“Nah.” Drew hands me back the phone. “Yours is way more fun.”
“It is,” Tyler confirms, plopping down on the bench. “Besides, I do have one of my own. Sophie texts me before every game. She has since I started playing football in high school. It’s our thing.”
“You and Sophie sure have a lot of things.”
Tyler looks at me like I have ten heads. “Of course we have a lot of things. She’s my best friend.”
I’ve seen him and Sophie together, and I think she wishes they were a whole lot more than best friends, even though Tyler seems mostly oblivious to that fact. I know Drew agrees because I see him smirk and mutter, “Sure she is,” low enough that I hear it, but Tyler doesn’t. Catching Drew’s eye, I shake my head as surreptitiously as possible because he is a grade-A shit stirrer and can’t help himself most of the time, but I think Tyler is going to have to figure this one out on his own.
“Don’t let me interrupt your social hour, ladies. It’s not like we have a game to warm up for or anything.” Our coach, Brooks Campbell, strides into the locker room, game day scowl fixed firmly on his face.
I’ve been playing far too long for a coach’s grumpy game-day attitude to bother me, but Tyler hasn’t, so he snaps to his feet so fast he practically levitates. I smother a grin, and out of the corner of my eye I see Drew, another veteran, do the same. Drew and I came into the league together, and we’ve been playing side-by-side since college. Tyler is a decade younger than us, and a lot newer in his career, but he somehow slotted right into our friendship. We make an unlikely trio, but it works.
“And you.” Coach looks at Tyler. “Will you be breaking in your footballs this week?”
Tyler shrugs. “Nah. You know I don’t care about shit like that. Just give me a ball and I’ll throw it.”
Coach grimaces, his restraint evident in the way his hands clench into fists at his sides, and I bite my cheek to keep from laughing. Quarterbacks are notorious for being weird about the way their game balls are broken in during practice and warm-ups before they have to give them to the refs to hold a couple of hours before the game starts. But not Tyler. He just takes whatever ball they give him and wins games with it, which drives Coach, a former quarterback who was extremely picky about his game balls, insane. And since at thirty-eight, he’s the youngest head coach in the league, his playing days aren’t that far behind him, which makes his distaste for Tyler’s easygoing approach more intense and thus more hilarious.
“Okay, well, that’s a choice. But get your asses on the field anyway. I’ll be damned if one of you gets injured because you were too busy gossiping like teenagers to warm up properly.” He spins on his heel and stalks out of the locker room, no doubt to go micromanage some poor assistant coach. He’s always wound a little tight before games, especially away games. After I grab one last thing from my locker, the three of us follow him out even though warm-ups don’t officially start for another fifteen minutes. As we walk through the tunnel and the field comes into view, a shock of red hair catches my eye, and a grin spreads over my face.
Maddy stands on the sidelines wearing purple sneakers and tight black leggings that hug every curve of the legs I want wrapped right around my neck again. Her white Renegades T-shirt is snug enough to hug the most perfect tits in existence, and her hair is in a ponytail pulled through the back of a Renegades hat.
It’s the hat, I think, that does me in. At least until she turns just enough for me to catch her profile, and then it’s the seriouslook on her face as she watches pre-warm-ups. The way her eyes are laser focused on the guys on the field, giving the impression that there isn’t one single thing she doesn’t see. And suddenly, I get the wild urge to sprint onto the field to start my own warm-ups, so she’ll look at me like that too.
I’ve never known a sports psychologist attached to a team to stand on the field during games, but for our last pre-season game and our home opener last week, that’s exactly where she was. And when I got on the plane yesterday to fly here, she was sitting right there with the rest of the medical staff. When I asked Maddy about it as we were getting off the plane—one of the few times we’ve spoken since I ran into her after Ethan’s game two weeks ago—all she said was that she does things differently.
And boy does she.
She’s everywhere—watching games and practices with that discerning gaze, talking to the other members of the medical staff, strategizing with Coach, and calling the guys into her office for their weekly mental health check-in.
Pretty much everyone has had at least one turn on the big red couch in her office. Everyone, that is, except for me. I know she hasn’t called me in because she’s trying to keep some distance between us. I also know she has her reasons, and I respect the hell out of them, but fuck, I really want an excuse to talk to her.
I may be veering into teenager with a crush territory.
I’m fine with it.
“There’s my girl!” Tyler calls, before sprinting towards Maddy, grabbing her around the waist and swinging her up into a giant hug.
Except maybe it turns out I’m not so fine with it because the second Tyler puts his hands on Maddy, a hot rush of jealousy hits me at the familiarity between them. At the way Tyler holds onto her for just a few seconds too long. At the way she laughs before she pounds him on the back and yells at him to put her down. Iknow they’ve known each other their entire lives. I also know they’re basically cousins and definitely friends and that there is not one single feeling between them that isn’t entirely platonic. And still, every part of me hates the idea of Tyler touching her. Touching what’s mine.
Mine.
It’s completely insane, and yet it’s the first word I can think of to describe the possession that beats in my blood when I look at her. The way my brain serves me up memories of the sounds she made when I shoved her legs apart and buried my face in her cunt. The way she tasted. The low moan that fell from her lips when I slid inside her for the first time. The look on her face when she came on my fingers. My tongue. My cock.
I shift in the spot where I stand frozen on the field, trying my damnedest to fight my body’s habitual reaction to the memories of that night because a hard-on in football pants is hell.
Okay, so this is way beyond teenager with a crush territory.
“What the fuck, dude,” Drew hisses. I whip my head towards him, having forgotten entirely that he was standing right there. He’s smirking at me, arms crossed over his chest. “Why are you looking at the team psychologist like you want to devour her whole?”
Because I do.
I shake my head, turning back to watch Tyler head out onto the field, hating the fact that I feel a trickle of relief that he’s not touching Maddy anymore. “What? I’m not,” I say, in the most pathetic denial of all time.
He rolls his eyes, and I hear the words he doesn’t speak.
Tell it to someone who believes you.
