Linebacker's Second Chance (Bad Boy Ballers) (13 page)

I have to give it to her. Renata knew just what she was doing. Eddie called me up again and let me know he was very pleased the party was a success—and that he’s looking forward to me starting the season.
 

This time he added that there might be a pay increase for me down the line, which would likely help my brother out with his farm. That statement made me flinch—like Eddie’s the man behind the curtain, pulling strings and offering bribes, making sure we’re doing as he pleases.
 

But I’ve been vying for that salary increase for a long-ass time. It’s funny that it all has to do with a woman—not with my performance. Not with the multiple times I saved the team and brought them to victory. It has to do with connections and power plays and a little country singer without much personality to speak of. And Renata had known it would, of course.

Goddammit
.
 

Renata was
right
.
 

Damn her.
 

“Stubborn woman. Doesn’t know what she wants,” I mutter, tensing the muscles in my chest and lifting the weight above my head. My arms shake a little, and I can feel the lactic acid burning in my muscles.
 

Yeah, it couldn’t be that you’re the asshole she’s trying to stay away from. Couldn’t be that, could it Mack? You idiot. Couldn’t be that she was
right
, and she’s doing the job she came here to do.

My friend Darius is spotting me, hands hovering over the bar as I lift it.
 

“More weight,” I grunt.
 

“You sure, Mack? Sounds like you’re busy muttering about some woman. I don’t want this thing to fall on your neck and split you in half.”

“I could probably lift it
with
my neck, you sonofabitch.”
 

“Naw man, you’re far away as hell. Thinking of some girl… And I bet you anything it’s not that Kinley chick. I know what
that’s
about. That’s about you staying on the team. And you should man, you should. But I don’t know if it’s worth it if you’re lying here with angry veins popping out your abnormally large-ass neck.”

I grunt again and shrug my shoulders while I lie in place. For the first time this summer, I’m longing to get the uniform on, to get out on the field and let everything else melt away. No Renata. No Kinley. No Eddie leaving messages on my phone with thinly veiled bribes and threats tacked onto the end of each of them.

Darius adds weight to each side and spots me as I lift more.
 

“Dammit,” I mutter again. My muscles tense and release, tense and release, and I fall into a rhythm as Darius stands over me. Next, we’re moving onto legs, each of us silent and lost in our own thoughts. I know what happens next in this whole thing, and it’s not pretty. It’s Renata and Kinley planning some other social event after a few carefully arranged dates—and then it’s engagement. That was the whole crux of this plan all along. I drive myself to extreme soreness, until all my muscles are aching and jumping and fatigued, thinking about Kinley and the way she smiles at me. It’s not a pretty smile, more like there’s nothing behind it. All emptiness and a mask of well-bred cuteness.
 

On our planned and escorted date the other night, she had leaned in to kiss me for the cameras. There was a flash, and her cool, dry kiss lingering on my lips for thirty seconds while the rest of the flashes went off around us. All these pictures, all this effort, just for the gossip magazines with their “Celebrities Are Just Like Us” features.
 

That kiss. It hadn’t been real, even though she tried to make it that way when we got into my Escalade and I drove her to the apartment she keeps in town. Her hand had been on my thigh, creeping upwards, and I shoved her away. That dry, sexless kiss had nothing like the power and heat I felt when I kissed Renata. Maybe some man might feel that way about her, someday. But that man isn’t me—and I’m somehow caught up in this mess like it is
supposed
to be me.

Later, after Darius has made us both protein shakes that taste like straight up cardboard, I get into my Escalade and make my way home, feeling somehow defeated. I shouldn’t, I remind myself. I should instead feel triumphant. A raise is coming my way, and Renata has done exactly what she said she was going to do—she’s making sure I keep my job, and she’s doing it with a carefully crafted story that my fans can’t help but love.

“Everyone loves a prodigal son, returned to the homeland or whatever shit,” I mumble, pulling my car into the driveway in front of the house. My house. The one I meant to share with
her
.
 

I kick myself for not telling her more the night of the party. There she was, lips parted, looking up at me and expecting me to say anything but what I did—something that might redeem me in her eyes. She
wanted
that redemption just as badly as I did. And I had to go and remember my brother’s words.
 

You don’t tell any living soul about the deal we made. Especially not her. We won’t be beholden to anyone else as long as I’m living
.
 

How much weight do his words bear after all this time? And why should I listen to a man who made a deal about my life, a deal without my consent, anyway? What were all of his words worth back then if I’m still paying for my parents’ mistakes and his after all this time?
 

“Nothing,” I grumble. “None of it’s worth a damn thing.”
 

Maybe I would have told her, too—if it weren’t her daddy on the other end of the deal.
 

You go on and let her go, son. You know you and that brother of yours won’t amount to nothin.’ So you get on out of this town and let her shine while you follow some dream that won’t amount to shit in the end.
 

More than once, I had hoped he’d caught one of my games on TV. I hoped he’d seen me drafted into his beloved home team, that he’d seen me save the team more than once. He probably had, but I never heard a word of it if he did. And still, his words linger in my mind.

I don’t want
her
to have the same feeling about her own father, the man who raised her, the man who was always on her side.
 

It could be that she needs to know a little more of the story.
I sigh. I could tell her if she stayed around longer than five minutes. But ever since that kiss, she’s high-tailed it whenever I enter the room.
 

When I enter the house, it’s eerily quiet. Wingate isn’t there, watching
Sports Center
. And there’s none of the usual hustle and bustle that goes on in my house—women waking up from boozy naps, or partiers finding stashes of my hidden booze. Instead of turning the TV on to drown out the buzz in my brain, I walk to the back deck and look out at the guest house. Renata is sitting on the porch with her laptop, legs bare, red high-heeled sandals on. Her fingernails and toenails glint bright orange in the sun, and she’s wearing a very short skirt with a bright orange v-neck top that perfectly matches her toenails and shows off her cleavage to boot.
 

I remember what it felt like to touch that skin, to cup those round breasts in my hands. I loved tasting that skin, and often I still think of how it felt to make her come on my fingers, her sex clenching against my hand. Against my better wishes, my cock stiffens, and I bring my hand to it, absently stroking myself through my jeans. I imagine Renata, how she once was—how our bodies fit together, how we made each other come, how we made each other
wait
.
 

I contemplate taking my cock out of my jeans and stroking myself while I watch her work. But before I get my fly undone, she gets up from her hammock and walks in my direction, looking up at the porch balcony, perhaps wondering if it’s me she sees standing there, watching her.
 

My pulse quickens, and I pull my shirt out of my jeans to cover my cock, stumbling over to the door, just in time to greet her.
 

I open the door for her, trying to appear casual. “Renata, what a nice surprise.” I paste on a smile and watch her hips sway as she walks in. Her presence lights up the room, and the motion of her body makes me want her even more. Even in her simple summer outfit, she’s positively stunning, her skin glowing with the heat of the day.
 

I want to take her in my arms right then and there, but she steps away from me as soon as she’s inside, one of my leather chairs between her body and mine.

Good. There’s less of a chance she’ll see your enormous boner
.

“I just got off the phone with Eddie… and apparently he’s a little more involved in the process than we thought.”

“Color me surprised,” I say, crossing my arms. I’ve been thinking about Eddie and his involvement with this whole thing all day. Even if Kinley seems like the answer, it’s an answer that leaves me with a few too many questions. “He’s left me a few messages that make me think the same thing.”
 

Renata sighs and puts her hand to her head like she’s exasperated. “Okay, Mack. Great. You need to tell me these things when they happen.”

“You’re the one who put the no-contact clause into your contract.”

“And you’re the one who’s violated that clause. I don’t see why you didn’t see fit to violate that clause when you had information you could easily figure out I might need!” Her voice rises in volume, and I watch as her breasts heave in her shirt. That insistent boner of mine won’t quiet down, so I walk back behind my sofa and clear my throat for no reason other than the fact that Renata’s making me
nervous
.
 

“You were right though, about the effect it would have. Eddie’s planning on giving me a raise, or at least he says he is.” She gives me a sideways look like she’s considering something, like there are emotions brewing just below the surface. “You were right,” I repeat.

“That’s interesting.” She bites her lip and looks at me. “Eddie says he’s hell bent on this engagement going through. That’s what he said on the phone, that it’s
essential
for his family, and for the team. It doesn’t sound like any of the other deals I’ve made with sports stars…”

I balk at the words, gut roiling. The word has been toyed with, bandied about, but a real engagement isn’t something I want. And it isn’t something Kinley wants either… is it? I know she tried to make the moves on me. I know she takes this relationship thing sort of seriously, but she’s just as much of a flirt as I am, if the media has anything to do with it.
 

“And Kinley says it’ll be good for the tour. She’s competing against Taylor Swift, or so she says. And an engagement will get people
engaged
in her music.”
 

“In her
mind
, she’s competing against Taylor Swift. I don’t think that woman knows who the hell Kinley
is
. Kinley’s tickets are like ten times cheaper. And her music is shit. I really thought this whole thing would be over at the beginning of the season.” I don’t like the look on Renata’s face—usually she looks so certain when she works her public relations magic. Instead, she just looks doubtful and sad.
 

“It’s not the beginning of the season yet. Eddie’s said in no uncertain terms that he
will
fire you if you don’t go through with an engagement party, at the very least.” Renata chews on her lip, looking sexy and vulnerable as she stands there before me. Even in the midst of all this madness, she looks good enough to fucking eat. And by God, I would.
 

“Jesus Christ,” I mutter. A surge of emotion rises in me. I’ve been playing this game, doing all of this dancing around, and it’s gotten me nothing but further away from the one thing I really want. The words are on the tip of my tongue, and finally, this time, they come pouring out. “She ain’t the woman I want, Ren. None of this is something I want. To be clear, I haven’t slept with her, and I’m not planning on it. The moment you showed your face here, I was reminded of what a real woman is—”

“Empty words,” she says, holding up one hand. But I can see her mask is cracking.

I push harder. “I swear it. There were reasons I left that had nothing to do with you, and every word my brother said was false.” I close the distance between us, and this time I take her in my arms for real. When I’m close to her like this, I can tell that her not-so-professional side has been wanting this, maybe even since the day she arrived.
 

I can hear her breathing. She doesn’t ask me to step away. She just looks at me and doesn’t say anything. Those dark eyes are skeptical, full of doubt. But there’s something more there, too. She’s full of the aching, needy desire that we felt so often when we were together at Brooks.

The need, raging through me, makes me want to take her by her shoulders and push her against the chair she’s standing behind, lift that orange top over her head and attack her body like a man starved.
 

Not yet. Don’t scare her away.

Instead, I tip her face toward mine, and she draws in a sharp breath. The sound sends a shock through my system, a ripple down my spine I haven’t felt for years.
 

Renata keeps her eyes on mine, giving me that same look. But she doesn’t move away, doesn’t storm out screaming like she probably should.