Page 33 of Studs Up
Nolan
The bus ride home was dark and orange lights streamed passed as we headed north. The mood on the bus was quiet and contemplative. My thoughts should be on the game. Where we went wrong and how the back line could have done better.
Instead, they were on my dick where Holden’s mouth had been. I closed my eyes and relived the swallow of his throat and the moans he made as I thrust deep. It had made him hard. I had passed my thumb over the head of his cock and felt how much cum had leaked from him, and it was making me hard again.
…
When I looked up my credit card bill, I cursed. An extensive breakfast, one hotel bathrobe, and a generous tip brought the total bill to exactly one thousand dollars. All at my expense.
You owe me.
He texted back almost instantly with a gif of a cartoon duck batting comically long eyelashes.
What do you mean?
I got my credit card bill. You overspent.
The next gif was a pouting cat with a sarcastic ‘so sorry’ flashing at the bottom.
You think you’re so funny, don’t you?
I’m fucking hilarious.
…
Alice stormed into the training facility three days later. Alice was a formidable woman. She had to be, not only tolerate our bullshit but spin it so we looked all nice and shiny in the press. Not even I was dumb enough to fuck with her. So when she showed up looking pissed in stilettos that announced her every step, it was enough to make my heart jumpstart from a dead stop.
“Nolan Fucking Reed,” she bellowed from across the gym. Even though she had shouted my name, everyone froze.
Through the machines, players, training staff, and the Coaches, she found me. Her eyes zeroed in on me like a sniper locking on to a target.
“Oh shit,” Diaz put distance between me and him, and he acted like he’d never met me before. She stomped across the gym. Even the machines seemed to recognize her power and got out of her way because suddenly she had a clear path, and I was watching my fate advance.
“Lisa gave this to me,” she said, thrusting a bright pink envelope with flower stickers all over it into my chest. It was addressed to me in neat handwriting in perfectly straight lines and smelled like a cheap hooker. An over the top cheap perfume that was giving me a headache.
Lisa managed all of the fan mail and sometimes found things interesting or important enough to bring to us. Alice, though, never brought us stuff unless it was really fucking bad.
“And?” Seeing as I had done nothing wrong, I didn’t care.
“Open it and explain it,” she crossed her arms and waited.
The card inside was touched in glitter on the flower petals. The outside read, For someone special, in an elaborate cursive that almost made it impossible to decipher.
I opened it up. There was another message printed on the inside that I didn’t read because the handwritten note was more interesting.
Hey Sexy, Thanks for letting me handle your deluxe package. Next time I’ll keep the change.
It was signed with a fucking lipstick kiss. Bright red with a shimmer. I flipped it over as if there was going to be a secret message on the back. There was not. My first thought was this was some kind of weird fan shit. There were stalkers. I’d never had one, but Quinn Taylor had one a few years back.
“I have no idea what this means,” I said and handed it back to her. She narrowed her eyes at me and produced one musty, crinkled, covered in body glitter, dollar bill from her pocket.
“Thanks for letting me handle your deluxe package?” she quoted with a shout. Laughter and giggles spread through the gym and I was never, ever going to live this down.
“You better know what the fuck this means,” she said furiously. “Are you hooking up with prostitutes? Who are you taking to hotels? What the fuck are you into Reed?”
Now that I was Alice’s sole focus. Quinn was on the treadmill for a front row viewing, with his feet braced on the sides, letting the track run, way more interested in Alice and me.
I looked at the dollar bill and then back at the card and to Alice’s increased furor. The pieces clicked together, and I realized exactly what was happening here.
