Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Who wouldn’t want to Peter, Paul, and Mary with you two?”
BEAU
“What the fuck is this?”
I hear Armageddon start before it begins.
Outside my glass bedroom doors, Amber stands with fists on her waist. She’s staring down at Blair and Colt, who fell asleep on their loungers.
I loved watching Blair get to know him and making him laugh. I wasn’t jealous. I was relieved.
It hurts Colt and me that we can’t be together, and mostly, it’s my fault. I have to constantly remind him to think with his head, not his heart.
Our careers are over if we’re outed.
And we didn’t work this hard and sacrifice this much; our families, too, with his mom sacrificing the most, to give it all up.
But at least I can share every reason I adore Blair with Colt, too. She can make him laugh when I can’t.
But now?
Amber’s not laughing.
And Blair’s not her bitch.
“Good morning,” Blair answers Amber. “Is there a tragic problem? Did your mascara flake?”
Amber weaves her neck. “You’re sleeping with my boyfriend, you fluffy bitch!”
Blair jumps to her feet, and oh fuck!
I yank my door open, rushing outside, but it’s too late.
Blair’s locked and unloading.
“Hey, Amber, since they don’t sell ‘em at Sephora, let me give you some BOGO enlightened thoughts for free.” She points west. “That’s the fucking ocean that sustains human life, not your soul-shitting tea. And that’s the fucking sun rising.” She points east. “And it ain’t to illuminate your bleached asshole.” She circles her middle finger. “And this entire planet turns whether you post about your laminated brows or not. And he,” she points to Colt, “can sleep wherever he goddamn pleases, and last night, it was by his new friend, a black and white fluffy Jessica Rabbit who will fuck your rejuvenated cunt up if you step to me again.”
“You little bitch—” Amber moves to leap on Blair, who’s drawing her fist back to greet her face, but Colt jumps up, his expert hands knowing how to block a tackle.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” He’s half-laughing, keeping them apart while I join him.
“Settle down, ladies.” I’m half-laughing, too, wrapping around Blair and scooting her back. “You turn me on when you’re feisty.”
“Shut up,” she growls. “I’m gonna choke her on a make-up brush.”
“Fuck you, you gothic creep!” Amber shouts at Blair. “Like my man would ever be interested in Casper the Cunty Ghost.”
“Well,” Blair starts laughing, “at least you know about alliteration. Did you learn that from a box of beige, brown, and buff bronzers from Hermès?”
Colt snorts, holding Amber back, but it’s like he doesn’t want to touch her. “I’m not your man anymore, Amber.” His voice is calm. “We’ll both be happier that way, and it’s time for you to leave.”
“But, but,” she stammers, “I’m your date to the ESPYs. I’ve already bought my dress and told my followers.”
“I’m sure they’ll find a way to survive the devastation and so will you.” He pulls away, his arms still guarding Blair, though she’s safe and squirming like a snow leopard in my grasp. “I’m sure you’ll find your perfect match, Amber,” Colt reasons with her. “It just ain’t me.”
“So what? It’s her now?” Amber points at Blair. “She’s your match?”
“No, she’s mine!” I shout before I can stop myself, so I don’t. “Blair’s mine and this is between you two, not us. Come on.” I wrap my arm around Blair, tugging her toward my room.
She follows, muttering, “Will he be okay with her?”
“He’s a very big boy,” I assure her. “He’s fine.”
I guide her through my glass doors, then slide them closed behind us.
“So, Bronson?” Blair turns, her gaze combing my body, and that’s when I remember, glancing down, that I slept nude. I still am. “I’m suddenly yours now?”
There’s a war in my chest over Blair, but my dick has already declared victory, raising its flag. “For nine more days, you are.”
“And then what? I’d be a distraction again?”
“You’d be something to me, that’s for sure.”
“So all this.” She gestures down my rousing physique, my muscles about to unleash. “I’m yours now because you’re jealous over seeing me sleep beside your hot best friend?”
What did she just ignite in me?
Images of our three bodies wrapped together in bed—her sucking Colt. Then I help her, our kiss meeting over the swollen tip of his cock. Me fucking her, while he’s fucking me and her….
Holy fuck, I swell so fast I get dizzy.
“Oh, Kitten, jealousy is not what I feel when I see you with Colt. He’s the only man I won’t kill if he touches you. Tell me if I’m lying.” Her eyes get wide because I let her see mine narrow with lust, my hardening cock very convincing. “I want the three of us together,” I confess. “A lot.”
Blair licks her bottom lip before snagging it between her teeth.
I know that look, her hidden desire. The last time I saw it, I had her tied down and blindfolded, about to fulfill her secret fantasy with a huge, blue alien cock sheath on my dick.
“You’d love our threesome, too?” I lick my lips. “Wouldn’t you, Kitten?”
“I’m celibate, not insane,” she answers. “Who wouldn’t want to Peter, Paul, and Mary with you two?”
“Marry? Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
But why does that suddenly sound like my wildest dream come true? To marry Blair? To marry Colt? To figure out some impossible way we could work?
She rolls her eyes. “Check your massive ego and erection, Bronson. Yes, I want to fuck you again. We can get all kinds of kinky together. Tell me if I’m lying. Tell me I don’t make your eyes roll, your toes curl, and your thighs shake, your mind all dizzy when I make you come so hard, grunting my name.”
Fuck, she’s doing it to me now.
“But I’m no one’s distraction, Beau,” she insists. “I deserve devotion. Or, I’ll date a dozen dildos instead.”
Blair’s words bounce through my brain all morning while I try to focus on my job.
Amber was successfully escorted off the island by Coach and Colt.
I wanted to video her bitching, stumbling departure in heels down the dock. It’d make great inspo content for her followers on how to make an ass of yourself. But Colt gave me a look that promised murder, so I was content to raise a cup of coffee to her water taxi.
Blair did it, too, before she put on a distracting red bikini, scooped up her laptop, and settled under a sunshade sail by the pool.
Our first morning session with Dr. Gary opens with formalities. Coach kisses his ass, thanking him for his time.
I don’t dislike this guru guy. He’s got a PhD. I respect him but don’t believe he’ll do any good until he says, “Coach, I invite you to enjoy your vacation while I do my sessions with Bronson and Hawke alone.”
Coach clears his throat. “Of course, whatever it takes.” But he doesn’t miss a chance to aim his water bottle at us, sitting side-by-side on the sofa, warning, “Be honest, or be benched.”
Then he leaves, waving goodbye to Blair before the next water taxi whisks him away.
“Now,” Dr. Gary studies us like we’re sitting in his office, “you two have mastered the game on the gridiron. Your stats prove it. That’s not why we’re here. We’re here to master the game in your mind.”
He pauses, and I swear he’s a microscope lens burning into me. I wonder if Colt feels it as well because Dr. Gary waits way too long to speak again, and I start squirming, making sure my bare leg isn’t brushing Colt’s. We’re big men. We spread our legs when we sit, but hell no, I can’t touch him.
When I touch Colt’s body, I can’t control mine.
No one but Blair can know about us.
I glance past the screen on the narrow wall to the sunny outside, and smile, seeing Blair content, typing away on her laptop, and that’s when Dr. Gary asks the multi-billion dollar question.
“Where was your mind, your focus in the last five minutes of the Super Bowl?”
“I can’t remember,” Colt answers too quickly.
“I don’t think,” I automatically reply, “I just play.”
But the tense topic makes Colt adjust his swim trunks, and on instinct, I mimic him. And, like fuck if this doctor dude doesn’t clock our tension, too.
“Alright then,” he eases. “Let’s start there. Today, you’ll remember. Write in your journal everything you recall from the morning before the Super Bowl until the final second.”
“The day before or the day of?” Colt lets it slip, and I try not to roll my eyes.
“Interesting,” Dr. Gary replies. “Did something happen the day before?”
“Nothing that hasn’t happened before.” Colt doesn’t lie.
Sorta.
“Well, let’s start there,” Dr. Gary answers. “Write it down, from the morning of the day before the game to the final second—all of it, even what you ate. Then, take screenshots of your journal and text them to me by 2 p.m. I’ll compare the two and report back.”
“What are you looking for?” I’m afraid he can read between the lines of our lie.
“I’m not looking,” he answers. “You are. Try to see where your mind was at the time. Then we’ll talk about where it should be and how to get it there.”
After a few pleasantries, I click the remote, turning off our video conference.
The sound of gentle waves and our pained silence fills the warm, salty air, and I toss my head back, feeling so fucked.
“How do we do this?” I ask aloud, not expecting Colt to answer.
But he does. “We’ll be honest.”
“Honest outs us.”
“I trust him.”
“I don’t trust anyone.”
“That’s your problem.”
“I got more problems than that.”
“Well,” Colt surges to his feet, “don’t let me keep being one.”
I jump up, too. “What the fuck is your problem?”
“The same one for years!” We stand almost nose-to-nose while Colt shouts, “I love you, and you love me! We always have, but it’s always been a problem for you, while for me, it’s the solution.”
“Solution?” I shout back. “We’re NFL players! We don’t get to be anything but all-American and all-straight!”
“So what? So if we’re bi, we die? You make it sound like a death sentence.”
“Death sentence, no.” I clench my fists. “But a distraction, yes.”
He rolls his eyes. “You and your fucking distractions.”
“You wanna see a fucking distraction?” I snarl. “Let every player on our team know, including the coaching staff, our owner, the management, the staff. Oh, they’ll say they support us. Legally, they have to. But every subtle fucking way they’ll ice us out, or judge, or joke? It’ll fuck with our heads until all we see are phobic distractions. And you know I’m right. I’m sorry, but I am!”
And I fucking hate it, so I gotta bail.
I grab my dumbass journal and pen, then I grab a spot on a lounger on the far side of the pool and get so damn real with my memory. With everything. Even Colt sleeping in the bed with me, but not that.
Not that I love him, too.