Dream Girl Drama (Big Shots #3)

Chapter Thirteen

Sig sat down across from Burgess in the smoothie shop.

“You summoned me?”

Observing Sig, Burgess grunted. Leaned back and tossed a crumpled napkin onto the table. “Why do you look like warmed-over shit?”

“Had an early morning,” Sig said without blinking.

“For what reason?”

“Dude named Pierre.”

“Really.” The Bearcats captain scrubbed at his bearded chin. “When are you going to introduce him to the team?”

“When they start allowing dogs at the games, I guess.”

“Ohh, I see. Pierre is a dog. Are you enjoying yourself?”

“I’m in a brightly lit smoothie shop full of joggers, I haven’t slept yet, and they don’t serve coffee,” Sig deadpanned. “What do you think?”

Burgess didn’t bother answering that. “Does the dog have something to do with Chloe?”

“Of course, it does.” An image of Chloe smiling beneath the streetlights and nuzzling her face into his shoulder made him shift in his chair, attempting to balance the heavy weight in his chest. He’d been waiting outside her building that morning at five a.m., just in case she threw him another wild card and decided to venture out early. But no, she’d emerged on time, yawn ing and wrapped in a blanket, smiling sleepily when she saw him. They’d walked in silence, side by side, laughing quietly at Pierre’s repertoire of unique sounds, neither one of them bringing up the roller-coaster conversation from the night before.

Maybe she was still digesting everything, like Sig.

His secret had been laid on the table and instead of getting mad, she’d encouraged him.

Stuck by him.

Just not enough to refrain from dating other men.

Sig ground his molars until pain shot upward behind his eye. “I didn’t want her walking the dog alone before sunrise. Could mean early mornings for a while. Not sure if she’s just dog sitting or keeping him permanently, but I try not to ask for too many specifics with Chlo.” He couldn’t quite catch his affectionate smile before it formed. “She errs on the side of impulsive.”

Burgess hummed, studied him beneath drawn brows. “That’s sort of why I brought you here, man. Specifics are about to become really important, really fast. There’s a team meeting tonight and everyone is going to be there. Top to bottom. The GM, coaching staff. The owner.”

Sig stopped in the act of rubbing at his gritty eyes. “I wasn’t notified about a team meeting.”

“You will be. I got the heads-up first, because the topic of discussion will be my retirement and how the team will be reorganizing. I have the option of forgoing the meeting.”

“Are you going to skip it?”

“Fuck no. I’m insulted they even suggested it.” Burgess took an outraged pull of his smoothie, which was green and probably contained so many supplements that it no longer tasted like anything resembling food. “My point is that specifics are going to be important because you’re going to be named captain.”

Sig’s back teeth glued themselves together, a combination of anticipation and nerves stiffening his joints. “They haven’t even reupped my contract and they’re naming me captain?”

“Maybe they want to gauge your dedication first. Talk vision.” Sig nodded firmly. “If that’s the case, you’ve got nothing to worry about. You’re dedicated. Resourceful. A born leader. If I could pick my own team and had everyone in the league to choose from, I’d still pick you to replace me as captain.”

“Jesus, you could have warned me this was going to be emotional,” Sig said, crossing both arms over a chest that was feeling far too vulnerable this morning. “I would have brought a box of Kleenex.”

“Shut it.” Burgess sniffed, shifted in his seat. “I don’t want to ask you about this, but I’ve ignored it for a long time. Now I need to know if it’s going to become an issue. I’ve been in the league for fourteen years and things have changed. There is interest in our personal lives that didn’t exist before. Or at least the public didn’t have so much access to it. Now they do. Are you following me?” Burgess picked up his smoothie cup and set it back down. “What’s the story with you and Chloe? Just get it out in the open so we can figure out how to keep it from biting you in the ass.”

Sig hated the shame that enflamed his skin.

Shame had no place around him and Chloe, but especially her.

What they had felt like a miracle to him. No one else would see it like that, though. Maybe not even Burgess—and despite the fact that his captain already suspected that Sig’s relationship with Chloe was romantic, he had a hard time relaying the details. Burgess never made a goddamn move out of step. He was noble to a fault. Meanwhile, here was Sig, the potential new captain of the Bearcats, torturing himself with constant visits to his future stepsister. Touching, feeling, holding her any way he could.

“The story between me and Chloe?” Sig cleared his throat, only fleetingly looking Burgess in the eye. “Our parents are getting married in two months. There can’t really be a story, can there?”

“Sig. I have eyes. So does everyone else. There is something there.”

“We don’t...” Sig let out a quick exhale. “There’s nothing sexual going on. We just like to be... around each other. A lot. Christ, I can’t believe we’re having this conversation.”

“Having the hard conversation now could save you having it with someone else in the future.”

Sig stabbed the table with his index finger. “The only thing that’s going to save me is our parents calling off the fucking wedding, all right?”

Burgess didn’t flinch. “And if they don’t?”

“I don’t know,” Sig enunciated.

Before the team captain could respond, a bell tinkled over the door—and in walked Corrigan and Mailer.

“Jesus, not the Rookies,” Burgess muttered.

Sig clocked their arrival with a relieved smirk. Corrigan and Mailer were his teammates, so he loved them in the way one is forced to love their weird cousins, but they were still considered pesky rookies. At this present moment, however, Sig welcomed their timely arrival with open arms. Burgess wouldn’t pry into Sig’s personal life in front of them, which marked an end to the interrogation for which he had no answers. Hallelujah.

“Well, if it isn’t the Orgasm Donors,” Sig greeted them, smirking.

“Well, if it isn’t our father and stepfather having some quality time together,” Mailer said, grabbing a chair from a nearby table, flipping it around and straddling it. “I guess our evite went to spam.”

Corrigan grabbed a chair, too. “Or they got our email addresses wrong. He’s FartDeathstar1 for future reference. I’m Pucksandpussy000.”

“I assume the zeroes are there because you’re getting none of either,” Sig drawled.

“Wrong. It’s because I don’t leave any for anyone else.”

The Orgasm Donors high-fived across the table.

Burgess looked like he was chewing metal bolts. “How did you know we were here?”

“Bearcats Reddit. Everyone knows you come here at the same time every morning, soon as your kid leaves for school.” Corrigan laid a hand on Burgess’s arm. “Sorry, let me slow down. Reddit is a website. Are you familiar with websites?”

“Are you familiar with broken cartilage?”

The Donor laughed, but removed his hand as fast as possible. “So, besties, what are we talking about?”

“Nothing.” This from Burgess.

Yeah, no way Sig wasn’t going to use Corrigan and Mailer’s interruption to his advantage. “Apparently, there is going to be a team meeting tonight. Big one.”

Their excitement was palpable.

As was Burgess’s irritation. “Are you happy?”

In response, Sig grabbed Burgess’s smoothie and took a long sip. Grimaced over the taste of grass and set it back down.

Corrigan propped his elbows on the table, leaned in to study Burgess’s and Sig’s faces in turn. “What is the meeting about?”

Sig didn’t miss a beat. “Do you want to tell them or should I, Sir Savage?”

Not a single blink from Burgess. “You break it to them.”

“Fine. I’ll be the bearer of bad news.” Sig let out a slow breath. “The brass has spoken. You’re the new team mascots. The giant, fuzzy costumes are being sized as we speak.”

“One of you was going to be the head, one of you was going to be the tail...”

“But you’re both asses, so the new mascot has two tails. No head, whatsoever. First of its kind.”

“Fitting, right? Since there isn’t a brain between you.”

Burgess and Sig gave each other a very mature fist bump.

Mailer and Corrigan were looking at each other. “I can’t figure out how they do this,” Mailer marveled. “They don’t even need time to come up with ways to trash us.”

“It’s so natural,” Corrigan agreed, shaking his head. “I guess it’s just the kind of wisdom that comes from being ancient.”

Sig drilled the Donor with a look. “I’m twenty-nine, motherfucker.”

Mailer scooted his backward chair closer to the table. “What is the meeting really about?” He opened his mouth and closed it, as if he wasn’t sure he should share something. “Speaking of Reddit, I probably went a little too deep on a thread last night, but, uh,... there was something about the GM. A member of his family taking over day-to-day operations? Have you guys heard anything about that?”

Sig shot the captain a look to determine if he knew anything, but he looked just as baffled as Sig probably did. “Has anyone met his kids?”

A chorus of nos.

Burgess shrugged. “Probably just a rumor.”

Mailer slapped a hand onto Burgess’s shoulder. “The captain has spoken. It’s hearsay, I daresay.”

“We can only pray,” Corrigan tacked on.

“Oh shit. That was seamless.” They slapped approximately ninety high fives over the table while Burgess and Sig stared at each other, mentally exhausted. “We’re turning into you two right before your very eyes. How does it feel?”

“Demoralizing.” Burgess sighed.

“Guys—” Sig cut himself off when his phone started to vibrate in his pocket. There was only one person who called him, instead of texting, and it was Chloe. Sure enough, her name was scrolling by on the screen, the green circle at the bottom indicating it was a FaceTime call.

Corrigan leaned over. “Who is that?”

“Is it Chloe?” Mailer demanded to know. “Answer and put in a good word for me, man.”

“Sure, I’ll get right on that. Never.”

No way he was having a conversation with Chloe in front of this trio. But the decision was taken out of his hands when Corrigan’s fingers shot out fast and unexpectedly, hitting the button to answer the call. “Chloe!” he shouted in the general direction of the device. “Let’s run away together to Madagascar.”

Mailer wouldn’t be left out. “All three of us. Think of the possibilities.”

Watching Sig’s face, Burgess whistled low under his breath.

Probably because there was a vein the size of a vacuum hose beating in the dead center of his forehead. “Sorry about that, Chlo,” Sig managed through a dry throat, finally looking down into the smiling face of his soon-to-be stepsister. “I’m at a breakfast meeting. Is everything okay?”

“Better than okay. My morning class got canceled because my instructor is sick, so I took Pierre to a dog park. Look!” She flipped the camera around and all he saw was a young man’s smiling face. “Oops, that’s Elton.”

That single sip of smoothie was gurgling in his stomach. “Who the hell is Elton?”

“He’s at the dog park with his bichon frise.” Elton’s chin was no longer in the shot and Chloe was walking around showing Sig the doggie obstacle course, but mentally? Sig was still seeing Elton. “It’s right down the street from my building. Pierre loves it.”

As far as Sig could tell, Pierre was lying still as a statue by the water fountain, no intention of moving ever again as long as he lived.

“Sig,” Chloe started, “how quickly can someone develop separation anxiety?”

“Corrigan gets separation anxiety from Burgess,” Mailer said.

“Shut the fuck up,” Corrigan fired back. “You’re the one who has his rookie card framed on your nightstand.”

“It’s a collector’s item, bitch.”

Elton was back in the shot now, mooning at Chloe. “I don’t like that guy,” Sig said, without thinking. “Is he bothering you?”

“Who?”

“ Elton , Chloe.”

“Oh! No, he’s not bothering me. He asked for my number, but...” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “He’s not really my type, so I told him I’m not interested in a date. But he said that was fine. That our dogs could still hang out!”

A stiletto-wearing demon was using Sig’s brain as a trampoline. “Oh, he just took your number for a dog playdate. That’s what he told you, huh?”

“Yes! I should have gotten a dog before. It’s a great way to make friends.”

Burgess leaned in. “Mute yourself for a sec.”

Sig complied. “What?”

“A bichon frise is a girl’s dog,” Burgess said, tapping his temple with his index finger. “Elton has definitely got a girlfriend or a wife.”

“Genius.” Corrigan wipes an imaginary tear. “Freaking genius.”

Sig’s Adam’s apple was trying to twist its way out of his throat and he’d already started to dig for his keys in his pocket. “You want some company, Chlo?”

“No, I’m fine. I didn’t mean to interrupt your meeting.” She crouched down beside Pierre, scrunching up his face with her left hand and pointing the camera at them both. “Pierre says hello to everyone. He can’t wait to meet the team. Look at the excitement!”

The dog blinked.

Chloe’s laughter rang out.

The Orgasm Donors smiled, obviously, because the sound was perfect and infectious.

“I think I’ll head over there,” Sig said to Chloe while forcing a casual smile. “Practice isn’t until later this afternoon and I want to see the dog park for myself. Looks incredible.”

“It is. It’s right next to a baseball field.” She got distracted by the scenery, the camera filming her throat and a couple strands of blowing blond hair. “I think Elton just finished a rec league game or something...”

“Oh hell no. A baseball player?” spat Corrigan.

Mailer stood up. “Fuck that. We ride. No one’s sister is dating a baseball player.”

Sig jabbed the air with his finger. “For the last time, stop calling her my sister.”

“Whatever she is, she’s keeping it hockey.” Corrigan and Mailer were already walking toward the exit of the smoothie shop. “Let’s fucking go.”

Annoyed or not by their presumed intervention, Sig was already following them. “I can handle this myself,” he growled, once they were out on the sidewalk.

“We’re a team.” Mailer cracked his knuckles. “No one handles anything by themselves.”

“I’m too old for this shit,” Burgess declared, emerging from the shop. “But I’m not missing it, either. Let’s go scare the pants off a goddamn baseball player.”

Mailer frowned. “Isn’t the point to keep his pants on ?”

“You know what I mean.” Burgess sighed, flipping his keys over in his hand. “I’ll drive.”