CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Whitney
I stare at him and hate the way his muscles ripple every time he gesticulates. He’s tanned, toned and sculpted in such a ridiculous fashion he almost looks photoshopped.
Any other time I might admire his dedication to looking like that.
Right now, not so much.
And by the way he’s staring at me with gritted teeth and a storm brewing in his eyes, he’s feeling much the same way.
Good. He deserves it.
But I’ve just stirred the hornet’s nest, and now I’m going to have to stand in it and survive whatever comes next.
Hopefully good things with a side of a temper tantrum-ing, professional footballer, and not the other way around. Because it doesn’t seem like he’s going to wiggle his way out of this commitment—at least, not according to the texts I’m getting from the footage circulating on social media.
Unbeknownst to any of us, the entire contest was broadcast live over the airways rather than packaged for an obscure spot on the midday or late-night news like I expected.
In the short time since it aired, some low-level soccer academy coach beating Alexander Hardy has gained traction.
“Clearly you have experience playing,” he accuses with a lift of his brows. His arrogance is still being worn like a suit of armor.
“I do own a soccer academy. I hope I know how to play.”
“What do you mean you own it?” He tosses whatever is in his hand in his bag.
“That owner you were insulting? The man I was supposed to go ask if it were okay that I make a bet with you?” I raise my hand and wiggle my fingers. “That would be me.”
He nods slowly as if it’s hitting him that there will be no good ol’ boys club routine he can play with the owner over how he can get out of the repercussions of the bet. “So you’re pissed off I assumed you were a man?”
“No. I’m pissed off because you assumed I couldn’t play.”
“Fine. We’ll go there. Where did you play, then?” he asks with the same snark that got us in this position.
“Here.”
He rolls his eyes. “Uh-huh. Where else?”
“Nowhere.”
“Nowhere?” He laughs. “I find that hard to believe.”
“I was one of the top college prospects until I wasn’t.” I shrug as if the pain isn’t still raw and real and relevant.
It shouldn’t be— I love my life —and yet, it is.
“Care to elaborate?”
No . It’s my immediate response, but it never passes off my tongue. Why do I care that he thinks highly of me? Why do I need him to when I typically don’t care what anyone thinks?
It’s weird to want to swallow your pride and assert it at the same time.
“My knee.” I point down to it. “I blew it out. Total tear of the ACL. Rupture of the meniscus. Fun times.”
His pained expression is genuine, and at least there’s that. Any athlete knows the fear of being injured, but until it happened to me, I had no clue how devastating it would be to have what you love taken away from you.
My mom being taken away was ... brutal.
But having the thing that helped me cope with that loss, the thing that gave me purpose and helped define me yanked away when I got injured? Now, that? That was tenfold.
“I’m sorry,” he says. There’s a nod and a narrowing of his eyes that suggests I might not like what he’s going to say next. “And then what? You just quit after that?”
I open my mouth to say something and then shut it, taken aback by the anger that fires within.
Does he know what it’s like to earn a full-ride soccer scholarship, a chance of a lifetime to lift me out of Glendale, and then suffer a catastrophic injury a week into my senior year of high school? The heartache? The anguish? Having the college’s team of doctors inform you that your surgery failed and then the college rescinded your scholarship offer? Feeling your dreams shatter and slip through your fingers like sand?
There’s no way he could.
“Just quit? No.”
“But you didn’t go to college? You didn’t rehab and go through the paces so you could play? You just gave—”
“Drop it, Hardy.”
“By what I saw today, clearly, you’re a competitor. I don’t understand why you just walked away when you had so much potential.”
Just walked away ? I think those words hurt more than the failed recovery. “What about you, huh? Who the hell are you?”
“Trick question because ...” He smirks and holds up his sweaty jersey in his hands so that H-A-R-D-Y is emblazoned across the back. “Pretty sure this says who I am to anyone who pays attention.”
“Is everything a joke to you, or do you just go through your life from one self-serving, reputation-saving measure to the next?”
He hisses. “Is this your attempt to get mad at me to justify why you have to work at hating me?”
“I assure you, I don’t have to work at it.” It’s so much easier to be mad at him than to face that the reason he’s still standing here, the reason he’ll be standing here for the next thirtyish days, is one hundred percent on me and that competitiveness. Shit .
“And yet you’re in here trying to manufacture an argument because you couldn’t bring yourself to lose over one little comment I made.”
Great. I’m that transparent that even he sees it too.
“You didn’t answer my question.” Dodge and deflect.
“Pretty sure I did.”
“I’m serious. Who are you other than a fuck-off who has gifted feet and too much talent for one’s own good?” He’s unfazed by the brashness of my comment, and I’m not sure if I should heed that as a warning or assume he has tougher skin than mine that is battle tested. Maybe a bit of both.
“Yep. That’s exactly who I am. Nailed that one on the head and you only knew me a few days. That might be a world record.” There’s sarcasm in his voice but there’s also something else. Hurt? Offended? I can’t quite tell.
And now of course, I feel bad and have to try to fix it. My defense mechanism is to turn the tables and go after him. Then I feel like a jerk when I do.
Why is being a woman so hard sometimes? What I’d give to be able to say what I want like he does and it doesn’t affect him at all.
“What I meant was ... you’re obviously great with the kids, but I’ve heard you mutter on more than one occasion that kids aren’t your thing. You say you’re here to get laid—”
He snorts. “I never said that.”
I purse my lips and eye him. “No? I believe you thought you could come here and in doing so win me over and onto my back.”
“I mean ... could you blame me?” He shrugs and smiles.
“So why treat me like your personal assistant all day? Why make ridiculous demands where you’re a jerk of epic proportions one minute and then try and flirt with me the next? I didn’t ask for you to come here. In fact, I told you not to. And I sure as shit didn’t offer up a contest like you did. Make no mistake. While I couldn’t bring myself to lose to you, it’s not because I want you here. Not in the least.”
“C’mon, Whit. You don’t want me here because either you’re afraid of what you feel like when you’re around me or because you’re afraid I’ll upset the kids somehow.”
“Leave it to you to think my every reason is because of you.”
“It is.” He shrugs, and his pecs bounce with the movement.
“Case in point.”
“Fine. I’ll flip the script. I could say the same of you.” He takes a step closer. Close enough that I can see every line of definition on his torso that I’m definitely not looking at. “It’s about a club owner who runs an academy but clearly doesn’t know what the hell she’s doing. It’s about a woman with come fuck me eyes who wants me so bad she was willing to make her students do without my instruction because she can’t fight the damn feeling and refuses to give in to what she wants. Me .” He points emphatically at himself and his biceps jump at the motion.
Of course, they do.
“Even in that statement, you managed to turn it around so that it’s about you.” I shake my head. “Unbelievable.”
“Says the woman who studied me all day but then gets quiet and averts her eyes when she notices me catching her looking.”
“Put a shirt on.”
“Says the woman who waltzed into the locker room and interrupted me in the middle of changing. Good thing I wasn’t in the middle of taking a shower.”
“Thank God for that.” For so many reasons . “But the discussion needed to be had.”
He angles his head to the side and studies me in a way that both unnerves me and gets under my skin.
“Of course it did, just like you need to admit why you’re so very mad at me for simply being me. Attractive. Sexy—”
“Annoying.”
“Charming.”
“Irritating.”
“A god on thepitch and in the sa—”
“A mediocre athlete whose ego is going to ruin his career,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest and giving a definitive nod.
“Well, you sure told me. And now that we have that settled,” he says and steps out of his shorts so that he’s left wearing a very tight pair of boxer briefs that leave absolutely nothing to the imagination. Not the ample size of his cock. Not the ridge of its head that’s visible against the fabric. Not the firmness of his thighs that tests the bands of the underwear in them. Jesus . “Can you please leave?”
“Why? Do you have a problem with being confronted?”
“Not in the least. I just figured you’d want to leave before I stripped off the rest of my clothes.”
I stand there staring at him, a tad dumbfounded and at a loss for words. Unbeknownst to me, he takes my lack of response the completely wrong way.
“Okay then.” He starts to pull down his underwear. “Never pegged you for that kind of girl, but—”
“No. Stop. You’re ... NO ,” I screech when they dip even farther down.
He throws his head back and laughs, but my eyes drift to where his fingers are hooked in his waistband with the hint of a happy trail that leads beneath.
“You’re impossible, Lucky Shot.”
My head whips up and I do a double take. While he may have used the term earlier, it was in reference to my actual shot. But now he’s using it as a nickname like he knows about it. I haven’t heard it in years, and it momentarily stuns me. It must be the look on my face that has his expression fall.
“What? Did I say something wrong?”
“No. You ... didn’t. Just ... it’s fine. It’s nothing.” He’s the reason I’m here right now, fighting with Alexander Hardy. “Funny how life is sometimes, you know?”
“Whitney?” He takes a few steps toward me, brows narrowed.
“Like I said. It’s nothing.”
“Okay.” He draws the word out and then smiles. “So what time should I be here tomorrow?”
I groan. I did this to myself, didn’t I?
“Don’t be,” I say.
“You think you just caused that entire spectacle, and now I can walk away without more severe repercussions from my management and the MLS? I don’t believe that will go over well at all. Babe, you just fucked us both.” He lifts his eyebrows. “What time?”
“Never,” I say, needing to at least pretend I’m in control, as I turn and head for the door.
“See?”
I look over my shoulder at the picture being painted of him—his strikingbeauty against the stark, peeling cinderblock walls.
Keep walking, Whitney.
Lust isn’t something you can afford to give into when it comes to him.
“See, what?” I ask.
He flashes a brighter-than-the-sunshine grin. “You do want me.”
“Oh, please.”
But I storm off with an exasperated smile on my lips and the nickname Lucky Shot repeating in my head.