Marcel rubbed the back of his neck as he nodded. “Annoying as hell, too. My family and I needed the break. Camille and I have never been west of Louisville, and Vale has never seen the ocean, so we thought we’d kill two birds with one stone: a family vacation and a meet-’n’-greet with the one man not beating down my door and stalking me around every corner.” He laughed. “I wanted to see what you’re all about.”
“Did you?” I asked, swiveling back and forth in my chair. “And what would you like to know about me?”
“Obviously, I have a few questions, but I suppose my first should be…Are you even interested in representing me?”
Like I’d said, “in the bag.” But I wanted to let it play out a bit more to see where his head was.
“Well, that depends on how you’d like to be represented, Marcel.” I leaned forward and propped my elbows on my desk. “I don’t normally take on rookies because they’re too much of a risk. You’re a good player and all—”
“I’m a winner,” he interrupted. “Losing is not an option. And every GM out there knows it. My game is flawless.”
“Your game might be, but can you say the same about your attitude? Because I’m not hearing a whole lot of modesty right now. GMs want a team player.”
“They want someone who can make the plays.”
“Yes, but that involves playing well with others,” I corrected him. “I’ve yet to meet a man who can hike the ball to himself, block himself while he throws the ball to himself, and then run it all the way down the field for a touchdown.”
“I’ve always been a team player. You can ask any one of my teammates and they won’t disagree.”
“I’ve no doubt of that,” I assured him. “Still, there’s the risk factor.”
“What risk?”
“Nothing is guaranteed until you’re actually drafted, and if you don’t show up and show out at the Combine…” I let the rest dangle in the air.
“I can run the forty in four point two six,” he said.
Impressive. Really impressive. Top-five-of-all-time impressive. But it could’ve been a fluke.
“That doesn’t mean you will when the real test comes. You have to work hard, Marcel. You can’t get too comfortable and think everything is just going to be handed to you. I’ve seen stars rise and fall in this business, and the landing is never pretty.” One bad injury, one slip from grace, and his whole career would be over. I knew I was being hypercritical. After all, I represented a whole gang of superstar athletes, none of whom could fit into my office at the same time due to their big heads. But they’d come to me that way. This kid…this kid wasn’t tainted. Yet. I liked Marcel and didn’t want him to forget what was most important: the family sitting in my office with him today.
Shit! I looked down at my watch, noticing the time was getting really close to four o’clock. “Goddammit, I’m late,” I said, adding a mental thank-you to Cassidy for making me do the Lake Dixon thing today of all days.
I gave an apologetic look to Camille when she cleared her throat, reminding me little ears were present. “Oops,” I said, blushing. And then I also apologized to Marcel. “Hey, man, I’m really sorry, but I’m late for another meeting. I’d blow it off, but it’s with the little missus, and she can get ten kinds of crazy when I piss…um, tick her off,” I said, catching myself too late. “How long are you going to be in town? Can we schedule a follow-up?”
“Sure,” Marcel said, standing along with Camille and Vale. “We’ll be in town for a bit longer. I can give you my number.”
“I already have it,” I told him, revealing a card in my hand. Having his number meant I was definitely interested.
“Okay, fine,” he said, thankfully, not catching the reveal. “Just give me a call when you’re free. Hey, maybe we can even set up a playdate with your wife and son.”
“Oh, we’re not married, but I’m sure a playdate can be arranged. Sounds like fun,” I said, clapping him on the shoulder as I escorted him to the door.
Once he and his family were gone, Ben came over to me. “Well, that didn’t last long.”
“Cassidy’s going to kill me,” I said. “I’m late again for that stupid appointment she insists on dragging me to.”
“Ah! Couples therapy…what fun,” he said sarcastically.
“Yeah, no kidding.” Going back to my office, I gathered my things for the day. I really fucking hated the idea of someone else prying into our relationship, and I was almost one hundred percent sure these quacks always sided with the woman anyway. But Cassidy was adamant about this one, so I’d begrudgingly agreed to the damn thing.
Ben sniggered and started back toward his desk. And since he delighted a little too much in my misery, I decided to give him some work to make sure he didn’t get to leave early just because I was. “Get in touch with API and get Marcel a spot in their training program. I want him in prime shape for the Combine.”
“So you signed him?”
“Not officially, but it’s as good as done,” I answered with a smug grin. “I’m going to keep him hanging for a little bit more, though.”
“As good as done? If he chooses you, you mean.” Ben still hadn’t learned to stop doubting me.
I clapped him on the back. “He wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t already chosen to sign with me, Ben.” Heading toward the exit, I called over my shoulder, “Make sure you answer your phone if it rings in case I’m calling from jail to get you to bail me out.”
Yes, I was going into this appointment already on the defensive. And if this asshole started running off at the mouth and putting me down because, in his opinion, I wasn’t a good partner to Cassidy, I was going to put my hands on him in a very brutal way.
At exactly four o’clock, I was stuck in standstill traffic, thanks to a three-car pileup on the I-5.
“Shit!” I hit the steering wheel of my Lincoln Continental once, twice, three times before laying on the horn and yelling a string of profanities no one would pay the slightest attention to.
I’d never hear the end of it from Cassidy. Actually, I probably wouldn’t hear anything at all from her, earning the silent treatment instead. I fucking hated it when she got quiet. I needed her to yell at me, to say something smart-mouthed, something I could argue with.
My cell rang then and I pushed the Bluetooth control to answer it. “Matthews,” I damn near shouted.
I expected Cassidy’s subdued voice to be on the other end, asking me where I was, but it wasn’t her. “Ewwweee! Where you at? Where you at? Where you at, my man?” Denver “Rocket Man” Rockford was one giant party. It didn’t matter where he was or whom he was with, he’d turn every situation into an epically good time. He was also the biggest client on my roster and the reason I held the title of partner at Striker Sports Entertainment.
“Rocket! How’s it going, man?” I asked, my spirits instantly lifted. His raucous personality was infectious.
“Ah, you know my life is good,” he said. Bragging, as usual. He had every right to. He was the highest-paid quarterback in the league, with nearly thirteen million dollars in endorsements for this year alone. Plus, he was happy and in love with one of my closest friends, Quinn. His coming-out announcement had actually increased his popularity instead of decreasing it, as he’d feared.
“Hey, I’m in town, hanging out with your boys over here at Monkey Business, wondering when your pussy ass is going to show up to throw back a few with us.”
Monkey Business was the favorite hangout spot for both Cassidy and me, as well as our mutual group of friends. A pub where my best buddy, Chaz, was the bartender. And after checking the time, I was positive Landon would be posted up on a barstool next to Denver.
Fuck it. I could really use a drink. I’d already missed the scheduled appointment time with the shrink, anyway, and though I’d had Ben clear my schedule for the rest of the day, Denver was still my highest-paid client. Ergo, I could technically count this as a business meeting. So after checking the mirrors for any
ticket-writing types, I gave the recently battered steering wheel before me a hard turn to the right and veered into the emergency lane to take the exit a quarter of a mile ahead.
“Line ’em up and keep a stool warm for me,” I told Denver.
He gave a bellow of “Woohoo!” before disconnecting the call.
Cassidy would already be pissed, so I might as well make it worth the bitching.
CHAPTER 2
Cassidy
Shaw had missed our appointment. Again. Though I’d suspected it before, I was convinced now that he was doing it on purpose. I wanted to be mad, should’ve been, but I wasn’t. I was hurt. Hurt because I wanted to mean more to him. I wanted us, his family, to mean more to him.
As usual, our order of importance fell behind Shaw’s own agenda of furthering his career. He could use whatever excuse he wanted to for why that was, and it was usually all about how he was busting his ass for us, but I wasn’t buying it. Since the day I’d met him, Shaw had been hell-bent on making a name for himself. I’d thought he’d changed after the time we’d spent in Stonington with my family, after he’d professed his love for me and told me it was him and me against the world, and even more so after Abe had been born. But actions speak louder than words, and I was reading him loud and clear.
It made me no less desperate to cling to him, no less hopeful that he’d see what was right in front of his face, no less hopeful that he’d realize that the unnecessary risks he was taking left the future of the family he claimed to love so much hanging in the balance.
To make matters worse, he hadn’t come home after work. Instead, I’d gotten a phone call from Quinn, offering to come sit with Abe so I could take a time-out to hang with some adults for once. Apparently, Shaw had shown up at Monkey Business, where he was keeping a bar stool warm while I was trying to keep his dinner from getting cold.
And the butthead hadn’t even bothered to call.
“Thanks, but no thanks,” I’d told Quinn. “You and Denver won’t be in town for long, and I know Demi and Sasha have been dying to see you. So you guys have fun.”
I was used to being left home alone with Abe, except for the few occasions Uncle Chaz kept him for me. Finding a sitter was always left to me if I wanted some time for myself. Shaw, on the other hand, came and went as he pleased as if his world hadn’t changed the moment we’d decided to bring a life into it. We might not have been married, but we were supposed to be partners, equal partners, in this whole parenting thing. It takes two to tango, you play, you pay, and all that jazz. He wasn’t single, and it was high time he stopped acting like he was.
“Fun? We aren’t doing anything but huddling around the tiny screen of Sasha’s cellphone since she’s forcing us to look at every damn picture she took on her honeymoon. If you’ve seen one palm tree, you’ve seen ’em all,” he said.
I’d been so lost in my own life that I hadn’t even noticed that a month had passed since Sasha and Landon’s wedding. I’d been a bridesmaid, Shaw a groomsman, and Abe the ring bearer. Afterward, they’d taken an extended honeymoon to Hawaii, thanks to the insane generosity of Sasha’s parents, who had more money than they knew what to do with. Of course they were married. It was the natural progression of a relationship, after all—something two people who were in love and planned to spend the rest of their lives together did.
“He’s here alone.” Quinn’s hushed voice pulled me back to the here and now. “I just didn’t want you to think he was creeping around on you. Three sheets to the wind, maybe, but not with so much as a wandering gaze.”
It had never crossed my mind that Shaw would cheat on me. Despite all the rumors that had circulated about him before we’d gotten together, I knew he was loyal to me. Though in a sense, I supposed he had been cheating. He might not have been sharing his body with anyone else, but he sure as hell was sharing his time with everyone other than Abe and me. And when you had a family, time was the most valuable thing you had to share. So sayeth the watch on my baby daddy’s wrist.
Not to mention, it was just plain disrespectful of him to not even pick up the phone to let me know what he was doing. It wasn’t that I wanted him to ask my permission to do whatever he wanted, but should some emergency break out—like, say, an earthquake that caused half of California to break off and sink into the ocean, or hell, even the start of a zombie apocalypse—it would’ve been nice to know where to begin to look for his body—alive, mutilated, or wandering undead.
So I’d hung up with Quinn, asking him to give Sasha and Demi my love, and then snuggled into bed with Abe.
I woke with a start at the sound of Shaw finally finding his way home. Not just the sound of the door closing, but of his keys noisily finding the countertop and his shoes being kicked off across the floor and hitting the wall.
Taking care not to wake Abe, I slipped from the bed and out of his room, closing the door quietly behind me. I found Shaw stumbling into the kitchen, using the wall as a prop to keep his inebriated body upright. It wasn’t until he opened the refrigerator door to grab the bottle of orange juice and began to chug it that I let my presence be known.
“Your dinner is on the second shelf,” I told him, pleased that I’d startled him into a choking fit that left juice dribbling down his chin and onto his expensive silk tie.
“Jesus, Cass! You scared the shit out of me,” he said, using the back of his hand to wipe his mouth. Classy.
“Did I? Funny that my presence scares you where your MIA routine is what worries me,” I said in a calm, even, matter-of-fact tone. Shaw and I never yelled at each other anymore; fighting was yet another area of our life together that had lost its passion.
“I’m sorry. I got caught in traffic and was already too late for the appointment. Then Denver called to ask me to meet him at Monkey’s, and I’ve had some things I needed to go over with him so—”
“So you decided to go get drunk,” I finished for him. “Nice. Please tell me you didn’t get behind the wheel of a car like that.”
“I had a couple of drinks with the fellas, Cassidy. God knows I deserve to blow off a little steam every now and then. Don’t start.”
Oh, like I didn’t have any steam to blow off? But I let it go.
“I’m not starting anything, Shaw. I’m too tired to start anything.” I waved him off and then headed toward the bathroom off our bedroom.
Shaw followed. Somehow, I knew he would. Maybe because I was aware of the pattern—the same old, predictable routine we’d found ourselves in. I could practically spell it all out before the order of events happened. But because I was a creature of habit, I went along with it.
Picking up my toothbrush and toothpaste, I got busy with the brusha-brusha-brusha. Right on cue, Shaw slipped in behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist and nuzzling my neck while he pressed his hard-on to my ass. For a second, I thought about turning my toothbrush on him to get rid of the strong smell of whiskey coming from his breath—a couple of drinks, huh?—but got distracted by his next two cues. One hand reached up to cup my braless breast, tweaking the nipple through my nightshirt while his other hand snaked its way underneath and into my panties.
“Spit,” he ordered. Then, “Rinse.”
I did because I knew what was next. I’d never been immune to Shaw’s exploration of my body, despite how much he infuriated me to no end. Well, my body had never been immune to his explorations. My mind, sadly, had become another matter.
The moment his fingertips made contact with my clit, I went Niagara Falls down south. Shaw hummed in appreciation, taking no care in roughly palming my breast while biting my shoulder and then shoving my panties down to fall at my feet.
Within seconds, his belt was undone, his cock freed, and one of my knees was lifted to the counter to open me up for him. One splayed hand positioned just so on my back forced me to lean forward, right where he wanted me.
Again, I found myself studying my own reflection in the mirror, curious as to my stoic expression when he pushed the
broad tip of his cock inside me. It wasn’t that I was immune to that feeling of being completely filled, I just knew what the outcome would be, and not because I was psychic.
With Shaw’s grip on my hips, I watched as my body lunged forward and back with each of his frantic thrusts. Deep and hard, he penetrated me, working toward his endgame. Two players on the field, only one was a ball hog, stealing all the glory for himself. But I knew what he expected of me, so I gave it to him.
“Oh, Shaw…Oh, Shaw…Right there. Yes, right…there,” I said, egging him on until I Kegel’ed it, squeezing his rigid shaft inside me in pulsing intervals to mock an orgasm. And then I gave a final, languid moan. That stoic expression I’d been sporting had not changed.
Following that cue, Shaw bucked harder, grunting with his forehead pressed to my shoulder and never once looking up at me in the mirror. And then he came. Lucky him.
He took but a moment to collect himself, pressing three chaste kisses to my shoulder before he pulled his cock free of my sheath and said, “Thank you, sweetness. I promise I won’t be late again.” An empty promise.
And just like that, our makeup sex was complete. I tried not to take it too personally that he always felt the need to shower afterward when I was the one dripping semen from my vagina, but how could I not? Yet another selfish act of Shaw—a Shawism, as I’d come to dub these frequent actions of “all Shaw, all the time.”
God, I miss foreplay, I thought as I grabbed a wash towel to clean myself up. I also missed the way we were. The couples therapy had been my idea, my insistence, and Shaw had been fighting me tooth and nail on it. But something was wrong with us. How could he not see it? There was no real intimacy between us. We’d been living like roommates with a child in common, nothing more, just going through the motions like a couple of drones. I wanted to feel something again, to feel him again. The one thing I didn’t want to feel was helpless.