Page 42 of Hard to Hold

“Hey, Rush?”

“Hmm?”

“You’re the heart of this team and this team is your heart. You need to do whatever it is to get you back here. You have your reasons for doing whatever it is you did or didn’t do,” he says, walking a fine line and not asking for answers, “but if you’re protecting someone or something, it’s not fucking worth it.”

He ends the call and I pause with my phone in my hand where I’m parked in Johnny’s driveway. The darkened house sits before me, a shadow among the hills.

I’m unsettled. Restless. Uneasy.

It’s not fucking worth it.

That echoes how I feel after tonight’s event. It was interesting to say the least. I don’t know what I expected when Finn talked me into taking this MLS gig as a means to lie low, but this wasn’t it. A decorated stage where I talked to a small crowd about a game that is my life, but that clearly isn’t much of anyone’s here.

Is this what it feels like when you’re on the downhill slide of your career? Car park events with a couple hundred people versus stadiums with tens of thousands?

I scrub a hand over my face and wonder if this is worth it? Yes, Archibald saved my arse all those years ago, but other than that, I made it to this level of football on my own. My skill. My sacrifices. My love for the game. Do I hate the slander against my name, that I’ll be known as a homewrecker and bastard? Yes. But can I face losing my career due to loyalty to a man whose son hasn’t changed since he was a lad? No. Fuck. No.

Will this not die a quick death like Archibald said it would?

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

LENNOX

MY MIND RUNS THE CONVERSATION with Finn over and over in my mind and each time it replays, my anger sparks anew.

I know I should revel in the fact that I might get the last laugh in this whole fucked-up comedy of errors, but I’m still hurt that he would do it in the first place.

And angry.

So goddamn angry that my bare feet might as well have worn a hole in the carpet from where I’ve paced back and forth. The city has sparked to life beyond the windows, glittering dots in the land of dreams.

I’m too busy stewing over Finn and his bullshit.

This is on me.

Totally on me.

And what the hell is in it for him? Why would he advise Rush to come here unless it was for some endgame tactic?

I’m primed, pissed, and have had too much wine to avoid second-guessing or overthinking my next movements.

When I hear the front door downstairs slam, I know Johnny’s out, so there’s only one person it can be.

I’m down the stairs and striding into the kitchen in seconds. I don’t give myself time to consider how tired he looks. The tie undone and hanging around his neck. The beer bottle he’s holding up to his lips and drinking without a breath. His hair going every which way from the hands he’s run through it.

What I see is his shirtsleeves rolled up, displaying the dark ink of his tattoos beneath.

What I remember is the taste of his kiss and the need to have more.

What I know is the want and the need to use him to take the hurt and pain away.

I’m too selfish to think of anything but that as I walk across the kitchen and take him by surprise.

My hands are fisting in his shirt as my lips find his, the sound of the beer bottle clinking to the counter—glass onto marble—the only other noise besides his surprised gasp.

He lets me take the lead as I deepen the kiss, pulling him against me. Our tongues touch. Our groans amplify. It takes everything I have to push him away, to break our connection, but I have so much to say.

“Your agent is a condescending prick that is doing you no favors,” I growl, giving a yank to his shirt to reinforce my comment, and just when he starts to reply, I slant my mouth over his and take what I need once again.