Can you?
“Losing your touch, Byrne?” Griffin Wright, the right wing to my left, flashes me a shit-eating grin. “Never thought I’d see the day.” He runs a hand through his messy blond hair as he turns to our captain and his brother-in-law, Maddox Graves. “Hear that, bro? Little Logie got ditched last night.”
“Fuck you, Wright.” There’s no heat in my words.
Maddox shakes his head, but his brown eyes sparkle with mirth. “Leave him alone, Griffin.”
I sigh, relieved Madds will get Griffin to drop it.
Except he doesn’t. Instead, the traitor crosses his arms over his chest and gives me a look of pitying understanding. “It’s normal to lose your touch when you get old.”
Groaning, I bang my head against the headrest of my seat. “You guys are the worst. Seriously. You suck.”
Ryder laughs. “Ignore them. What happened?”
And as the rest of the team, the coaches, and our support staff file onto the plane, I tell them. I tell them about thestunning woman with the body of an angel and the mouth of a brat. How she didn’t even want to exchange last names. How she rocked my world and the sex with her was unlike anything I’d ever experienced.
“Did you get a photo of her?” Griffin asks. “We could ask the internet to find her for you.”
“God, no.” I pull a face, even though there is some tiny, traitorous part of me that perks up at the idea. “And no, I don’t have a photo of her. No photo, no number, no last name. Just her first name. Blair. Just how I like it.”
Maddox shakes his head. “Is it, though? I know your dad is a raging asshole, but is this really how you want to live the rest of your life? Never getting past first names and meaningless sex?”
“The sex is fantastic. Not all of us want to settle for sleeping with one woman for the rest of our lives. Right, Bash?” Normally, I’d look to Griffin to back me up. He and I always had similar outlooks on relationships, even if our reasons for not committing were completely different. Then the idiot had to go and drunkenly marry Maddox’s little sister, Mira, in Vegas, and now he’s the poster boy for sappy, hopeless romantics everywhere. Ryder’s with Lexi, our former coach’s daughter, and Maddox has Isla, who he met at the date auction he was forced into. Which leaves me and Navarro. The last bachelors standing in our tight-knit group.
Except Bash doesn’t back me up. He arches one dark eyebrow and tilts his head. “Sorry, man, but you’re on your own with that one. Not all of us are against finding that one special person. Some of us are just still looking for her.”
One of these days, we’re going to get Bash to open up about whatever is eating away at him, but I’m too tired to attempt it right now.
With a deep sigh, I shake my head at my friends. I love them, and I love their women, but damn. I’m starting to feel like theodd man out. Which is probably why I’m struggling to shake this irritating disappointment at Blair’s disappearing act.
It certainly isn’t because I’m jealous of my friends and their relationships.
Relationships never last. That was a lesson I learned the hard way as a little boy. Over and over and over. And love? Love is a pretty word that people say to manipulate you. It’s flimsy and easily cast aside when things get tough.
People don’t stick around.Womendon’t stick around. As much as Maddox, Ryder, and Griffin’s women love them and claim to be devoted to them now, it won’t last. And because I care about these men I consider brothers, I’ll be there to help pick up the pieces when their relationships end. Hell, I won’t even sayI told you so.
But I’ll think it.
“You really didn’t even get her last name?” Ryder asks, side-eyeing me. He doesn’t get it. The guy was a Boy Scout before he fell for Lexi. Now that they’re together and disgustingly happy, it’s even worse. His parents loved each other deeply, and his mom passed away before she could leave his dad. And him. Not all of us get to view love through such idealized, rosy lenses. Not that his mom dying is ideal.
“No point. She lives in LA, we live in Minneapolis. She wasn’t interested in anything more than one night of hot, no-strings-attached fucking, and neither was I.” Shifting in my seat, I ignore the whispers of doubt her early morning escape has loosed in me. Either way, what I’ve said is true. There’s no world in which Blair and I could have anything more than a single, hot night. We live in different states. Hell, they may as well be different worlds. Even if I was like Ryder, things with Blair would have no future.
Ryder’s not convinced. “Then why do you look like you’ve been sucking on a lemon?”
“What? I do not.”
He tries—and fails—to stifle a grin. “You do. You’re thinking about her right now, aren’t you?”
Yes.
“No. I’m thinking about how whipped my friends have become. Not all of us want to find love, Hanson.”
Ryder gives me his full attention. His head cocks to the side, and his blue eyes narrow. They’re obnoxiously wise for being so young. “Everyone wants to be loved, Byrne. Even the people who are too scared to admit it to themselves.”
Something in my chest squeezes uncomfortably, and I bristle. “You’re wrong.”
Once upon a time, I wanted to be loved. Desperately. But then I grew up. I learned my lesson the hard way.
