Hard to Break (Denver Kodiaks #3)

1. Brooke

1

brOOKE

T he back passenger window of the Range Rover sticks to my neck. My jacket is bunched at the small of my back.

A cramp threatens to seize my calf, which is trapped awkwardly against the seat.

The tension I’m most aware of is the one deep in my stomach, thrumming between my thighs.

“Listen to me, Brooke. This thing is going to detonate in your face.” My mom’s voice over the phone line carries a hint of static.

I try to shift, less than half my brain on the conversation because a six-four-and-a-half pro basketball player is on top of me with one hand tangled in my hair and the other spanning my ass. His lips trail lazily down my throat like it’s his job and he’s getting paid by the minute.

This wasn’t the plan exactly. I didn’t start today with “steamy sweat session in the parking garage of Kodiaks Arena” on my Bingo card, but I can’t seem to shut it down.

“We need to do damage control,” Mom goes on.

She might as well be on another planet.

Miles drags my sweater up above my breasts. My hips lift to help him, providing the most delicious friction. He hisses out a breath and looks up at me with devious blue eyes before ducking back to kiss a line up my stomach.

“Blame Kevin,” I say into the phone. “He started it.”

Ow! Smooth lips are replaced by sharp teeth in a fleeting warning.

Guess Miles doesn’t like hearing Kevin’s name.

My ex in college not only cheated on me and left cocaine in my room for my sorority sisters to find, but he’d put the blame on me. Miles, acting out of loyalty to my brother, had beaten the crap out of Kevin and told him never to come near me again.

Evidently, Kevin’s memory is wearing off, because he thinks he isn’t done with me—or with Miles.

Miles Garrett has loomed large in my life for years. Back in college, I wasn’t that into basketball players, but my brother’s friend was different. Sure, he was gorgeous. Tall, with sparkling blue eyes that seemed to laugh at himself as much as at you. But he was also the guy you’d want to have your back.

My brother trusted him. His teammates did.

When you were with him, you felt accepted.

Right now, “accepted” isn’t what springs to mind as his fingers trace beneath the waistband of my pants, the friction lighting up my nerves with want.

Miles’s thumb rubs across the button, and I arch to get closer.

He smells like his shower, clean and addictive.

“It’s not that simple.” Mom’s still there, trying to tell me something. “What matters is the story, what people perceive.”

It’s hard to think anything is genuinely terrible when Miles’s fingers are deftly working free the button on my pants, unzipping my fly.

“People don’t need a story if they have the truth,” I manage.

The truth is, Kevin was waiting for Miles to get to the Kodiaks’ arena last night. While Miles did hit Kevin, it was only after Kevin goaded him, baited him, and threw the first punch. Miles had been doing his best to avoid a confrontation. Dozens of bystanders with phones caught it.

“And yet every piece of footage only shows Miles Garrett, pro basketball player, hitting an upstanding community member.”

New tension has my stomach flexing.

I hate the thought of the world being persuaded once again of Kevin’s side of the story. This time, it’s not only me at risk.

It’s Miles. He’s having the season of his career so far, and he doesn’t just want it—he needs it. He has people he’s looking out for, like his Grams.

After we got home, he was still edgy, still angry. I asked him what Kevin had confronted him with and he wouldn’t confide in me. When he fell asleep, he was restless.

It’s easy to forget he has any vulnerabilities when he’s big and strong, filling the car, his oversized thumb pressing into my hip.

“We’ll handle it.” I sound confident. Years of rehearsing will do that for you.

“Will you?” Mom scoffs. A car door slams somewhere in the VIP parking section. She doesn’t approve, which I can bolster myself against, but it’s her disbelief that it could ever work that feeds my own doubt.

We’ve only just come out publicly and the Kodiaks were at each other’s throats. They brokered a truce for the sake of the team. We’re in uncharted waters.

Miles’s fingers slip between my legs, playing through the thin fabric of my thong. Pleasure floods me like the sweetest drug.

“You’re not in love with him, are you?” Mom demands.

Her words make my breath catch.

I can’t remember wanting to be somewhere that he isn’t, getting through an entire day without joking with him, how I ever stayed warm an entire winter in Denver without those blazing eyes setting my soul on fire.

Is that love?

Does it change everything if it is?

“I have to go,” I manage.

“He’s not ready for what’s going to happen,” she warns. “And he’ll drag you down with him.”

The idea of him losing everything is a sharper pain than anything from the cramp in my leg or the nip of his teeth.

I click off, dropping the phone onto the seat and blowing a piece of hair out of my face. “My mom says hi.”

Miles pulls away to look down at me, eyes crinkling. “That all she said? You don’t normally grind your teeth when I’m trying to fuck you.”

Since we started this thing, we haven’t put words to our feelings. It’s still new even though I’ve known Miles for years. He’s been part of my world for what feels like forever but always on the periphery. Teasing and taunting.

Miles cares, but that’s different from having someone by your side to see you through the worst times, and the best ones.

Before I can respond, his phone goes off too.

“Chloe,” we say at the same time.

“You have to go,” I say.

He curses. “Pick this up later?”

I’m as reluctant as he is. It’s almost as if we can forget our problems if we’re touching.

But there going to be fallout. We’ll have to deal with it.

“Is there anything you want to tell me about the fight?” I ask.

I haven’t been able to kick the feeling that something is wrong since yesterday before the game. Like Miles has been holding out on me.

He blinks. “No. Your mom didn’t have anything else to say?”

I replay her words in my mind. “Nothing.” I press a quick kiss to his mouth. “Good luck.”

MILES

“I rescheduled a root canal for this, and you know what? I’d rather be at the dentist,” James declares.

The owner of the Kodiaks occupies the head of the conference table. His hands are steepled, fingers manicured.

I’m on the side near the window, Chloe two seats down. At the other end of the table, opposite James, is Harlan, the GM.

I got called to the principal’s office a handful of times in high school. The first was for a prank we pulled on our coach. Another time was for arguing with a teacher. In both instances, Grams listened to me vent about it and smiled at me after.

The third time, Grams wasn’t smiling. She told me I knew better and gave me a talking to and reminded me what was at stake—my future.

I always got what it meant to have a future even if I didn’t have a clear picture of it in my mind. I wanted my life to be better—to be accepted, to know where I fit and have people who had my back no matter what.

“I hope we all know why we’re here.” James is really taking this principal thing to heart, only it’s impossible to forget the stakes are far higher than a suspension.

“We’re here because some deluded fan picked a fight with our starting shooting guard,” Chloe weighs in.

I cut her a grateful look.

Going into this, I wasn’t sure where the battle lines lay. I might not be a strategist like Brooke, but I know enough to realize that’s what this meeting is—a battle.

Is it possible the head of PR is on my side?

“That’s not what’s all over the internet.” James pulls out his phone, scrolling through whatever’s on his screen. If it’s possible, his frown deepens. “The accusations are damaging.”

Harlan clears his throat. “What’s most important is the record of this basketball team. We’re here to win games.”

“You have the luxury of caring about the record. I have to care about the name.” James jerks out of his chair and paces the front of the room.

Fifty bucks says he kicks the trash can by the door .

The voice in my head might be cracking jokes, but this is serious. The Kodiaks won a championship last year and our chance to win another is slipping through our fingers. I didn’t need to read the sports news today to see our seventh-place ranking, down in recent weeks thanks to me and Jay fighting, and now Kevin decides to vent his frustrations in my face on the team’s doorstep.

It’s not a good look for us.

Growing up with my parents splitting and letting me fall through the cracks of their bitter war taught me not to take relationships for granted.

Through hard work and luck, my life became a regular rotation of games and practices, hanging with my guys, spending time with whatever girls were easy to be around when I wanted it. Now, every part of my existence has been dialed up.

Basketball. My family.

Brooke.

I moved her in with me when she needed to save some cash while she was building her own career because I knew firsthand what it felt like to need someone and not have them there.

The weeks I spent trying to resist her up close after years of doing it from a distance were pure torture.

Now, I wake up with Brooke beside me, getting to hold her, to laugh with her, to touch her. Feeling wanted, accepted.

It’s new.

It’s addictive.

She’s the best part of my world and I hold my breath as if I’m waiting for it all to shatter.

There’s a knock at the door, and Jay walks in. “Sorry I’m late.”

I straighten in my chair at my friend and team captain’s appearance.

He scans the table and the available seats. It’s only a second but feels like a year before he chooses one near Harlan.

Who invited him—Harlan? James? Maybe even Chloe?

“We’re here to decide how to move forward in the wake of the assault in front of the arena,” James goes on.

“On Miles,” Chloe says smoothly.

“Excuse me?” James’s eyes narrow, but Chloe only taps her pencil on her tablet.

“If there was an assault, it was on Miles.”

“None of the security cameras had an angle that would show that, and oddly, none of the fan videos do either.”

“Then if we can’t prove it, we call it an altercation.”

James curses. “The other man could lay charges.”

“He won’t,” I cut in.

He turns to me for what feels like the first time. “How do you know?”

Because I know what he did back in college.

“I just know.”

“Well, thank you, Garrett, for bringing your crystal fucking ball to the meeting.”

“He could have already. He hasn’t.” Harlan’s answer is more defensible. “But we have to respond somehow.”

“We close ranks.” Chloe spreads her hands. “Miles Garrett is our all-star candidate. We support him. We put out a team statement saying we don’t condone what happened, particularly on team property, but he didn’t start it. It ended promptly with the help of security before the police arrived. Anyone who was there can vouch for him.”

“That’s up for discussion.” James stops pacing next to the window.

“Which part?” she asks.

“The all-star part.”

His words suck the oxygen from the room.

Getting the nod from my team was an honor I never expected but appreciated more than I could say. If the Kodiaks withdraw their support, formally or informally, there goes my chance of getting to represent the organization—a chance that’s supposed to be announced in the next few days.

My sponsorship deal was inked on the assumption that I’d get seriously considered, if not selected. If the Kodiaks back away, my sponsor will cut ties. The security I want for Grams could evaporate. Everything I’ve been building since I started in the league, since I started playing basketball, could come crashing down.

“Second option—we distance ourselves from this.” James’s gaze lands on me, and I take “this” to mean “me.” “Garrett is on leave pending a full investigation where he puts his fucking head down and does not appear on the court or the property or otherwise in anything with a Kodiaks logo on it until we are well and fully satisfied this ‘altercation’ was a mistake.”

Every cell of my body hurts. It’s partly the idea of losing the chance to be an all-star, but more than that, being ripped from my team—the guys, the routines, the job. It’s who I am. It’s my family.

Harlan shifts in his seat. “We can spin ourselves around in circles trying to protect the image of this team, but the team’s value comes not from a spotless reputation, but from winning. We finish tenth in the standings, no one cares how clean our noses are.”

I’m usually the guy who breaks up fights, not starts them. The one who keeps the peace, and right now, we need some peace.

“I get that you’re concerned,” I interject. “And if I made things worse for the Kodiaks, I apologize. It won’t happen again.”

James grunts. “It’s a little late. The best way to move forward cleanly is to distance ourselves from this. An assault—altercation—with a fan?—”

“He wasn’t a fan,” Jay cuts in for the first time. Every head swivels toward him. “He’s a grade-A asshole.”

James consults his phone again, his expression doubtful. “Ivy League law school. Multigenerational family firm. Doesn’t exactly scream troublemaker.”

“Not everything worth knowing is on the internet,” Jay responds evenly.

Chloe blinks at him in surprise.

Since he found out about me and Brooke, our relationship has been rocky. We agreed to put the worst of it aside to finish out the season, but it’s no sure thing that he’d have my back now.

James looks around the faces at the table. I always pictured him as a rich kid who grew up with expensive tastes and a craving for the spotlight. More often than not, guys like that are the ones who decide our fates.

I can see the moment he realizes he’s outnumbered.

“Draft the release,” he barks to Chloe. “It was a misunderstanding. The parties were known to one other. It has been settled, and Garrett has since apologized for his role.”

I exhale the air I’ve been holding in for what feels like an hour.

My hand under the table relaxes a little.

There’s nothing to fight.

James is out the door in a second, Harlan a few moments later.

“Thanks, man,” I say to Jay.

He jerks his chin. “Yeah.”

The friendship we had is still a long way from being healed. I wish I knew how to fix it.

Chloe reaches for her phone. “Well played.” She nods to me, but her gaze lingers on Jay. “Both of you.”

Jay doesn’t smile. “Don’t get too excited. Like we agreed, the team needs Garrett if we’re going to make the playoffs, and Kevin’s a piece of shit.” He rises from his seat.

“Miles? We’re going to need evidence.” Our head of PR gathers her things, tucking folders and tablets under one arm.

I frown. “Of what?”

Chloe pauses at the door, turning smoothly. “Your apology to Kevin.”