18. Reid
EIGHTEEN
REID
“I’m here.” I drop my duffle bag on the floor and take off my sneakers. My legs ache from being cramped on an airplane for four and a half hours, and the thirty-minute car ride to Dallas’s apartment from Reagan International didn’t help the stiffness in my knees. “Where are you all?”
“Living room,” Maverick yells. I walk down the hall to find them on the couch playing Call of Duty , and neither him nor Dallas look away from the television. “Fucking children. Goddammit. I hate this fucking game. What’s up, Plant Daddy?”
“Is June here?” I ask. “Or Maven?”
“Maven is at a meeting. June Bug is with Shawn. He’s giving her a tour of the stadium.” Dallas tries to look around me, but I step to the side and block his view. “What’s going on?”
“We’re getting reamed by idiot children,” Maverick whines. “Can this wait?”
“When the fuck were you going to tell me the Avery I hooked up with at your wedding is the woman behind the Thunderhawks accounts?” I practically yell, and they both gape at me. I’ve never raised my voice like this, but I’m so pissed off. So angry about being kept in the dark, yelling seems like the only way to get my point across. “The woman who’s been antagonizing me for years is the same one who gave me the best orgasm of my life, and you didn’t think this was important fucking information to share with me?”
“Oh, shit. That’s why her name is familiar.” Maverick tosses his controller on the cushions and puts his hands behind his head. “Talk about a fucking plot twist.”
“You knew about this?” I seethe, and he gives me a guilty grin.
“Dallas might have mentioned it when he was drunk at the reception. Screamed it at me, actually.” Maverick shrugs. “It slipped my mind until now.”
I turn my attention to Dallas, the real instigator of this whole fucking secrecy pact. “How long have you known?”
“Known what, exactly?” he asks, clearly playing dumb.
“That Avery works for the Thunderhawks.”
His eyes dart around the room and he fixes the brim of his hat. He clears his throat then clears it again, and I know he’s stalling. Looking at the ceiling instead of me, he says, “How much are you going to hate me if I say a while?”
“How long?” I repeat.
“Since Maven first joined her rec soccer league.”
“That’s fucking years!” I collapse into a recliner by the fireplace and bury my face in my hands. “I am so mad at you. At both of you. At all three of you, actually.”
“Whoa, hey. I’m an innocent bystander,” Maverick challenges. “Don’t lump me in with this guy.”
“I don’t understand what the big deal is. You two had a good time when you hung out. Why does it matter if she happens to be your biggest rival? Can’t handle someone better than you?” Dallas teases, and my blood boils.
“The big deal is you lied to me,” I say. “You know how much she pisses me off. You’ve heard me complaining about her and you decided to not mention her identity, because, what? This is some joke to you?”
“Whoa.” Maverick blinks. “A decade of friendship and I’ve never heard you so fired up about something.”
“Not only is there the lying and blatant disregard for my feelings, but there’s also our jobs. Avery and I are working against each other in a small market, and in our industry, you have to be quick on your feet,” I say, steamrolling past Dallas trying to interrupt me. “She’s annoying as hell with her blazers and short fucking skirts. It’s distracting, and I can’t afford a distraction right now. I met with my boss last week and he outlined metrics I need to hit this season. I have too much at stake to get caught up with someone like her.”
“But—”
“And, because I’m an idiot, apparently, I agreed to a stupid bet with her.” I stand up and pace around the living room, an energy buzzing through me. “If I lose, not only am I going to probably be unemployed, but I’m also going to look like an idiot.”
“A bet? What kind of bet? Oh, is it a sex game?” Maverick asks. “Emmy and I play those all the time. She usually wins. I guess technically I’m the winner, because I’m the one who?—”
“Fuck off,” I groan, exasperated. “This is important. I really hate that you kept something from me. I don’t like having a good time with someone only to find out she’s the bane of my fucking existence after the fucking fact.”
“We should’ve taken a shot every time he dropped an F-bomb,” Maverick whispers to Dallas. “We’d be wasted right now.”
Dallas turns off the TV. “I’m sorry for lying. In my defense, I never thought you two would meet. Meet again, I guess I should say. Did you actually meet the first time years ago or did you only see her from across the field?”
“Is this the time for fucking semantics?” I ask. “I saw her from across the field, and that would’ve been the perfect opportunity to say, ‘Hey. By the way. That’s the woman who drives you up a goddamn wall. Make sure to not sleep with her at my wedding.’”
“She’s not your type, and I saw no situations where you two would ever be in the same space again. You didn’t go to any other soccer games, and it didn’t seem necessary to bring it up after the fact. We haven’t played the Thunderhawks in the time that she’s worked there, so it’s not like you’d see her in the stadium. Besides, she’s not your usual type. I didn’t anticipate you two meeting at a bar and again at the wedding. I thought this was all avoidable, especially because you’re never the one to approach women,” Dallas says.
“I do not have a type,” I stress. I rake a hand through my hair, frustrated. Irritated. Confused and goddamn annoyed. “I’ve never had a type.”
“Bullshit,” Maverick laughs. “You definitely have a type. You prefer quieter women. The sure things, not the risk takers.”
“Avery isn’t quiet,” Dallas adds. “She’s loud and she’s spunky and she’s this person everyone gravitates toward. If you saw her in a crowded room, you wouldn’t look twice at her.”
“That’s not true.” I rub a hand across my chest. I couldn’t stop staring at her the night we sat the bar. I couldn’t stop staring at her at the wedding, either. “And thanks for confirming you’ve met her before. Another fucking lie. Is our whole friendship a fucking sham to you?”
“Christ, you’re being dramatic. I’ve spent some time with her when she’s hung out with Maven. I think she’s a fucking delight, and you did too until you realized who her online persona was,” Dallas says.
“I don’t understand what the big deal is.” Maverick stretches out his long legs. “You like this woman. Who gives a shit who she works for?”
“I don’t like her,” I say.
“What was that about her distracting skirts you mentioned earlier?”
“This skirt she wore one day at the conference.” I stare off into space and scratch my jaw. It showed off her shiny anklet. Her tan legs that looked a mile long under the pleated leather, and the back of her thighs. I imagined pushing her against a wall again. Slipping my hand under the hem of it and finding out what color lace she had on that day. I hate the damn thing. “I couldn’t focus to save my life.”
“And what color was Emmy’s dress at the wedding?”
I squint at him. “Pink, right? No, wait. Dark blue.”
“Both wrong. It was green. Point is, you do like this woman. You pay attention to her, and you’ve talked about her for years. You two have always had a connection, whether it was positive or negative. And then you meet her in person and she’s someone you’ve dreamed about? You can’t make this shit up.”
I snap my mouth closed, and it takes me a second to come up with a rebuttal.
He’s not wrong. I’ve always felt drawn to her. Pulled to her, in a way. When we spent two, three hours at the bar talking, it felt like I knew her. Like I had known her for a lot longer than the time it took us to sip our drinks.
I guess I have.
We never divulge personal pieces of ourselves when we message back and forth on the official accounts for our teams, sticking to ambiguity and anonymity, but every now and then, small things sneak through.
The casual mention of her favorite cuisine (Thai). Learning she likes to run. Her favorite player on the team (their backup QB) and her favorite holiday (Thanksgiving).
By themselves, it’s not enough to figure out who she is. Now though, it makes sense why we had an immediate connection in person; it wasn’t our first time interacting.
“Real Life Avery and Internet Avery are two different people,” I explain, coming to my senses. “I have no clue how the two can intertwine.”
“Do they have to?” Dallas shrugs. “Y’all can find a way to exist as two separate parts.”
“I don’t know if that’s even possible. There’s deep-rooted annoyance when it comes to her. I’m not sure I can look past it, especially when she’s determined to do anything she can to piss me off. She blatantly told me she’s planning my takedown,” I say.
“Oh, and you’re so innocent?” Dallas asks. “You’re probably plotting her demise.”
“No.” I scowl. “I’m not.”
“Sounds like foreplay and flirting to me,” Maverick says.
I stop pacing, an idea coming to mind. I glance at Dallas and grin. “I need you to do me a favor.”
“I’m not helping you break the law,” he draws out. “I have a kid to raise, and I’d like to go on my honeymoon before I go to jail.”
“Is getting access to the Thunderhawks’ stadium breaking the law?” I ask.
“How am I supposed to get you into their stadium? With the key I have?”
“A signed jersey, actually,” I say.
“Why not buy a ticket to their preseason game?” Maverick suggests. “It’s on Thursday night, and you all don’t play until Sunday. Then you’re already in.”
“I need access to Avery’s office without a ton of people around.” Dallas’s eyes widen, and I shake my head. “Relax. I’m not doing anything bad, and no one is going to get hurt. I promise I’ll behave. It’s only rubber ducks, not weapons of mass destruction.”
“I don’t know who the hell this Reid Duncan is.” Maverick stares at me proudly. “But I like him. He’s fun as shit. Can I come?”
“Only if you stay quiet,” I say, and he pumps his fist in the air. “You’re a terrible liar, and I don’t want you to give us away.”
“I swear.” He puts his hand on his heart. “I’ll uphold your request, Plant Daddy, and treat this with the utmost care and responsibility.”
“Will you sign a jersey for me, Dal?”
“Yeah.” He sighs. “Only because I know this is you suppressing feelings for her, not actual fighting.”
I snort and pull up the Thunderhawks’ website. There has to be someone I can track down to help me out. An impressionable intern or someone who knows the resale value of Dallas’s signature.
“She wants to wring my neck. I want to mute her on every possible platform where she has a digital presence and find a way to hack into her computer so I can see all of her upcoming ideas. Not sure that’s the best definition of romantic,” I say.
“Ah. Young love.” Maverick sighs. “Those days were fun.”
I roll my eyes.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned to do well, it’s keep my emotions in check. Staying balanced and even-keeled.
I might be the guy who loves relationships. The guy who craves a partner and someone to do life with, but that doesn’t mean I’d ever fall in love with Avery fucking Sinclair.
That would be playing with fire.
A stupid game with stupid prizes, and the last thing I want to do is burn.
Not when I can win and watch her catch flames on the way down.