had money, sure. I had success, sure. But that success came from hitting people hard on the field and throwing a ball well. Now I employed people to do shit I couldn’t do and reaped the benefit from it. There was no specialty there. No hidden talent. Just a fucked up kid with a fucked up world and a fucked up past who was a fuck up in high school and got lucky.
Maybe it was time I embraced my true destiny of being the best fuck-up ever.
After all, what kind of man boasted of money but nothing else? I didn’t have a woman. Hell, I’d never had a successful romantic relationship. Ever. The women surrounded me because I had money. Not because they liked me. Some women flocked to me because of my athletic prowess. Or my fame. But most came after my money. And it same reason was why I didn’t keep many friends. Especially after leaving the NFL. Getting attached was a flaw in a person’s chemical makeup. Getting attached allowed someone to get taken advantage of.
And I wasn’t ever going to get taken advantage of.
Ever.
“Fuck, why are you sitting here talking about the good old days when we could have them right now?” Andy asked.
I chugged my sixth beer back as he slung his arm around my shoulder.
“We’re still young! We got wants! Needs! What the fuck are we doing hanging around here?” Andy asked.
“Fuck the past. So, let’s go do something,” I said.
“There’s the Gray I remember.”
“Well the two of you can go do something somewhere else. The two of you are cut off,” the bartender said.
I wiggled my fingers for another beer, but the bartender slid me a glass of water. I bent over the bar to try and grab me a beer, but he slapped my hand with his wet rag. Leaving behind a welt that stung like hell and back. Andy erupted into laughter as I stumbled back onto my bar stool, his body leaning back so far he fell onto the floor.
“Out. Now,” the bartender said. “Or I’m calling the cops.”
“Like this town has any decent ones,” I said, under my breath.
Andy was rolling on the nasty floor laughing as I stumbled out to my car. I was in no position to drive. That much I knew. So with my keys in my hand and my wallet in my back pocket, I stumbled my ass through downtown and back to Anton’s house.
Back to the place where that beautiful slice of pussy was.
Chapter 12
Michelle
I sat on the couch and started reading a book I had grabbed when I left Andy’s. My eyes kept flickering to the clock, taking in how late it was. Gray still hadn’t come back in yet, and I wondered where he was. Then again, I didn’t know why the hell I was waiting up for him at all. He kissed me in the kitchen and still walked away. He got a taste of me and he still rejected me. What did I owe him?
Everything.
He was letting me stay here free of charge. At least until he left.
He was so damn hot. So interesting. I willed him to come through the front doors. I wanted to talk more about Anton. About his memories and his flirting and his kind smile. I wanted to do all of it while smiling and laughing with Gray. I wanted to be next to him. To be beside him. To feel his hands on me again. The second he kissed me, heat had pooled between my legs. My panties grew damp just thinking about all the things I knew a man like him could do. He kissed me with more passion than Andy ever had, and I found myself craving it.
I brought my fingers up to my lips and relished the phantom presence of the memory.
Despite my efforts, I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about that kiss. About how it made me feel and how I hadn’t wanted him to leave. Even as my eyes fluttered across the same words I’d read time and time again that night, I couldn’t flip the page. Because I wasn’t focused on the book. I was focused on that kiss.
I couldn’t stop replaying it in my mind.
Even so, he had run away. Maybe he wasn’t as interested in me as I was in him. Maybe there really wasn’t a purpose to me staying up and reading a book I wasn’t really reading. If that was the case, I couldn’t blame him. Why the hell would a man like him be into a woman like myself? I had no prospects. No job. No hope of ever becoming anything. He was on the verge of going back to wherever he came from, and I was a week away from having to beg my mother for money for bus fare home.
Yet, here I was still sitting on the couch waiting up for him.
I’d seen something in his eyes at the dinner table. When he whispered the nickname Anton had bestowed upon me. It was unmistakable. I knew that I hadn’t dreamt it. In that moment, he wanted me. So why had he pulled away? The kiss left me breathless. He pulled me close to him and pressed our hips together so not even a breath of wind could have parted us.