* * * *
I watched the front door for Tate to enter and my palms moistened. I wasn’t fucking fourteen and asking a girl out, yet I sweated like an idiot. There was a shift in my self-confidence and it didn’t sit well with me. Cheryl would be proud I was having amomentbut I began counting down the seconds until it was over. Hell, if he didn’t arrive in ten minutes, I was gone.
Shit. He strode in and found me immediately.Here goes nothing.“Tate. What can I buy ya?”
“Guinness.” He waved at the bartender and took the bench across from me. “I gotta say, you surprised me.”
“Shit, I surprised myself.” I laughed and he joined in. I relaxed into the booth when he shook his head at me. “Not quite sure what got into me.”
“Probably pulled your head out of your ass. It was shoved in there pretty far. Might’ve taken a couple of people to get it out.” His eyebrow rose, daring me to argue. But I didn’t.
“It was about time.” I held up my beer to him. “It’s long overdue. I’m sorry.”
“Accepted. All you had to do was buy me a beer.” He clicked his tongue. “This game is fickle. The cameras catch the wrong facial expression, wrong string of cuss words—there’s a world of trouble. It was the wrong place, wrong time for you.”
“I shouldn’t have undermined your experience. That was foolish and inappropriate. However—”
“You were in the right to call me out. I made a bonehead play.” He shrugged and took a long swig. Laugh lines crinkled on the sides of his eyes and gray peeked out of his beard. Tate had been around and knew the game more than anyone. Shame consumed me. Again. “After it, I think a couple of things happened.”
“Yeah?” I leaned forward. There was no hidden anger or malice in his tone. “What’s that?”
“The camera caught your insults. That spread into the social media shit-storm and when that happens, Coach had to defend me. That automatically put people against you. Some young hotshot who tore his ACL ripping into a vet? Media doesn’t like that. Then the media shit-storm hit. Third, you sort of disappeared into physical therapy. We were still in season and never got to hammer it out like normal guys. I’ve been waiting for you to reach out and, damn, I’m glad you did.”
“We good?” I held out my hand and he took it. Words couldn’t describe my relief. Pounds of stress and pressure left my chest. The rock I’d carried around in there disappeared.
“Yeah. Now, tell me about this coaching gig I’ve heard about. You’re paired up with some blonde, eh?”
“Ha—it’s a goddamn story, I tell you,” I let out a whistle and paused when a familiar laugh echoed across the bar. I froze.Fiona.“Excuse me a moment, would you?”
“Sure.”
I followed her laugh and found her cuddled up next to some guy who had his arm around her. Her eyes were too bright, her cheeks too red. She snorted and my blood turned cold. Ice-cold. My pulse elevated and my face twitched.Fiona is drunk.
“Fiona,” I yelled. She jumped, slamming her head against the back of the booth. Her wounded expression didn’t fool me. I eyed the guy next to her with the meanest look I had. He cringed and began moving. “Leave.”
“Giiiideon. Who are you to s’tell him what s’to do?” Her slurred words felt like knives in the chest.
“You’re drunk.” I couldn’t sit still. My fingers twitched to hit something.
“Ten points s’to you.” She held up her fingers and giggled at them. My jaw hurt and I grabbed her hand. She jerked out of reach with wide eyes.
“I’ll take you home.”
“No. I’m on a date.” She crossed her arms and swayed in her seat. “Wait. You scared him off. Asshole.”
“Did you even know that guy, Fiona? Tell me.” I leaned over the table so our faces were inches apart. Her breath came out in pants. Her neck tinged red. I was beyond furious. “Were you going to let him take you home? Hm?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not.” She pointed at me. “Not your business.”
“Hell.” Adrenaline coursed through my body and I was torn between getting the fuck out of there or claiming her.How dare she sleep with someone after what we did the night before?
Wait—did I care? Yeah. Yeah, I did. That was the problem.She won’t remember this anyway.I glanced back at Tate and sighed. “Fiona, I need to say goodbye to a friend, then can I please take you home?”
“Friend? You?” She let out a sound resembling a laugh, but it was more like a snarl. “The asshole has a friend. Good.”
My chest tightened. Her words hurt more than they should have. I took a long breath, found Tate and explained something had come up. He didn’t mind at all and left with a promise to come watch a game. That left Fiona. The annoying, insane sex-crazed partner I’d grown attached to. Shit—I needed to pull myself together. She was drunk. It was Justin’s death anniversary. And I was a piece of ass to her. I might be upset with her, but her anger toward me was misplaced.Kind of like I did to my teammates.I nodded to myself. I could take her anger.
“Ready to go?” I held out my hand and waited. It took a full minute before she accepted it. Seeing her in tight jeans and a low-cut shirt threw me off—she had a killer body, but I wasn’t used to seeing her in regular clothes. A stab of jealousy came and went. Her safety was my focus. “There we go. Did you drive here?”
