Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Chelsea
“Are you sure about this?” I slid into the passenger seat of Atlas’ truck and clicked my seatbelt into place. “I don’t want the other guys making trouble for you.” I’d told them exactly what was going on tonight. They weren’t happy, but I’d made it as clear to Storm and Dallas as I had to Frost. The choice was mine. At some point, that might bite me in the ass, but I was going to enjoy the evening, and Atlas’ company. In the end, it was Frost who insisted they let me go. With a silent promise of more good times.
Atlas clicked his own seatbelt and started the engine. “Nothing I can’t handle. Those pricks can’t dish out any shit I haven’t seen before.” He glanced over and gave me a grin that did things to my pulse rate. His face was still bruised, which only added to his charm. Being attractive must be a requirement for playing for the Smashers.
He pushed a few stray curls off his forehead and turned his attention to navigating the streets of Dusk Bay.
“I can’t decide if you’re saying they’re unoriginal or if people have been shitty to you in the past,” I said after a couple of minutes of silence.
He didn’t respond for a moment. When he did, he said, “Both.” He accompanied the word with a small shrug. “It comes with the territory. Old team, new team, whatever.”
“You didn’t get along with your former teammates?” Until now, it hadn’t occurred to me that might be the case.
“Only Jay,” he said. Again with a shrug. “I’m not the easiest person to get along with.”
“You seem nice enough to me,” I said.
“Tell you a secret?” he said.
“Of course.” If he wanted to trust me with anything, no one would hear it from me. Fuck knows I had plenty of my own. Leaving a woman hanging by chains in my brother’s workroom was only the most recent.
“I’m the youngest of six,” he said. “The only boy. Dad left when I was two. Since then, I get along with women better than men.”
“How many times did they dress you up as a fairy princess?” I asked.
He ended a longer silence with the words, “Too many.”
“So you took up football.” One of the most brutal sports a person could play.
He let out a frustrated sigh. “Two of my sisters played. They got me into it.”
“That’s kinda sweet,” I said.
He glanced over at me and grimaced. “Yeah, exactly. Assholes on my team used to call me Princess Atlas. I got them back by punching them in the face.”
“How old were you?” I asked.
“About eight. Don’t know how I didn’t get kicked off the team.”
Now I was picturing eight-year-old Atlas, a head full of curls, running around the footy field, taking swings at the other kids.
“I bet you were a handful,” I said.
He glanced over again and grinned. “Babe, I’ve always been a handful.”
I glanced down at his groin. “I’m sure you are.” He certainly looked like it.
“Happy to show you any time.” He pulled the truck onto the highway and drove for a few more minutes before pulling into a parking lot beside a small deserted beach.
“Isn’t this private property?” I glanced around before I followed him out of the truck.
“Yep.” He opened the back of the truck and pulled out a blue, plastic cooler. As long as his arm and almost as wide, it looked heavy. He made it seem effortless as he carried it to the beach, only the bulging of his biceps giving away the effort.
He lowered the cooler to the sand beside an unlit fire. He opened it, grabbed out a blanket and flicked it open.
He gestured for me to sit, before crouching beside the fire to get it started with a gas lighter. In moments, he had flames dancing, warming the cool evening.
“Let me guess, you own the place,” I said.
He glanced over at me as he tossed the lighter back into the cooler. “Yep. The beach and the ten acres around us.” He snatched up a couple of sticks that lay in the sand and took sausages out of the cooler. He speared the sticks through the centre of each sausage and handed one to me.
“I’ve never been big on fancy restaurants. Too many people watching you, curious about what you’re doing.” He sat beside me and dangled his sausage amongst the flames.
I followed his lead, watching carefully so I didn’t burn mine.
“I’ve noticed that,” I said. Had he had run-ins with Belinda? Chances were, he had. People like her got around. Until they didn’t. “Any regrets about going pro?”
“Only that one. Being scrutinised sucks." He turned his sausage to cook the other side. “And having to put up with dickheads like Storm Keller.” He glanced back in the direction of the road, as if expecting the fullback to appear and try to whisk me away.
“Storm isn’t so bad.” I turned my own sausage. “But this is nice.” The fire was warm enough to fend off the rapidly cooling air. The flames reflected off the waves, making them dance as they rolled onto the sand.
“I don’t usually bring people here,” Atlas said quietly. “I wanted us to go where we wouldn’t be disturbed. By anyone.”
“Are you talking about paparazzi, your teammates or both?” I asked, although I knew the answer. I got the impression he hadn’t had many male friends growing up. Like there were things girls only talked to other girls about, there must have been things boys kept between themselves. Not having that must have been difficult.
“Both,” he agreed. “Are they going to give you shit about going out with me?”
I responded the way he had. “Nothing I can’t handle. I’m seeing all three of them, but we’re not exclusive.”
“But you will be.” He pulled his sausage out of the flames, inspected it before plunging it back in.
“I might be,” I said. “Not with only one of them.”
He looked at me in surprise and almost dropped his stick. He grabbed it at the last moment and turned his sausage around. “You’re planning on having a long-term relationship with more than one of them?”
“Have you seen them?” I asked, joking lightly. “How could I choose one?”
“No idea,” he said dryly. “I don’t know how you could choose any of them.”
“You want me to choose you?” I kept the same joking tone, but I was curious. We hardly knew each other, but he was willing to insert himself into an already complicated situation. Most guys wouldn’t. There was definitely more to the inside centre than I previously suspected.
“If I was you, I’d choose me,” he said evasively. “What happens if you want me and them?”
“Then you have to learn to get along with each other,” I said bluntly. “I’m a lover, not a mediator.” I decided my sausage was cooked and pulled it out of the fire. It was perfectly black on the outside. The smell made my mouth water.
Atlas handed me a couple of slices of bread and a bottle of tomato sauce. I squeezed on a big dollop before handing the bottle back to him and taking a bite.
“Mmm, so good.” The fire gave the meat a smoky flavour that only made it more delicious.
Atlas bit into his and nodded. “Nothing like food cooked on a fire.” Holding his in one hand, he reached into the cooler for a couple of beers. He opened both with his teeth and spat the lids aside, before handing one to me.
“Lucky I’m your doctor, not your dentist.” I nodded my thanks and swallowed down a gulp.
“Is that your goal?” he asked. “Team doctor for the Smashers?”
“Yeah, it is,” I said. There was no point in not answering honestly.
“Why them… Us?” he quickly corrected. “Why not the Devils? Or any other team? Why rugby?”
“Dusk Bay is my home,” I said. “And I might be obsessed with rugby players… I mean, rugby.” I grinned before taking another bite of my sausage.
“I think you meant the first one,” he teased. His expression quickly turned intense. His moods seem to change like the flick of a switch. Light one moment, dark and brooding in the next. If he wasn’t careful, he’d give me whiplash. “What do I have to do to make you obsessed with me?”
“Do you have marshmallows in that cooler?” I peered over but couldn’t see inside.
“If marshmallows are all it’ll take, I’ll buy you a truck full.” Flames flickered in his golden eyes. His mischievous side was back, for now.
“I don’t need a truck full,” I said. “It’ll take more than marshmallows to impress me anyway. They’d be a good start, though.” I didn’t mind surrendering to my sweet tooth once in a while. Especially if it took my mind off Belinda, wondering if she was still alive. If she hadn’t harassed me and the guys, she might have enjoyed toasting marshmallows on the beach with someone. There was no doubt in my mind she was regretting that life choice, if she was still breathing. If she wasn’t, I didn’t want to know what my brother did with her. The less I knew, the better. As long as he kept me out of it. No one would ever know I was involved.
“Only a Neanderthal or an idiot would take a woman to a beach with a fire and not bring marshmallows,” Atlas said. “Of course I brought those.”
Before I could say anything else, he added, “Growing up with five women, they made sure I wasn’t oblivious. I just give the impression I’m a massive meathead.”
“There’s definitely more to you than meets the eye, Atlas Underwood. You have me intrigued.” I meant that. His switches of mood and seeing the real him after what the guys said, were fascinating. I suspected there was a good guy under the tough exterior.
“You have me intrigued too, Doctor Chelsea Miller,” he told me. “Did you always want to be a doctor?”
“More or less,” I said. “Once I realised I wasn’t going to make it as a rugby player myself. Or a soccer player. Or a swimmer. The only things I was ever good at were dancing, and healing people.” I looked over at him.
“Is that what you’re doing?” he asked softly. “Healing me?” If he knew about the kind of dancing I used to do, he gave no indication. Either he didn’t know, or he knew and didn’t care. I suspected it was the former. Most guys couldn’t help themselves when they knew I took my clothes off for money. He might be that restrained, but I suspected not.
“I don’t think you’re as broken as you think you are,” I told him.
“No?” He looked sceptical. “I could be more broken than I think I am. Which is only slightly less broken than Storm Keller.”
“I think he’d consider that a compliment,” I remarked. Storm seemed to get off on his own brokenness. Revelled in it. He claimed he owned me and never backed down from that. Never had a moment of indecision or regret. He didn’t care how fucked up it was. I was his, that was that.
Atlas snorted just as he was about to take a sip of beer, making the bottle whistle. “Not even a little bit surprised. He likes being an asshole. The second he knew the Smashers signed me and Jay, he decided to make life hell for us. He can’t fucking help himself.”
“What about you?” I asked bluntly. “Did you take your frustration at the transfer out on him and the other guys?”
“Yep,” Atlas said with no hesitation. “I did, and so did Jay. I wasn’t going to pretend I was fucking happy about it. I’m not.”
“If the Devils were able to take you back, would you go?” I asked.
Now he hesitated. “A week ago, I wouldn’t have answered that. I would have been too busy packing already. Now…”
“What’s changed?” I asked.
“I met you,” he said.