It’s embarrassing, but life moves on.
It’s time to get back to work and figure out this puzzle that I can’t seem to strategize my way out of.
CHAPTER 12: Maverick Jennings
She’s Fucking with Me
She was too close.
Too close in proximity, yes. That too. She smelled like fucking wildflowers and sunshine, and I don’t do flowersorsunshine. But it wasn’t that.
She was too close to getting in.
I don’t let anyone in, but being that close to her felt like something woke up inside me.
But giving that side of me life again would only spell the end of everything I’ve come to know. Working from a place of anger allows me to perform the way I do on the field. Like the man on the elevator said, I command the field. If I’m a less intense version of myself, that might be the trade-off.
In essence, having my life ruined and my heart broken turned me into the valuable player I am today. The brass at Dallas doesn’t like my personality? They dealt with it for years when I put up numbers. But then they took the rest of myoffense away from me, and it’s a team effort. I didn’t keep my mouth shut about it, and they didn’t like that.
So here I am.
Fighting another day in a new city.
And once I’m cleared to get back on the field, this city will grow to love my numbers, too. My accuracy. My command. Nobody gives a shit about who I am off the field as long as I’m performing on it—or at least they didn’t until I came here.
If only fucking Dex hadn’t taken that away, forcing me to sit out of the first four games of the season.
I don’t give a fuck how I feel next week when I meet with Dr. Baker. I’m playing next Sunday. I’ll fake my way through the exam if I have to.
But the rest of it? I think I may be stuck with this woman who literally makes a living out of getting under my skin.
I head to the newest lounge in Vegas, the one Ben Olson took me to the night my rant about Dex went viral. The place is called Legacy, and to be quite honest, I don’t give a fuck about the white marble floors with gold veins or the leather chairs.
I like that I won the night I went there with Olson.
I got the membership the night I went with him. It’s exclusive and invitation-only, but I’m in now that I’ve been invited by a member. I opened a credit line that night, and tonight I plan to use that to continue my winning streak.
Only it doesn’t quite go that way.
Last time I won, but tonight, I’m losing.
I’m running up a huge tab on blackjack, but I can’t seem to stop. I keep thinking my luck will turn around. Then a woman in a tightly fitted French maid outfit brings me more scotch, and every time my glass even comes close to empty, she swings by with another one. In the past, maybe my eyes would have followed her ass each time she walked away, but tonight, I’m focused on the cards. I’m not sure why, and Ithink that’s what’s distracting me. That and the fact that this woman keeps bringing me alcohol while I lose more and more and more and drink more and more and more.
I have a limit in my head for how high I’ll go, and then I blow past it and set another limit.
It’s exactly the behavior this kind of place wants.
I blow out a breath as I lose another hand.
Shit’s just not in my favor tonight.
I’m halfway to drunk when I decide to call it, and I head up to the bar to get one more round before I head home. At least that’s the plan.
Until I spothersitting at the bar.
Yes, that’s right. Everleigh Fucking Bradley is sitting at the bar in this VIP lounge that she has no business whatsoever being at. She’s fucking with me. Again. She probably followed me here.
She raises a brow as she raises her glass in my direction. “Seems we had the same idea for escaping each other tonight.”
