Chapter 73
ACE
“Renfro, Palamo. You’re on media pit tonight.” Coach snaps his fingers and gives us a jerk of his chin to follow after him out of the locker room.
My shirt immediately feels three sizes too small. I run a finger around the inside of my collar and swallow the wedge forming in my throat.
“Hey, I’ll do the talking. You just scowl at the camera.
” Connor is an oversized puppy, bounding into me with all the rampant adrenaline and enthusiasm of that match-winning try still pumping through his bloodstream.
“You always look so pretty when you scowl, princess.” He bumps a solid shoulder against mine as we make our way out of the lockers.
“Says the guy who kisses his own reflection in the mirror every morning.” My brows furrow and jaw tightens.
Having to do press interviews after a match is like having to deal with a room full of roaches.
My skin crawls at the prospect of having to deal with them at every turn.
Coach knows just how much I hate to do this shit, but with it being my first match back after an injury layoff, I knew it would be inevitable.
And no prizes for guessing just how much they’re creaming themselves over the opportunity to parade Connor in front of the cameras after he scored that match-winner.
I don’t know how he did it. The guy had jets strapped to his boots while the rest of us were staggering around, practically out on our feet.
We walk in to scattered applause and excited chatter. Coach makes a couple of jokes with his favorite journalists who have been covering the Wolves team for years since he retired from playing himself.
And it happens in the usual blur. Every single face in the room clamors for attention, or at the very least, the opportunity to get their ask in first. My brain is full with the sequence of rapid-fire questions peppered Connor’s way.
I try to keep up but lose the train of conversation pretty quickly.
Particularly when I drift into the act of scanning the room, keeping an eye out for that smug motherfucker who cornered Wren before her heat.
Fortunately, he’s nowhere to be seen.
“… reclaimed the number thirteen jersey?”
The room goes silent enough to hear a pin drop. Connor is right there beside me, filling up half the room in the way his personality tends to do, and his thigh nudges harder against mine underneath the table.
“Are you sure you’ve got the right question there?
” Connor chuckles, taking over for me, and presses his meaty thigh firmer against mine until our knees touch.
“Don’t you mean that Ace Palamo was kind enough to let someone else keep his jersey warm for a minute?
Because I know you wouldn’t be hinting that he needed to actually work to reclaim that spot.
Coach would sure have some thoughts on the matter, ain’t that right? ”
Coach laughs, and the journalists join him, tittering with mirth.
“Looks like Renfro has got eyes on my job, too. Don’t none of you go telling Sione that.
He’s a good kid. A solid future talent. Palamo sure as hell gave him a valuable taste of what it’s like in the starting jersey, but we all know that nothing can beat a combination when it clicks like it does between him and Finch Murphy. ”
“Anything you’d like to add to that, Ace?
” one of the reporters pipes up. “You certainly seem to be back to full fitness. No lingering issues after those big knocks tonight?” She gestures with her pen to her cheek in reference to the cut I had to have treated during the match after I caught a stray elbow during a ruck.
“I’m just grateful to be back out there with the boys,” I say, rubbing my thumb in a circle over the palm of my hand.
Connor keeps his leg and knee lined up with my own when Coach is asked a fresh round of questions about our playoff prospects, and while I get lost with the patter of question after complicated question, his presence is a reminder of how Wren helped me in such a similar fashion.
It’s the strangest place to realize such a life-altering thing.
In front of cameras and microphones, amid a wall of journalists clamoring for a sound bite.
In that same breath, I realize that it’s been Connor Renfro all along.
He’s been there for me, by my side, through years of my torment over not having Wren.
While I’ve been caught up in the agony of my scent match not recognizing me in return, the guy I’ve trained alongside, bled with, and come home to after every punishing training session… he’s been there for me.
Connor Renfro is just as important, just as necessary for me to breathe easy, and it slams into me like a tackle in slow motion.
I need him.
I need both of them.
We barely make it out of the press room before I succumb to the need to grab hold of him. My hands flex at my sides, wanting to grab the front of his shirt, but I can’t. Not here. Not right now. Not until we’re somewhere out of sight.
I don’t really know what the fuck I’m needing to hear from him… maybe just to look deep into his eyes and see it for myself? That all the ways I’m feeling tossed around and consumed by the force of this realization isn’t just some lonely island where I’m on my own in this.
I can’t be sure. We haven’t fully hashed any of this out, and maybe it’s my own fault—all the ways I’ve kept my guard up endlessly where anyone else is concerned—but I gotta know.
Connor and Wren are two forces in my life and they’re both tugging me to a place I’ve never been before. A place where my chest feels cracked open.
It’s so goddamn vulnerable, I’m ready to climb these concrete walls.
Connor strolls ahead of me as we make our way toward the part of the stadium where the offices are located. His phone is in one hand, the other hooked lazily in his pocket.
“Just had a text from Theo. He said there’s been a change of plan. We gotta meet in his office instead of the parking garage.”
I can’t help but notice his shoulders are tense. He might portray effortless charm and the sort of cool, casual air that fools reporters and photographers like in the media pit back there, but I know there’s something going on for him.
If I didn’t know better, I’d say he’s been on edge and has been battling a strange mood since before the game started.
I saw it in his eyes on the field. Connor has spent the last few hours wired differently than normal, and based on how I’m currently feeling like an electric current is jolting my veins, this feels like a tinderbox moment.
“Did he say why?” I shove my hands deep in my pockets to hide the way they keep balling into fists, then flexing. To hold myself in check while we’re still technically in territory where anyone could hear or see us or walk around a corner unexpectedly.
There’s no guarantee that someone from the Wolves staff won’t be around here, hanging back late after a game.
We reach the elevator to take us up to the level where Theo’s office is located.
He’s somewhere up by the VIP boxes, that much I remember from when I first signed with the Wolves.
One of the perks of being a team owner, I suppose.
Glass-fronted views of his stadium and boardrooms are his reality.
A little rarefied air away from the scent of sweat and muddy boots.
“Not a clue,” Connor says quietly, then mutters to himself more than anything. “Such an asshole when he wants to be.”
My heart thumps more erratically as the elevator light flashes closer to our level in the bowels of the stadium, then the polished metal swishes open.
We step inside and pretty much fill the entire space.
This tiny box isn’t built for being more than a service elevator at best. The second Connor jabs the button for Theo’s level, the doors seal us in, and I pounce.
“What the—” Connor lets out a deep, throaty oomph as I grab hold of the front of his shirt and shove him forcefully against the metal wall.
I’ve never felt this unsettled, untethered, like if I don’t fist the front of his shirt for every second we’re in this elevator and pin him to the wall, he might evaporate on me.
“I don’t understand all of this… any of it…” I rasp.
“You don’t understand what? That you gotta wrestle me spontaneously?” His eyes flash. It’s a hint of something, a dare, a taunt, a tiny glimpse that maybe he knows exactly what I mean and I don’t have to attempt to explain it with words.
“I can’t describe this. Why it just feels different now and not years ago? Not months ago? But it’s all different now and I…” My throat works hastily. With each croaky word and hitch in my breath, Connor’s gaze flickers back and forth across my face.
He lets me press my weight against him. Like I’m drawn to his body, his soul, his very core, I can’t imagine living without.
“It’s different.” His voice goes deep and velvety as he licks his lips.
My eyes lock on that small movement, homing in on the slow glide of his tongue.
“But I can’t apologize. I won’t apologize, Ace.
” Then his head drops back against the wall, giving me a long look through hooded eyes when I drag my stare up to meet his.
“Don’t ask me to apologize for shit changing between us. Please.”
“I want you like I want her.” I lean in close, so close I can feel his warmth and steady rise and fall of his chest. “And I need you like I need her.”
“What are you saying?” Connor’s Adam’s Apple dips.
“This isn’t just me wanting to get kinky or fool around when our Omega is involved.
” I let myself stray, my focus wavering to his lips once more because the temptation is too great, and right now, I’m far too weak to resist all the ways I want to take and take and fucking take.
“This is me wanting all in. Everything. I want everything with you.”