“I didn’t see in the contract that I wasn’t allowed.”
I thought his eyes would bug out of his head. “Are you kidding me? You went from zero to one-eighty in the blink of an eye, your hunger for all things female off the charts. I mean come on.” His laugh was bitter. “If only I had that much unused testosterone.”
“Just a growing boy appreciating women.” I wasn’t hitting on all cylinders with my jokes at this point. I could tell by the way he was glaring at me. Clearing my throat, I looked away.
“That’s happened a lot lately, Steven. What are you, in heat or something?”
“What?”
“You know… That shifter thing you’ve got going on. Were you sniffing out your mate or just hungry for one, is that why you can’t concentrate?”
Huffing, I honestly had no idea what to say to him. Not that we’d had a long or pointed conversation about the physiology of being a shifter. “That’s not how it works.”
“Oh, yeah? Then how does it work? I thought your kind mated for life.” He drummed his fingers on his desk, eyeing me curiously.
My kind.
I’d always taken the reaction of humans when learning I was a shifter with a grain of salt. I figured I owed them as a species since up to a year ago, they’d believed their only threat to beings ruling their world was with the possibility of little green men invading Earth.
Whether or not he genuinely wanted to know the logistics, I wasn’t certain. However, I had to give him a decent answer. “Not every shifter mates for life any longer. They can have more than one, but yes, there can be a chemical change when we discover the person who will eventually become our partner. There’s a pull or electricity toward the person that is magnetic and irresistible. At that point we become compelled to be aroundthem. For me, my wolf would awaken and roar, feeling as if it was the first day of the rest of his life. There is a feeling of uncontrollable desire, a need to protect and an extreme possessiveness that will not be denied.”
However, as humanized as we’d become, the possibility of finding what was portrayed in romance novels as our fated mate was beyond being ridiculous. We chose someone we were attracted to and hoped he or she wouldn’t kill us in our sleep.
I noticed he stopped drumming his fingers, all five in midair while he narrowed his eyes. “Is that so?”
“Yeah, it’s very… intoxicating. Or so I’ve heard since I’ve never been through it.” I’d never wanted to either. I had no idea where he was going with this.
“Wow. That’s interesting. So you were playing a game with the girl.”
“She was cute. I was flirting. So was she. End of the story.” So maybe I wanted to get laid like half the rest of the team. So what?
“Except you lost the game because of the distraction.”
I dropped my head into my hands. “Yeah, okay. I wasn’t trying to. It just got a little out of hand. Are you trying to tell me my performance last night influenced the deal I was offered?”
Was I really distracted as of late? I hadn’t thought so.
He sat forward in his seat, staring at me without blinking. “I’m trying to tell you that you should take the deal with Tampa Bay.”
“Okay, why? You don’t want to coach me any longer?”
His eyes trailed the paperwork as he slid it across his desk toward me. When he looked at me again, I could tell he wasdoing his best to lose every aspect of any emotion. Not that he was a very emotional guy. “Because I got word late last night from the owner that they’re letting you go.”
The shock was immediate, my throat almost closing.
This wasn’t about anything but appearances. I knew how the game worked. I’d made a fool of the team and the owners who’d made certain I’d known early on they were taking a chance on me. On the wolf. Well, fuck this.
“Wait a minute. I don’t understand what you’re saying. Who’s letting me go?”
I’d rarely seen Coach Rufini have difficulty finding words. He usually grasped onto nasty ones when confronting what he called the stupidity of his players or the calls of referees regarding plays. This afternoon he was finding them unattainable.
“When your contract runs out with the Philadelphia Ringers after this season, it won’t be renewed. I know it’s a tough break, but my dad always told me when one door closes, another opens.”
“This is just…”
“Shit. I know. Life is full of shit, son. Trust me.” He studied me intently. “Another piece of advice for you. Take this from someone who once had the same level of testosterone as you do. Get laid.”
Coughing, I was shocked to hear his recommendation. “What?”
