Sidelined (21 page)

“D
amn, Jack!” Reid grabs my arm and pulls me back. “You slam into the guys any harder and you’re gonna put ‘em all out for the game this weekend!”

I shrug his arm off. “All right. I got it.”

“Let’s take ten!” Coach yells, which is followed by a quick blow of his whistle.

I walk to the sideline and grab my bottle of water. I shoot it to the back of my throat, swill, and spit. The next time I lift the bottle, I swallow the cool liquid.

“The fuck is up with you?” Corey asks, knocking his elbow into mine.

“Leave it, okay?” I throw the water bottle down and sit on the bench, burying my head in my hands.

The only thing running through my mind is that she didn’t tell him no. She didn’t tell him that she wouldn’t take him back. Sure, she told him that she doesn’t love him, but not that she wouldn’t take him back, and that’s a big fucking difference right there. I don’t give a fuck what bullshit excuses she gives me, because none of it is gonna fly.

She’s over him, and then she tells me that he can shove his begging up his asshole.

She’s over him, and she tells him whatever it takes for it to be over.

She did neither. And fuck knows why I care about it.

I take that back. I know. I fucking know why I care. Sure, Macey is hot as hell and knows her way around a bedroom and my cock like a pro, cocksucking skills ignored. But she’s more than that. She’s…vulnerable. She’s soft and sweet, and whenever I call her baby, she gets this glint in her eye that I can’t decipher.

The worst thing is that I can’t stop. Calling her baby is as easy as fucking kissing her. It’s as easy as flipping her lithe little body beneath mine to fuck her into oblivion. It’s just…something I can’t stop.

And now, I’m fucking up practice, risking the other guys, all because she doesn’t know what the hell she wants.

“Jack. A word.”

I take a deep breath at Coach’s words and follow him down the sideline. Linc puts his hands in his pockets and flicks the button on his headset before pushing it off his ears so it hangs around his neck.

“Coach?”

“Go home.” He looks up at me. “Go home, Jack. Get whatever shit is in your system out of it then get back here at eight a.m. sharp tomorrow like the player I know you are.”

“I’m good, Coach. I just need ten.”

“Son, I’m telling you, go home.” He steps forward and touches my arm. “If you don’t go home and sort your ass out, Briggs is automatically starting this weekend. I can’t play you if you’re going to be a liability. You understand that, Carr?”

“Yes, sir,” I respond, my jaw tightening. “Eight a.m. tomorrow with my head in the game.”

“Get out of here.”

He turns away with those final four words, and I clench my fists. Fuck. No chick should ever fuck with the game. I live and fucking breathe this game. Football is my blood. The ball is an extra limb. It’s everything I know and more.

I storm past the benches and through the tunnel without speaking to anyone else. My blood is boiling with anger at myself. I know better than to take personal shit out on the field, even if it is only practice. Hell, I watched Corey fuck so much stuff up not even two months ago because he was so hung up on Leah.

And now, it’s been years since I’ve felt anything other than arousal for another girl. It’s been so fucking long since I’ve felt my heart clench with the possibility of something other than one night. It just figures that as soon as I do—as soon as I accept that I may feel something more for the girl who hates the idea of “more”—that the guy who made her hate it in the fucking first place rides back into town with bullshit declarations of love.

I dart in and out of the shower, get dressed, and swing my bag onto my shoulder. My mind is a total fucking shitstorm right now, and I know, despite my annoyance, that Coach is right. I need to clear this shit before I can play properly.

I walk into the parking lot and freeze when I see a figure on the hood of my car. First, my fucking car! Second, “Aren’t you on the wrong car, Leah?”

She laughs and hops down. “I like to change it up, you know? Keeps it exciting.” She sets her hands on her hips, and her smile dies. “Actually, I need to talk to you.”

“Nothin’ good ever comes out of a chick saying they need to talk to you.” I sigh and chuck my bag into the back seat. “Go on, then. Hit me.”

“Can we get in the car?”

“Whoa, Leah. Your boyfriend is just in there.”

“Fuck you, Jack Carr,” she snaps playfully, yanking the passenger’s-side door open.

Sighing, I get in the driver’s side. “All right.” I spin in my seat to face her. “I know what this is about.”

“No, you don’t.”

“It’s about Macey.”

“Yeah, but not what you think.” Leah brushes some hair from her face and looks at me. “What you know…isn’t everything.”

“I don’t follow.”

She sighs. “I went to her place yesterday after you left. I found her curled up on the sofa, nursing a tequila bottle and a giant bag of chips, watching reruns of Friends. She didn’t talk for half an hour until I basically smacked her upside the head and made her. Then, I’m guessing, that she told me what you didn’t let her tell you.”

“Get to the fuckin’ point, Leah. I’m on orders to go home and sort my ass out, not talk about the thing that has me screwed in the first place.”

“Dammit, Jack!” She punches my arm. “Are you that fucking dense?”

“Hey, here’s an idea, sweetheart. How’s about you explain what the fuck you’re talking about?” I growl, grabbing the steering wheel.

“She’s fucked up because Mitch didn’t just tell her he wants her back. He gave her a message for you, which I’m guessing she didn’t relay.”

“What?” Now I do growl. Leah’s words reverberate through my body. Anger at myself coils deep inside.

“Yeah. I didn’t take you for a pussy, Jack. Now, do me a favor and drive to her place to sort this shit out before she goes to her mom’s for dinner.” Leah buckles in. “Besides, I gotta get my car.”

“What was the message?” I hold her gaze.

“Something you aren’t going to appreciate,” is her only explanation.

Well, fuck. Fuck if I’m gonna sit here in a goddamn parking lot with my best friend’s girl as she spews cryptic shit at me and not find out about it.

I tear out of the parking lot and make the turn to Macey’s apartment. She lives a handful of blocks away from the stadium, so it takes all of ten minutes before I’m pulling up in the parking lot. But every minute has only increased my annoyance. Every minute has hit every damn nerve in my body and set them on fire with frustration and confusion.

“Jack,” Leah says softly, resting on her own car.

“Yeah?”

“
Jack
,” she repeats, the pleading tone of her voice making me turn and look at her.

“Yeah?” I repeat more gently.

“I don’t care if you have a hundred pounds on me. I will kick your ass if you fuck with her,” she says firmly. “And that means cutting her off when she talks. Hell, I’ll kick your ass if you don’t listen to me right now.” She runs her fingers through her hair. “Go in there and ask her what Mitch’s message for you is. Ask her until she has to tell you.”

“That important, is it?”

Leah looks down for a second before bringing her eyes back to mine. “You’re a guy, Jack. Any threat made to you is important.”

“A threat, huh?” My muscles tense.

“A threat to you, to her, to you both. Make of that what you will.” She ducks into her car and slams her door, ending the conversation.

Between us, that is. There’s a whole fucking conversation I am not prepared for on a Monday due between me and one Ms. Macey Kelly.

Still, I ring every buzzer until someone lets me into the building. My feet take the stairs two at a time until I reach her floor. I freeze outside her door and close my eyes for a second.

Fuck. If it weren’t for Leah having used the word
threat
, I’d be outta here.

But threatening Macey… Fuck me, fuck us. You don’t threaten Macey and get the hell away with it, even if she loved you once.

I knock on her door firmly several times. And again. And again.

“Fuck!” she mutters, opening the door. Her eyes creep from my waist, up my body, and over my shoulders before they land on mine. “Jack,” she whispers.

“It’s been brought to my attention that I didn’t let you talk yesterday,” I say low. “So here I am. I’ve been kicked out of practice because I’m like a fucking kindergarten kid punching above his weight, so let’s chat, baby.”

“I think you said everything you wanted to.” Her voice hardens.

“Yeah, I did. Before I found out I didn’t know everything.” I lean forward. “Baby, do me a favor and let me in before I flip you over my shoulder again and let myself in.”

Macey draws in a sharp breath but steps to the side so I can enter her apartment. The second I’m in, I grab the door from her grip and shove it shut. It slams loudly, and I turn to her.

“Mitch.” I spit his name like the poison he is. “Seems he has a message for me.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Macey mutters, walking into the kitchen.

She reaches for the tequila bottle, but I dart forward and spin her so her back is against the counter. No way is she drowning her shit in a tequila bottle this time. No fucking running.

“Leah says otherwise, so, M, why don’t you tell me about his message for me?”

“I said it doesn’t matter!” Macey’s eyes flash with an anger and vulnerability stronger than I’ve ever noticed before.

“It does to me!” I yell, leaning into her. My eyes search her face. “It fucking matters to me, babe, so spit it the hell out.”

“I said. It. Doesn’t. Matter.”

“I say you’re full of shit.” My mouth moves to her ear. “You gonna tell me or do I hafta fuck it out of you, huh? I’m not averse to either, but his name could really kill the mood when my cock is inside you.”

Macey shoves at me and I release her. She storms away from me, toward her room, then stops. “You wanna know? You really want to know what that asshole has to say to you?”

“Believe me, babe. I’d love him to say this bullshit to me. Seems he’s a pussy who has to use his ex-girl to tell me though. So let’s paraphrase. I’d love to know what that asshole has to get you to say to me, okay? Enlighten me, baby. Go ahead.”

“‘Tell your fuck buddy he’s playing to win a whole lot more than the Super Bowl this season,’” she whispers. “Or something along those lines. Close enough, I guess.”

Every nerve in my body goes on high alert. Electric jolt after jolt booms through me, my adrenaline peaking with his threat. The threat he can’t even fucking say to my face. More than that, every protective instinct in my body roars to life louder than an MC club starting their bikes. I feel those words crawling over my fucking skin, almost paralyzing in their determination but laughable in their weakness.

“Baby.” I move toward Macey, determined, certain, strong.

She breathes heavily, her eyes screwed shut, her fists clenched at her sides.

“Look at me.”

She shakes her head.

I grab her jaw and force her head up. “Look. At. Me.”

Her eyes open, and in them, I see a roaring sea of fear and uncertainty tinted with resignation to the words she expects. The words she won’t hear.