Page 103 of Hard to Score

“Seriously?” I yell at his back. “You’re going to turn this on me? Blame me? All because you saw my dad? Did you think we’d just keep on dating and that would never happen?”

“Will you keep quiet?” he barks and turns around, looking over my shoulders.

“There’s no one else here. I sweet-talked old Barry,” I say of the groundskeeper, “to let me in before he locked the doors on his way out.”

“What do you want, Brexton?” he asks in a resigned sigh, shoulders slumping, head rolling back for a second as he takes in a deep breath.

“You tell me.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” he shouts and takes a few steps toward me, shoulders squared, tendons tense in his neck.

“Pretty self-explanatory considering how things were left between us this morning. Add to the fact that you’re not answering my texts, I’d think there’s lots to say.”

“I don’t want to do this right now.”

“Why not, Drew? Let’s get it all out. Scream at me. Yell at me. Tell me what the fuck is on your mind because I’m so goddamn sick of guessing and worrying and wondering. It would be nice to finally hear it from your lips.” I bait him, because I’m primed and ready for a fight. I feel like this has been bottling up for some time. As great as we are, there’s this constant underlying tension between us—the past we can’t control, a third party to all the good between us.

And if that’s how I feel, I can’t imagine how he feels being the one left to decide what to believe.

“What’s on my mind? No one gives a fuck what’s on my mind. All they care about is that I believe them when I’m not sure what the fuck to believe anymore.”

“I think you do.”

“Don’t!” he shouts like a little boy not wanting to hear something. “Don’t you dare tell me what to believe when you stand there beside your perfect family and pass judgment on me.”

“That’s what you think? That I’m passing judgment on you?” I brace my hands on top of my head and walk away from him before turning back. He looks at me, lost but determined. “I’m not passing shit on you, Drew, but I’m lost here. All I want is to know what you’re thinking. How you feel. I want to stop feeling like I’m in love with a man, yet waiting for the other shoe to drop. Surely it’s going to come down to me or what I feel like are a set of lies and you sure as shit aren’t going to pick me.” My voice breaks and the first tear slides down my cheek when I don’t want it to.

“Brex.” My name is a resigned syllable with so many emotions woven into the four connected letters. “What do you want to know? That it fucked me up seeing your dad today? I feel stupid because it did. When I left, I was more confused than ever before, because for over ten years it’s been insinuated that he’s to blame. And fucking hell, Brexton, in that moment when he looked me in the eyes, I knew he had nothing to do with it.” He paces from one end of the tunnel and then back, and I swear if he could punch something right now he would. “Do you know what it feels like to realize you’ve been lied to by the person you idolize? It’s not exactly the easiest thing to swallow or even face.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t,” he shouts when I step forward and try to touch his arm. He squeezes his eyes shut as a tear slips out. Its slow descent as he tries to rein in his emotion breaks my heart.

“Don’t push me away,” I plead. “Don’t—”

“Just shut up, would you? Just . . .”

And then he crashes into me with a fervor I feel but don’t understand.

His hands are on my face and his tongue demands to meet mine. He picks me up so I can wrap my legs around his waist, while he carries me into the trainers’ room. He sets me down—long enough for our hands to shove down our bottoms so we’re bared and ready to connect the minute he lifts me onto the trainers’ table.

Anger turns to passion. The defensiveness to lust.

There are no words when he enters me. No soft murmurs. No sweet nothings. There’s just our guttural groans as I give and he takes.

There is nothing gentle about our joining. It’s aggressive and dominant. It’s completely selfish, and I don’t care. He’s hurting and if this is what he needs right now, then I’m here for it.

Especially when I didn’t have words to fix it for him.

So I give him my body to get lost in. I give him my moans to smother with his lips. I give him scratch marks down his back and a nip of teeth on his shoulder so he can feel the sharp contrast against the pleasure and know that this moment is real.

That I am real.

And with his head buried into the crook of my neck and his hands holding my ass in place, Drew Bowman comes hard, fast, and without warning.

His hands tighten, his body tenses, and his strangled cry is muffled where his lips meet my neck. But even when the last ounce of pleasure drains from him and his breath is still ragged, he doesn’t move.

He needs a moment.