She laughed. “Bye.”
“Nite.”
I hung up and stuffed my phone into the back pocket of the jeans I’d chosen to wear that night.
“You finally ready?” Kelvin asked from the side of his bed, looking impatient.
“Fuck you,” I tossed back at him.
“Ah, man. You still upset?”
I narrowed my eyes on him.
“I told you I wasn’t talking to that girl about nothing but business.”
“Stop calling her agirl,” I warned. I was still pissed about the exchange I saw between Kelvin and Destiny the previous week on the sidelines of our practice field. I questioned him about what they were talking about. He’d said he’d been asking her about signing on as one of her clients but I knew he was lying. Call it instinct but I didn’t believe that was the full story which nearly led to me putting my foot up his ass. He’d called me insane for going all crazy on him over a woman I barely knew and hadn’t even gone out on a date with yet, but I wasn’t going to explain myself to Kelvin, best friend or not. The fact that he was my best friend was his only saving grace. I knew he wouldn’t go behind my back to hit on Destiny, but that didn’t stop the anger from welling up inside of me at just seeing them standing so close to one another.
“Whatever, man. Listen, it’s our one free night before the season starts, and the last thing I want to see is you in here pacing back and forth listening to yet another four episodes of that girl—” he hesitated when I gave him a deadly glare, “woman’spodcast. We need to blow off some steam before the season starts.”
“Whatever,” I retorted, shrugging his hand off my shoulder and moving toward the door. I was already on edge when it came to Destiny because she’d spent the last few weeks purposely avoiding me after each of her lectures. I hadn’t been able to get the information on her that I wanted since I was at training camp and the Townsend head of security was caught up, helping my brother, Joshua, with some bullshit that was going on with the real estate company. I’d have to wait until I could stop by Townsend Industries myself to speak with Brutus to have him look up the background information I wanted on Destiny McDonald.
“Man, fix your face. You’ll scare all of the women off tonight,” Kelvin chided as we arrived at the door of the lounge. A friend of Kelvin’s agent was part-owner of the place. It was namedIndigoand had various shades of the color for its leather seats and walls. Though it was more lounge than nightclub there was plenty of pop music playing along with people on the dance areas in between the seats and low sitting tables.
“My face doesn’t need fixing,” I retorted, cutting my eyes back in Kelvin’s direction.
He just pushed out a breath and shook his head. “We need to get you laid.”
I grunted as I followed Kelvin up to the VIP area that was already tied off with about five of our teammates. From the looks of it, they’d been there for some time, having both an abundance of drinks and women there to accompany them.
“Hey, stranger.”
I turned and squinted at the blonde who’d greeted me. She looked familiar but I couldn’t remember her name.
“Do I know you?”
She had the audacity to look affronted. “Candy? Remember? We spent that beautiful night together last summer right before your training camp.”
I gave her a deadpan expression before shrugging. “I’m sure it was great, sweetheart … for you.”
She gasped at my harsh words. Typically, I wasn’t so short with women, but I simply wasn’t interested in rekindling whatever Candy thought we had, and I didn’t feel the need to sugarcoat it. Besides, the way she quickly looked from me to another one of the player’s led me to believe she wouldn’t have such a hard time getting over being dismissed.
No longer wanting to be in her presence, I pushed passed Candy and headed over to an empty seat. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t notice that it was right next to Leonard Riggs, who was too busy getting a lap dance from some random woman to even notice me.
I didn’t mind. I called the waitress over for another bottle of the champagne that was already being served along with more glasses. I wasn’t in the mood to get into any pussy tonight, but I could definitely take a few drinks.
“Hey, Silver Spoon. I didn’t think you’d make it out.”
I rolled my eyes over to Riggs who finally noticed me. I frowned as he gave me a stupid ass grin while the same woman still shook her ass on his lap.
“That’s not my fucking name.”
“My bad.” He held up his hands in mock surrender. “Don’t want to piss off the leader of the team and all,” he chuckled.
I was doing my best to rein in my temper. Coach was right. I had dreams of becoming a coach one day and it wouldn’t bode well for me if I assaulted a fellow player.
Instead of showing my hand, I leaned over, closer to Riggs so he could hear me clearly. “You can’t piss me off. You don’t have the power to do that. Just make sure your shit is tight on the field and you and I got no issues. Got it?” I gave him a stern look.
He narrowed his eyes on me and I stared back, unflinching.
