Chapter Nineteen
Ryker
I let Camille out of the bathroom first, after insisting that I didn’t want her to take care of me. If we were anywhere else, I would’ve let her like she begged me to. Hell, I’ve been fucking my hand with the thought of my cock in her mouth for weeks. Okay, maybe more like a year or two.
But we were already flirting with the boundary, and if we were gone any longer, it would’ve been suspicious.
I check my phone to see that three minutes have passed, which seems like a good amount of time between her returning and me, so I swing the door open, only to come face to face with Travis.
“Why are you so close to the door?” I bark at him.
“I was just about to knock. After Cami returned to the table, I assumed this one was empty.” He smirks. “Apparently not.”
“That’s what happens when there’s a line. I went in after her. Now you’ll go in after me,” I explain to him in a stone-cold voice, tired of this conversation already.
“You think Coach would like to hear that you’re messing around with our social media manager? What about her boss? I’m sure that would get her fired real quick. ”
I bite my tongue and grind my molars together. “Nothing’s going on, so tell them whatever you want.”
“Or I could talk to them about your arrest when you were sixteen.” He cocks his head to the side, knocking the air out of my lungs.
I take a step toward him, anger simmering in my blood. “What did you just say?”
Travis stands straight, trying to intimidate me, but he’s off by a few inches. “An old friend of mine and I reconnected over the summer. We had some beers, nachos, you know, guy stuff.”
My face is blank, giving him nothing as I impatiently wait for him to get the fuck on with it.
“Baseball naturally came up, and my poor friend, you see, he used to play. Used to be great. But the key phrase is used to . Wanna know why?”
Fuck, he knows.
“Turns out a guy named Ryker Lewis broke his pitching arm. He was never able to pitch the same way after it healed.” He sighs, dramatics clearly being his thing. “Sad story, isn’t it?”
I cross my arms over my chest. “It’s not the full story either.”
“The media won’t care. All they will talk about is the up-and-coming rookie who’s a hothead with a record. Good luck making it big after that.”
I was hot-headed, but I didn’t have a record. That’s where he’s wrong. Since I was under eighteen, I wasn’t charged and got let off with community service and anger management classes instead. There was nothing there, yet the fear of him exposing this to the press has my chest feeling tight with pressure.
“What do you want, Travis?”
His smile is saccharine. “Nothing, for now.” Then he walks past me into the bathroom.
I hate that he’s rattling me. If he tells the media about my past, who’s to say they won’t believe it? What happens then? I won’t get drafted because no team will want to sign the hotheaded kid who almost got charged with assault.
It doesn’t matter that I don’t have a record. They’ll focus on what did happen.
That after a high school baseball game I got into it with the other team’s pitcher. We were all at an after-party at someone’s house when I saw him trying to corner Theo’s sister. She kept saying no, and he pushed forward anyway. Theo wasn’t there, so I did what needed to be done.
I didn’t mean to break his arm. It was an accident, but that fucker deserved it nonetheless.
On top of that, Travis has a suspicion about my relationship with Camille. He has no solid proof, so I’m not going to worry about it for now, but it’s a reminder that we need to be careful. Especially if he’s gunning for something to pin me with.
But if he even tries to fuck with Camille’s career or anything that has to do with her, I will gladly break his arm too.
But this time, it won’t be an accident.