“No.” I scowled. “Though if he kisses my sister like that again in public, I’m removing his head from his body.”
Sanchez moved his hand. “No offense, but Miller’s a good guy. So he gets to see her naked, it’s not like you’re perfect.” He smirked as if waiting for me to deny it. “Right?”
I glared. “What the hell do you know that I don’t?”
“Oh, you mean about . . . a certain girl named Harley?”
“Out with it,” I snapped.
“Nah, I think I’m going to hold on to it a bit longer, but I do have one question . . .”
“I don’t even want to know.” I fought the urge to groan into my hands.
“When you did that thing with your mouth.” Yeah, I was going to physically injure him. “And you know, the tongue move, you get so deep—”
“I’m out.” I walked away backward and went in search of Kinsey. We had shit to talk about, and now that she was finally speaking to me, I had a lot to say.
Chapter Eighteen
KINSEY
I avoided my brother like salt before a big game.
And this time it wasn’t because I was pissed.
It was because his best friend, the one that I was starting to really favor, had given me an orgasm behind a potted plant with nothing but his thigh and a heck of a lot of enthusiasm on my part.
I was a hussy.
And yet, every time I tried to find the guilt, it wasn’t there. Trust me, I searched for it. In my brain I was on my hands and knees looking underneath every object, opening every folder that said whore or slut, and nothing.
Maybe it was because he didn’t walk away this time.
He righted my hair.
He kissed my bruised lips.
And then slowly, lowered my feet to the floor, but not before placing an open kiss against my neck and whispering, “Remember whose you are.”
“Yours?” I’d responded.
“You’re also yours, Kins.” He’d winked, grabbed my hand, and led me toward the punch and said I should cool off.
Right, like Kool-Aid was going to really help me not melt into my clothes and fling them in his face while I beg for round two.
My treacherous body shivered at the actual thought.
What was I doing?
This wasn’t me.
It wasn’t.
He made me want to be bad.
And after Anderson, I’d sworn to myself that when I was with another guy it would be on my terms, it would be because he loved me, because he cared. Yeah, and look how that turned out! I’d jumped into bed with the next football player on the roster and gotten burned.
Sanchez literally popped up out of nowhere, making me spill my juice all over the floor. I barely missed my black Gucci boots. “You need to fix your face.”
“Gee, thanks, Sanchez, nice to see you too,” I said in a singsong yet annoyed voice as people danced around us.
He gave my elbow a little tug and then suddenly the most arrogant wide receiver I’d ever met in my entire life was handing me a napkin and pointing to my mouth. “Seriously, Kins, I’m not trying to be a dick, but you have Miller all over you.”
“Huh?”
“Lip gloss . . . a guy notices these things. Hell, it’s on your nose, Kins. What did the guy do to you?”
Heat flooded my cheeks.
“Shit, guess that’s my answer.” He shook with laughter. “Girl, you have lip junk in your ear, your ear!” He howled louder, slapping my shoulder with one of his bear-paw hands. “Oh, this is great. You’re so lucky I found you before Jax. He’s been looking for you for the past hour.”
“I’ve been walking around like this for an hour?” I screeched.
“Maybe Miller wanted to make his mark, and since peeing on you isn’t really all that attractive, he decided to spread your lip gloss into every crevice.” Sanchez’s eyes narrowed. “Never mind, I don’t want to know.”
“You don’t.” I wiped my ear and turned to him. “Okay, how do I look now?”
His eyebrows shot up.
“That bad?”
“That bad? Or if you’re Miller, just that good. I wouldn’t worry about it too much though, I mean Jax is encouraging this, right?” His eyes narrowed.
I coughed. “Of course. His idea.”
“And there it is.” He crossed his arms. “Why would it be his idea, Kins?”
“Uhhhh.” I started backing away and nearly collided with another male body.
I knew it was Anderson by the spicy cologne. It still made me gag when I smelled it. I stumbled toward Sanchez and clung to him like he was my only lifeline. Thankfully, since Em had tamed him a bit, rather than shoving me into the punch bowl like the jackass he typically was, he put a protective arm around my shoulder.
Anderson looked confused. “A bit possessive of your girl’s best friend, Sanchez.”
“A bit stupid for football, eh, Anderson?”
I bit my lip to keep from laughing.
The guy literally had no fans.
I just hoped to God that once practice was in full swing, he’d show his true colors to the coaching staff and get kicked to the curb. He was out for money, recognition. He was out for himself, which was sad, because he did have raw talent, he just wanted himself more than the team.
“Everything okay?” Miller’s voice interrupted Anderson and Sanchez’s tense stare down.
Sanchez turned to Miller. “Yeah, just telling Anderson how great it is for him to make it down to the hospital for such a killer cause, right, Anderson?”
“Whatever.” Anderson marched off, clearly pissed. I exhaled a sigh of relief while Sanchez released me into Miller’s arms.
“Jax’s idea . . .” Sanchez put a finger to his mouth and then grinned. “Hmm, I think I understand.” With that, he walked off and left me in Miller’s embrace.
“Do you think he knows?” I whispered.
“Does it matter?” He turned me around in his arms. “In the grand scheme of things, who the hell cares what anyone thinks?”
I nodded and then it was like I was brought back to an hour ago when his mouth was sucking the life out of mine, when his hands roamed my body like he owned me, when I gripped him like a lifeline.
“Stop,” Miller hissed. “I really don’t have as much self-control as you think I do. Living with you for the past two weeks has been absolute torture, and you’re making it worse when you look at me like you want me to—” He cut himself off and swore. “Look at me like that when we’re home.”
“Home,” I repeated.
He nodded, just as Jax made his way over, his face pale. “I, uh, you guys good here? I need to be somewhere.”
I frowned and then panic set in. “Is it Dad? Is he okay?”
He sighed. “Yeah, it’s not Dad, I swear I won’t ever do that to you again, okay? It’s just . . . don’t worry.” His easy smile was back. “Everything’s fine. I just forgot I needed to be somewhere, and I feel bad leaving since I’m one of the main organizers.”
“We got you.” Miller held out his fist. “No worries, man.”
“Thanks.” His shoulders sagged with relief. “Kins, we need to talk but . . .” He swallowed and looked at his phone. “Look, I’ll call you or stop by, what hotel are you at? Mom and Dad never told me.”
Miller looked down at me with a smirk. “Yeah, Kins, what hotel was it?” He snapped his fingers. “Shit, it’s slipping my mind.”
I cursed him and kicked him in the nuts, all in my head, of course, before I grinned at my brother and stuttered out, “Kimpton Hotel, the one downtown on the pier.”
“The Alexis.” Miller added, “I remember now, sorry, too many hits to the head.”
I itched to stomp on his foot.
“Cool.” Jax nodded. “I’ll try to stop by tonight, alright?”
“Awesome.” I waved him off.
Once he was out of eyesight I smacked Miller in the chest. “What the hell was that?”
“You didn’t tell
him!” he said at the exact same time.
“You notice all the small things and yet don’t see all the reasons why I wouldn’t randomly text my brother and say, oh, by the way, I’m shacking up with one of your best friends!”
“Funny, because I thought shacking up included sex.” Miller grinned that stupid sexy grin that had me fighting between scratching his eyes out and climbing him like a tree and squeezing my legs around his thighs and—
Miller growled, “Damn it, I told you, not in public.” He swore and ran a hand over his buzzed hair.
“Sorry!” I held up my hands. “And I thought you’d be happy I didn’t tell him! You’re alive! You’re welcome!”
He sent me a glare. “Fine. Let’s help with cleanup and then we’ll go get a room.”
“We?” I repeated. “What’s this we business?”
“Teammates.” He pointed between the two of us. “Friends. Remember?”
I crossed my arms. “Most of my friends don’t seduce me behind potted plants.”
“That’s why I’m your best friend.” His eyes crinkled, as a cocky side smile gave me plenty of things to fantasize about for the next ten years of my life. “And I’m not letting you check into a hotel by yourself.”
“You’re not letting me?”
He groaned. “You know what I mean.”
“No,” I seethed. “I don’t! You don’t get to take Jax’s place as the overprotective crazy person who doesn’t let me have an opinion about everything because he’s so damn afraid that I’m going to—” I gulped.
Miller froze.
“Hey, can I have your autograph?” A small boy on crutches limped over to Miller. He had no hair on his head and one of the biggest smiles I’d ever seen in my entire life.
Miller smiled down at him. “Wow, man, that’s some cast, you must have been playing super hard, yeah?”
The kid nodded. “My mama says it’s because my bones are sick. I played football all last year but got injured lots so I had to come stay at the hospital.” He crooked his finger. “I’m not supposed to be at the party but one of the nurses said she thought it would be okay.”
Miller smiled brightly and pointed a few feet behind him. “Is that her right there?”
The boy turned around and then nodded back at Miller. “Yes sir, she told me so, but she had to bring me down here because I’m little.”
“Little!” Miller gasped in shock. “No, I don’t see a little boy in front of me”—he leaned in—“I see a man.”
“You do?” The boy’s eyes widened. “Well, I have been walking lots lately with my crutches.”
He showed both crutches to Miller and hobbled on his good leg.
“Impressive.” Miller examined both crutches like they were the most precious thing he’d ever seen. “I bet you can go real fast on those things.”
“So fast.” The boy giggled.
“What’s your name?” Miller asked.
“Marcus, but my friends call me Marco.”
“Wow, that’s a pretty cool name.”
Marco shrugged and blushed.
“Why don’t we have my girlfriend, Kinsey, go over and grab you a jersey while I sign these crutches?”
“Whoa!” Marco nodded eagerly. “That would be boss, Mr. Miller!”
My eyes welled with tears as I quickly ran over to the box of jerseys, grabbed one, as well as a football, and ran back over to them.
Marco was whispering something in Miller’s ear by the time I returned, and for some reason the look on Miller’s face nearly broke my heart.
“Marco, I’m going to tell you something really important, and I want you to remember it for a long time, okay?”
With rapt attention, Marco waited.
“Sometimes, in life, you fall down, you get hit, sometimes you have hard days, days that make you want to quit . . . sometimes your body makes you think it’s time to quit.” He gulped. “But never forget about your heart.” He tapped Marco’s chest lightly with his finger. “The heart is strong. The heart can convince the body of anything. It can convince your mind of anything. Your heart allows you to be whatever you want to be, you just have to trust it.”
“I do, Mr. Miller, I trust my heart.”
“And what does your heart say?”
“Well, when I get hooked up to machines it makes a beeping sound.”
“Whoa!” Miller pressed a hand to Marco’s chest. “Does it thump, thump, thump, like this?”
“Yes!” Marco giggled. “Just like that! What do you think that means?”
“It means you’ve got the strength of a lion.” Miller grinned. “That’s your heart telling the rest of your body that it’s okay, that’s the way the heart tells you that it’s fighting. That thump, thump is the heart’s war cry. Don’t you want to be a warrior, Marco?”
He nodded. “I want to be like you.”
My heart squeezed, I had to look away so they wouldn’t see my tears.
“Nah, Marco, don’t be like me . . . be better. Think you can do that?”
“I can try!”
The nurse walked over. “We should head back up, Marco. You’ve been on that leg a while now.”
She mouthed a “thank you” to Miller, and tears filled her eyes as Marco launched himself into Miller’s arms and wrapped his scrawny arms around his neck.
When they were a safe distance away, I gripped Miller’s hand and whispered, “What did he ask you?”
Miller’s voice was hoarse when he replied. “He asked me if he was going to die.”
Chapter Nineteen
MILLER
The kid’s face reminded me of mine when I lost my mom. His eyes—they were so sad, and for him to ask a complete stranger, one he looked up to, if he was going to make it? God, it almost killed me.
It brought back memories of not wanting to live—of wanting to go to sleep and never wake up so I could be with my mom. But then I’d go to practice and remember all the games she went to and all the times she supported me—and I went on. Because of her. Because football wasn’t just a distraction anymore, no, it had turned into this need—because when I played I was closer to her. My mom’s death taught me that the future was never certain.
To see a little boy with that same look.
At his age.
Damn, the kid needed hope, just like I’d needed football.
Pain slashed through me.
Raw.
Pain.
The emptiness of losing my mom.
And then Emerson.
The pain of losing our child that I hadn’t even known existed.
Physical pain I could deal with, but emotional pain? Sometimes I wasn’t sure I was equipped to handle it, I sure as hell didn’t handle it well. All I had to do was take one look at Kinsey and it was obvious that I wasn’t a fan of putting myself in any position to feel anything like loving and losing again.
And yet.
I was currently checking us both into a hotel.
Separate rooms.
That had an adjoining door, because for some reason the idea of her being by herself at any point while she went through her father’s illness made me sick to my stomach.
“Home sweet home!” I tossed one of my bags onto the bed and walked into the adjoining room, where Kinsey was busy tossing her stuff all over the room so it looked like she’d been staying there for more than ten minutes.
“How does it look?” She crossed her arms and examined her handiwork. Shoes were piled in the corner, clothes hung off one of the chairs, and a bra was strategically placed on the TV. Nice.
“It looks like a tornado swept through and decided to strip your clothes just so I could see you naked one more time before your brother ruins my life.” I shrugged. “So yeah, pretty good.”
She sighed. “Good.”
“The bra’s a nice touch.” I picked it up and closed my eyes, then purposefully moaned a few times before she snatched it out of my hands and swatted me with it.
“This isn’t
playtime! I have to focus. You know, that whole keeping-you-alive thing.”
“We’re adults,” I pointed out. “Do you really think he’d be pissed enough to kill me? Honestly?”
She froze, dropped the bra on the bed, and hung her head, her dark hair spilling over one shoulder while she visibly trembled. “Yeah. I do. You’re a football player.”
“So he’d be more pissed about me being a football player? That makes no sense. Kins, you’re old enough to make your own decisions.”
She lifted that one shoulder, as more hair spilled back. “Yeah, I know that. He even knows that. He just . . . he doesn’t want to see me hurt.”
“Do you think I’d hurt you?” It was out before I could stop it.
She turned around, her eyes sad. “You already did.”
“And you think I’m dumb enough to repeat the mistake?”
“It has nothing to do with brain cells, Miller, otherwise you would have already been out of the running.” She winked. “It has everything to do with your ability to move past whatever you need to move past. You’re the one that said you aren’t even sure you have possession of your own heart, that’s not really the kind of risk most girls want to take. I mean you’re basically telling me that you’re unable to commit, and sorry to break it to you, but most girls want commitment.”
I nodded, unhappy with the direction of the conversation, and desperately needing to do something about it, like kiss all the doubt from her mouth and get her naked.
We would be good together.
More than good.
I was at war with myself, wanting to prove to her how good it could be while simultaneously telling myself that it could be bad, there were too many uncontrollable factors.
“Damn it, Kins.” I groaned, tired of my own thought process. “What if I want to try?”
“What if try isn’t good enough?” she fired back.
A knock sounded on the door. I froze. She froze.
I ran to the adjoining door for my room. Locked. Shit. I’d forgotten my key.
“Kins!” Jax’s voice sounded. “It’s me, do you have someone in there?”
“No!” Kins yelled, “I, uh, it’s um . . . TV is so loud, hold on!”
She shoved me into the bathroom and then hissed, “Get in the shower.”