Page 35 of Studs Up
A dam had broken, and the texts back and forth were a regular thing, almost like we were becoming friends.
Oh my god, you do know how to pass!The text came with a gif of a cartoon character giving a ridiculously large thumbs up and a patronizing smile.
I pulled the parking brake on my car and texted him back. It was late and I was tired and hungry and prayed that I would be able to sleep. We won, beating New York by two. But Morales had my number all night long, and it took everything I had to get the ball in the net.
Didn’t you get nutmegged last night?I snorted as I sent the message and pulled up the clip I had saved for just such an occasion.
The response was unexpected. A clip of me tripping over my own feet from a week ago. The Phoenix pitch was shit. Everyone was slipping.
“That’s just mean,” I said when he answered.
“I thought we were trading insults.” Something about hearing his voice put me at ease. Even if it was rough and grumpy, it was not okay, but it was something I was clinging to, so I didn’t stop.
The porch light came on as I unlocked my door and stepped inside. Home. The only place in the world where I was allowed to be myself. The plants kept the air fresh and cool, and it was the only thing in the world I needed until I kissed the bastard on the phone.
“We are,” I said. “You were being meaner.”
“You were being meaner?” He repeated. “How old are you?”
“Fuck you,” I said with a grin. I tossed my keys into the bowl on the foyer table and kicked off my shoes.
He made a sound that I wasn’t entirely sure how to interpret. It was a bit of a grumble and a bit of a hum, and it made me so fucking hot.
“Where are you?” I asked, needing something else to talk about. Thinking about him inside me was not going to help. My ass clenched involuntarily, making the demand of its own. Fuck.
“Dallas,” he said. “We’re wheels up in a few. Fucking heat. I’d love to get out of here. It’s unnatural to be this hot this late at night.” I could see him sitting on a plane, impatiently waiting for it to take off.
“You do know that life wouldn’t exist without the sun,” I said. He grumbled on the other end. Sounded an awful lot like ‘fucking bullshit’ but it was hard to tell with the background noise.
“Prince gonna be okay?” He asked. I paused in my bedroom, where I dumped my bag on a chair.
“Nolan Reed, do you care?” I asked.
“Fuck no,” he said. “He’s on the roster for the next round of call ups.”
I grinned. “You do care. He’s fine, a tweak.” Alex had taken a hit and fell awkwardly on the turf. Hamstrings are a perpetual problem, and he was pulled as a precaution. A few days of rest and he’d be fine for the next match.
I wandered back to the kitchen for something to eat.
“Good,” he grunted. I knew I was just getting to know him on a personal level, but I could say with fair confidence that Nolan Reed did have a heart. Small and crumpled as it was.
“Hey, I got a question for you,” he said. I pulled a container of chicken and rice out of the fridge and popped it into the microwave.
“Okay,” I said cautiously.
“Where did you go to acting school?”
“Fuck you,” I laughed.
“Because you really got dramatic out there.” If you wanted attention for the foul, you had to make it look big. I had done that to get the foul just outside the eighteen.
“It’s part of the game,” I said, watching the microwave turn my dinner around and around.
“I have never in my life done that,” he said. “What was that eight, nine rolls?” When the tackle came, yes, I rolled on the ground and grabbed my ankle, as one does. It got me the free kick. Would have been nice if we had scored off of that, but Alex put it right into the wall.
“Three, dickhead.”
He snorted. This was way too easy. Hating him the way I needed to was getting harder and harder.
