Page 26 of Studs Up
A part of me wanted to know who they were, and a part of me wanted to destroy my phone again. The texts had been quiet for almost six months.
I ignored it. I never responded to them.
Answer me, dickhead.
I paused, confused. There was only one person who talked to me like that, and it wasn’t the one in my nightmares.
My heart stuttered to a stop and then roared into gear, pounding so hard it hurt.
“Oh fuck,” I stared at the three little dots bouncing up and down and another message. I still jumped when my phone buzzed, but not as badly.
When we exchanged numbers for the group chat, I purposely didn’t include Nolan’s. I removed him from my contacts. He rarely texted in the chat anyway.
We need to talk,he said again.
I didn’t want to do that. I couldn’t do that. Talking to him was the worst fucking thing I could do.
What would I say? Sorry for the mistake. Forget about it. Straight guys, don’t forget when another man kisses them. People had died for that kind of mistake, and Reed wasn’t exactly known for his calm and understanding personality.
Not responding was the best idea. So I didn’t. He texted the next day the same message. And then the next. For days, he texted the same thing at the exact same time of day. He was so precise I could set my watch to it.
Then he called. I didn’t answer, but when he left a message, all he said was, “We need to talk.”
He never missed a day to call or text, and the reliability of it was disconcerting. Even Alex noticed, and I had a hard time coming up with an excuse for why my phone went off at the exact same time every day.
Could I have blocked him or silenced the chat? Yeah. Did I? No. I wanted to hear that chime. He never said anything else. Just, ‘We need to talk.’ Not an angry slew of cussing and homophobic insults. It was possible that he was saving that for the in person conversation that was inevitable.
Despite all of the energy I put into ignoring him, I still felt his eyes when I passed the ball. He was there, in my head, every game.
Every single day for three weeks, he made a singular attempt to get my attention. And every single time, I didn’t respond. I scrolled through the texts, though.
We need to talk.Or I replayed his last voicemail and felt the heat in my cock from his surly voice.
I knew this was going nowhere. I knew that it was a waste of time to lust after the brief messages I would never respond to, but I couldn’t help it.
The first rivalry game of the season didn’t have quite the same excitement for me as it had in the past. The energy was always high. The fans were into it, the stadium was packed, and the songs were loud.
I loved every minute of it. Except this time, there was a powerful dread that skyrocketed through me as I walked onto the pitch for warmups. I would be face to face with Reed. When the time came for his call or text, it didn’t come. My phone stayed blissfully still, and I breathed. Maybe he got the hint after three weeks of my avoidance. Or he knew he could pin me in a corner. I had the advantage we had a home game, so I could stick to the back halls and avoid him all together.
On the field, well, that was going to be a fucking nightmare.
As the warmups started, everything was normal. He did his thing, and I did mine. There wasn’t even a glance in my direction.
Maybe he had let it go, and we were done with this. That was bullshit because in the seventh minute, he caught me in the corner on his end, and we grappled for the ball I had control of.
“We need to talk,” he growled in my ear, and I shoved back at him as the hot shivers ran down my body. That deep broody rumble did it for me every time.
He got sick of the keep away and toed the ball out on the sideline for a throw in.
“We’re gonna fucking talk,” he hissed before he stomped away.
At the eighty-sixth minute, he got me in the corner again like he was herding me.
“Rose City Inn,” he said and shoved me, trying to get me off the ball. I held my ground, barely.
“Fuck you,” I hissed and pushed back.
“I have two hours, and you will show the fuck up.”
