29. Avery
TWENTY-NINE
AVERY
I’m on my feet before I can think twice.
Reid is lying motionless on the field, his arms out at his sides and his hat knocked off his head. I charge down the stairs that lead to the turf and leap over the wall. The six-foot drop feels like it takes forever, and when my feet land on the ground, my heart beats wildly in my chest as dozens of players surround him.
“Is he dead? Oh my god, he’s going to be so pissed if he’s dead,” Maverick says when I get close. “How did he not see the ball?”
“He’s not dead .” Dallas squats down and touches Reid’s chest, exhaling a sigh of relief. “He’s breathing. Thank fucking god.”
“What do we do? Do we call an ambulance?”
“I can get one of the trainers. They’re?—”
“I’m alive,” Reid grits out, and my eyes sting with tears. My vision turns watery when he pushes onto his elbows and winces, a nasty mark forming on his face. “This is why I don’t play fucking sports.”
“Thank fuck .” Maverick drops to his knees and holds Reid’s hand. “Are you ok? What the hell happened?”
“Bad depth perception and a breeze. Should’ve put me at catcher.” He sits all the way up and groans when he finds his glasses broken. “Shit.”
“We need to make sure you’re not concussed,” Dallas says. “You went straight to the ground.”
“I’m fine.” Reid rubs his forehead and tips his head to the sky. “I know who I am and where I am.”
“Still. We’re going to have you evaluated. And you’re not playing the rest of the game,” Dallas argues.
“I should’ve gotten hit in the face sooner. Would’ve saved me from this fucking misery,” he answers, and I bark out a laugh. Reid cranes his neck and looks at me with wide eyes. “Hey, Sinclair.”
“Hey.” I slip my hands in the back pockets of my jean shorts, our gazes holding. After three beats of staring at each other, I sniff and dip my chin, not wanting anyone to see me emotional. Not wanting him to see me emotional. “What a way to lose an out.”
“Figured it was time for me to be dramatic about something in my life.” He reaches out an arm, and Dallas helps him to his feet. “I’m fine. Really. I’ll pop in with the doctor and watch the rest of the game from the sidelines.”
“You’re going to have to get cleaned up before that, man,” Maverick tells him. “Your nose is bleeding, and we can’t scare the kids.”
“I can help,” I offer. “If you need a hand.”
Reid’s throat bobs. There’s blood all down his chin that’s already started to dry. The left side of his face is swelling, and he’s definitely going to have a black eye in a few days.
I want to hug him.
I want to put my hand on his chest and make sure he’s breathing.
I know he is—he’s six feet away from me and holding full conversations—but I want to check for myself. Just to know everything is okay.
“That would be nice,” he says, brushing clumps of grass off his pants. “I can, uh, show you our medical room.”
The crowd around us starts to disperse and the fans cheer. He gives a feeble wave to the spectators, and Dallas slings an arm over his shoulder.
“Want one of us to come with you?” Dallas asks under his breath.
Reid shakes his head. His eyes meet mine again, and his smile is soft around the edges. “I’ll be in good hands.”
“Do you have another pair of glasses at home?” I ask Reid as we talk through the tunnel to the Titans’ training room, and he nods.
“Yeah. They’re big on my face and look stupid as fuck, but they’ll have to do.” He stops short of opening the door in front of us and touches my wrist. The brush of his finger against my pulse point is searing, electrifying, and I suck in a sharp breath. “You okay?”
“Yeah. Yup.” I wipe under my eyes and smile. There’s a smudge of mascara on my thumb, and I hope I don’t look like a raccoon. “Can’t believe you missed that pop fly.”
“The blood doesn’t help my case, but I’m fine. Really.”
“I know.” I bob my head and look over his shoulder. I’m afraid to look at him straight on, because I shouldn’t be feeling like this. I shouldn’t be worried about his health or if he has internal bleeding. I shouldn’t be making a list of the things he might need if he has a concussion, or wondering if he’d be okay with me helping to take care of him. “I’m not worried.”
Reid steps closer to me. His cleats knock against my sandals, and I tip my chin back so I can look up at him.
I can’t explain what happens next or why, but one minute, I’m giving him a fake smile, and the next, a sob is escaping from the trenches of my chest.
“Come here,” he says gently, pulling me to his body. He smells like sweat and grass and the metallic scent of blood, but I don’t care. I melt into his embrace as he hugs me, fingers brushing through the ends of my hair and arms steady around me. “I’m okay, pretty girl. I’m all right.”
“I was worried about you,” I admit around a hiccup, and it’s muffled by the pinstripe jersey that has no business looking so good on him. “One second you were lobbing sarcasm at me, the next you were flat on your back. I didn’t like seeing you like that.”
“Think you might care about me, Sinclair,” he says into my hair, and I’m struck with the sudden and horrifying realization I do care about him. “Just a little bit.”
“In your dreams, Duncan,” I say, even though we both know I’m lying. I inhale a deep breath and he presses a kiss to my hair. To my forehead and the curve of my cheekbone. To the corner of my mouth, and my heart skips a beat. “We should get you cleaned up.”
“Whatever you say, Doctor Avery.”
I tug him through the door and sit him on a leather table. I find a washcloth and run it under the faucet, wetting it until it’s soaked. I stand between his legs, and he rests his hand on his thighs. His chest rises and falls too fast for my liking, and I frown.
“Can I touch you?” I ask softly, because this is different from our normal encounters.
This is intimate, personal . Our clothes are on but my body is on fire, aware of every one of his movements.
The press of his thighs. The brush of his fingers over the back of my hand. His exhales, warm on my skin.
“Yes,” he croaks, a fractured word I feel in the center of my chest. In the tiny crevice by my heart, the spot that’s been empty for far too long. “You can do whatever you want to me.”
There might be a deeper meaning there.
Later, when I’m in bed and trying to fall asleep, I’ll overanalyze it and wonder what he meant, but for right now, I take him at face value and fall into caretaking mode.
I cup the back of his head, his sweat-soaked hair soft between my fingers. I dab his forehead and his cheek. The ridge of his nose and the line of his jaw. Reid’s eyes flutter closed, and for half a second, I wonder if he’s asleep.
I like seeing him like this, perfectly at peace and without a phone in his hand. Attentive and present and here .
I move the rag over to the cheek that’s swollen. His skin is hot to the touch and already tinged shades of pink and red. An expression of pain flashes across his face, but I soothe the sting away with a brush of my fingers, and he melts into me.
I study him, and I’m hit with how beautiful he is. How nice and kind he is, and how willing he is to accept help. The epitome of the perfect man, who one day, when he has the time to slow down and enjoy what’s around him, is going to make someone very happy.
I frown again and settle my hand at the base of his neck, clearing the thought away.
“That feels nice,” he murmurs. It’s hazy, stuck in a fog and probably close to a concussion, but I accept the compliment anyway. How could I not? “Could you follow me around and do that forever?”
I puff out a laugh and rest my forehead against his when he’s cleaned up and good as new. “Reid?”
“Yeah?”
“I think I’d like to kiss you right now. If that’s okay. If you’re feeling up to it.”
He hums and opens his eyes. “I’m definitely feeling up for it. Might help me heal even faster, in fact.”
I move closer to him, until our chests are pressed together and our bodies almost fuse as one. He lifts his chin, in a dare almost, leaving the ball in my court to make the first move.
So I do.
I kiss him not because we’re in the heat of the moment, but because I want to.
Because I need to.
“You’re beautiful,” Reid murmurs, and I tuck it away close to my chest. “Sometimes I still can’t believe I get to have you like this.”
“In another part of your stadium?” I ask, my lips moving to his neck. I kiss below his ear. Above his collarbone, and I smile when he tips his head back and groans. “It’s becoming a trend, I’ve noticed.”
“No.” The single word shakes. Turns fraught and hesitant, like he’s afraid to admit this next part out loud. “Like you’re mine.”
A thousand emotions hit me at once, and when I pull back, I see them in his eyes too.
Mine .
It’s been so long since I’ve belonged to someone, but I like how it feels with Reid.
Like coming home after a long day, comfortable and familiar.
A string in me pulls tight, and the six inches between us is still too much. I give his shoulders a gentle nudge, telling him I want him to move back. Telling him I want more, want him , and he understands, scooting across the table and dragging me with him.
I throw a leg over either side of his waist and cradle his face in my hands, careful to be gentle because he’s in pain. Our kisses turn messier, greedier when he slips his hand under my shirt and I hiss at the cool touch of his palm against my ribs. More desperate when I roll my hips and grind against him, the tight material of his pants leaving nothing to my imagination.
I feel him hard, ready, and when I look down at him, a single question on the tip of my tongue, he grins.
“Fuck me, Avery,” he whispers in my ear, licking a hot swipe of his tongue up my neck.
“I only wanted to make sure you were okay,” I say, shimmying his pants to his knees, his cock springing free. “I was worried.”
“Show me how worried,” he says. “Show me you care.”
I do show him. With my hands. With my tongue. With the spit I use to rub up his cock then down, getting him wet enough so he can slide into me with one lift of his hips.
It’s heaven. The best thing I’ve ever felt in my entire life, and when he tells me he’s close, when he tells me he should probably pull out, I stay firmly in place, savoring the warm release I feel inside me before I follow him over the edge.
Reid looks a little dazed when he comes back to earth, and we get dressed. Later, I hold his hand while the team doctor checks his head, and a sharp pang of happiness bursts through me when I hear he’s going to be okay. That he’s fine, and he only needs to ice the injuries.
Everything about the afternoon feels different, and I think, maybe days too late, that we might be heading down a road neither of us can come back from.