“Dude, what the fuck?”
Looking around as if he’s oblivious to the problem, he turns back to me. “What?”
I wave around, gesturing toward all the people. “Uh, the party?”
“Oh,” he chuckles. “I figured you need a night to let loose, and since I can’t seem to drag you out of this place lately, I decided to bring the fun to you.”
“Yeah, no.” I shake my head. “Get them out of here.”
Colby throws his head back and whines. “Aw, come on! Don’t be like that.”
“I’m not being like anything, Hendrix. I’m just not in the mood to entertain a shit-ton of people tonight.”
“You’re never in the mood,” he argues. “You’ve been walking around the past few months with a stick shoved up your ass. At first, I dealt with it. You had shit you needed to work out on your own and I respected that, but fuck, Asher. You can’t throw the rest of your life away because things didn’t go the way you hoped.” He reaches behind the bar and grabs a beer from the ice-filled sink. “Drink this and chill the hell out.”
Okay, so maybe he has a point. Before my injury, I craved nights like this, where I could just let loose and hang out—embracing the feeling of living on top of the world. Once I got hurt, however, everything changed. My main priority became getting back on the field. Nothing and no one else mattered. I guess I just never left that mindset. And well, since the party is already here…
I’M STANDING WITH A few of my former teammates, laughing while Griffin tells me about how Colby got chewed out after Coach found him passed out in bed with two women. Apparently his alarm didn’t go off and he missed practice. Instead of calling him, Coach decided to wrangle up the whole team and show up at his house.
“I tried telling you that your sex life is going to get your ass in trouble.”
Griffin chuckles and shakes his head. “Wait. It gets better.”
I groan. “Oh no.”
“So, the girls both wake up and the one screams. I’m talking ear-piercing, blood-curdling scream.”
“Why, because the whole 49ers football team was seeing her practically naked?”
“Nope,” he grins at Colby. “Tell him who she is, Colb.”
Colby’s head drops as he refuses to look at me. “Coach’s niece.”
I hunch over, laughing hysterically. Not only did he catch him in bed with his niece, but he caught them in what was obviously a threesome. I couldn’t dream of anything more embarrassing than that.
“What did you say?”
Griffin snorts and gives me the answer Colby is too afraid to say. “He asked Coach to get him a beer because he was too hungover to get it himself.”
Jesus Christ. If anyone could take an already horrible situation and make it impossibly worse, it’s my idiotic best friend. I look over at him with tears in my eyes from laughing so hard and shake my head.
“You’re a special kind of dude, you know that?”
The corners of his mouth raise. “Yeah, it’s part of my charm.”
A few minutes later, we’re all talking about the kids I’m currently coaching and if I see any NFL potential in any of them. Honestly, I could see Oakley making it. He has the mindset and determination to get him there, and he doesn’t let anything get in his way. I heard him talking to Kellan in the locker room tonight. He was telling him the best way to stay focused is to not give yourself anything else to focus on. It’s actually pretty smart, when you think about it.
“Goddamn!” Colby practically chokes on his drink. “Who is that?”
As my previous thoughts disappear, I follow his gaze and when I find what he’s looking at, my chest tightens. Stepping through the elevator is none other than Tessa Callahan, and fuck she looks good. The black dress she’s wearing clings to her perfectly shaped body. Her brown hair is messy, like she just ran her fingers through it, and it reminds me of how she looked all sexed out and sprawled across my bed. What the hell is she doing here?
I slam my beer down onto the counter and quickly march my way over to her. The second she sees me, the amazed look she had as she glanced around the room vanishes, and all that’s left is the confidence that seems to drive me crazy.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
She shrugs. “Coming to a party, what does it look like?”
“You just happened to show up at a party at my house?” I deadpan.