Chapter 10 #2
“You beat him?” Riley asks, curiosity in her voice as she looks between Tyler and me.
“She wiped the rink with him,” Brian says with a grin. “Absolutely kicked his ass. I think he might have cried.”
“He did,” Zoe confirms to Riley. “I was there and I saw it. He kept falling on the ice, and Maddy was skating around like she was in the NHL or something.”
“I did not,” Tyler mutters. “Besides, I’d like to see you successfully throw a football fifty yards into double coverage while under pressure from the best defense in the league.”
“Feeling a little competitive, Hansley?” I ask with a smirk. My traitorous eyes find Cam, and when our eyes meet, he tosses me the sexiest wink imaginable, and butterflies explode in my stomach.
I think I’m in a little bit of trouble.
Tyler crosses his arms over his chest. “Duh, do you even know me?”
Tearing my eyes away from Cam as casually as possible, I nod. “In fact, I do. Since you were born, little Ty Ty.”
Tyler makes a face at the nickname I know he hates, which is why I used it. I might be an eldest daughter, but there’s a latent youngest child buried somewhere inside of me. “There’s only one way to settle this, Maddy girl. Football throwing competition. You and me. Right now.”
Ugh, should have seen that coming. “I don’t think I’m wearing the shoes for it,” I say breezily.
Tyler gives my purple Converse high tops—a present from Sarah’s mom, Jo, when we all went to Boston to visit the Wyles side of the family a couple months ago—a pointed look. “Those will work fine.”
“Do it, Maddy!” Ethan cheers from the couch.
“Yeah, Maddy, you should definitely do it.” Cam leans against the door frame and crosses his arms over his chest. His lips tip up in a smile, and his eyes fix on me in a way that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
I could get lost in all that blue. I have gotten lost in all that blue.
Suddenly, the air between us feels electric, and I know I shouldn’t be looking at him this way in a room full of people who absolutely can’t know what happened between us, but I also can’t look away.
“We’re definitely doing this!” Drew jumps up from the couch, the movement just enough to snap me out of my Cam-induced haze.
When he tosses me a surreptitious wink, I’m one hundred percent sure he caught the vibes between Cam and me, and the interruption was intentional.
Maybe Cam even told him about our night together.
I mean, I told my best friends, so it stands to reason that maybe he told his, too, right?
Does anyone even know what man friends talk about?
“The practice field is empty right now,” Brian says. “I’m in the mood for a little intra-family competition.”
“You and Tyler are related?” Riley asks.
I shrug. “Kind of. His mom and my mom have been best friends forever, so we grew up like cousins.” I shoot Tyler a sly grin. “He’s like the really, really annoying second brother I never wanted.”
Tyler pouts dramatically, crossing his arms. “Well now I’m really going to kick your ass on the football field.”
“You won’t,” I say with narrowed eyes. He probably will, but at the promise of competition, the former athlete in me comes out to play.
He narrows his eyes right back at me. “Only one way to find out.”
Which is how, fifteen minutes later, I find myself standing on the fifty-yard line of the Renegades practice field, football in my hand.
I stare down the field, wondering how it’s possible that it seems, at minimum, one hundred times bigger than it looks from the sidelines.
No fucking way can I stand here and throw a football farther a Heisman Trophy winning quarterback, but I’m in it now.
There are two teenage girls watching.
Feminism practically demands I follow through.
The kids are chattering away with Tyler, Brian, and Drew, and Cam is behind me, so close I can practically feel the warmth of him through my T-shirt. “You’ve got this, Wildcat,” he murmurs, his breath ghosting over the shell of my ear. “Middle three fingers on the laces.”
“Don’t call me that here,” I hiss quietly, ignoring the warmth that courses through me at the nickname as I spin around to face him, and oops.
Big mistake. Huge. Because up close, Cam looks even more delicious in that backwards hat, sexy stubble covering his jaw like he didn’t bother to shave this morning.
And when he glances over at his kids, as if to check that they’re still there and still okay, everything inside me melts.
The intersection between football Cam and dad Cam is unfairly hot.
And, I fear, irresistible. I scowl at him to make up for the fact that I want to climb him like a tree right on this field and also burrow into his big, strong arms. “Also, are you mansplaining at me how to throw a football? Don’t be that guy. ”
Cam holds up his hands, widening his eyes dramatically.
“I would literally never.” He glances over again to where Zoe and Riley are now attempting cartwheels and Ethan is tossing the football to Tyler while Brian and Drew watch.
“Also,” he says, dropping his voice low so to everyone else, it really does look like he’s giving me football throwing tips.
“I like calling you Wildcat. I like the way your cheeks turn the prettiest shade of pink. The way your pulse flutters in your throat. That’s the way you looked when you came for me that night in the hotel, and I really, really liked watching you come. ”
That’s the moment I choke on nothing, coughing and spluttering like I’m drowning in the ocean instead of standing on a football field in the presence of no water whatsoever.
Cool, Maddy. So very, very cool.
“You okay, Maddy?” Cam asks in a regular voice, loud enough for everyone to hear, but I think only I hear the wicked streak lacing his tone.
Asshole.
I want to kill him. Fuck him? Who could say, really.
Instead, I just roll my eyes. “I’m fine. Can we get this over with? The pizza we ordered will be here soon, and I’m starving.”
“Let’s do it!” Tyler jogs over to stand next to me. “I’ll give you a fifteen-yard handicap. You know, on account of me being a famous quarterback and all.”
I give him an epic side-eye. “Do you not know me at all? Just throw the damn ball, Hansley.”
“Okay!” Brian says with a grin. “On three. One. Two…”
“THREE,” all three kids yell, running straight at Tyler and tackling him like mini-defensive linemen flying across the line of scrimmage. Tyler goes down on a yelp, the football rolling out of his hands.
“Fumble!” Drew yells, scooping up the ball and taking off towards the opposite end of the field, Ethan hot on his heels.
I laugh, gripping the ball in my hands, fingers settling around the laces. Pulling my arm back, I rotate my body and let it fly. It travels about thirty yards before hitting the grass, and I toss my hands up in the air.
In a flash, strong arms grab me from behind. Cam’s scent surrounds me, all cedar and spice and man, before he hoists me up, somehow turning me around in his arms in a scorching-hot feat of strength before he spins in a circle yelling, “WINNER!”
The girls and Brian cheer, and Drew races back down the field with Ethan tossed over his shoulder, letting out a loud whoop.
The whole mood is playful and fun except for the fact that Cam’s arms are locked just under my ass, lighting my entire body on fire, and he knows it because he lets out a low chuckle, surreptitiously grazing his thumbs along the bottom curve of one cheek before letting me down.
Slowly.
Cam slides me down his body so slowly I feel every inch of him, from his sculpted shoulders to his hard pecs and stacked abs and, finally, the pièce de fucking résistance, his cock, which is so obviously hard in his shorts that I let out a little yelp before smothering it with a cough.
He chuckles again, spinning me around to face everyone else, the heat of his body warming my back even though he’s not actually touching me anymore.
He’s just so fucking there. My cheeks are on fire, and some people might mistake it for exertion, but when I see the knowing smirk on Drew’s face, there’s clearly at least one person in this little circle who knows better.
And when Brian eyes me with a considering look on his face, the little surge of panic is enough for me to get my shit together.
Looking down at where Tyler is still sprawled on the field, I cross my arms and smirk down at him. “Looks like I’m the better football thrower after all.”
“Quarterback,” Tyler grouses from where he lies on the ground. “I’m a motherfucking quarterback. I lost on a technicality.”
“The technicality being you didn’t pay enough attention across the line of scrimmage. Rookie mistake.” Zoe comes to stand next to me with a look of disgust on her face, as if she can’t figure out how Tyler even got his job.
“Can’t always rely on your blockers,” Riley says with all the certainty of a daughter of someone paid to be one of those blockers, as she drifts over to stand on my other side. “Lesson number one, quarterback. Never underestimate your opponent.”
I grin, putting an arm around each girl, enjoying the hell out of them. “Damn right you shouldn’t.”
“Maddy, did you see our fumble recovery?” Ethan asks, his eyes wide and earnest. “It was a pick-six!”
I wink at him. “Sure did. It was a thing of beauty. Are you sure hockey is your sport? I think you could have a football future if you wanted one.”
He shakes his head. “Nah, football is fun, but hockey is in my blood.”
I reach over and ruffle his sweaty hair. “Mine too.”
I don’t know what it is that makes me turn my head, but the second I do, my eyes meet Cam’s.
He’s quiet as his gaze drops to where I have one arm around Riley, and then to where Ethan stands.
And when it comes back to me, what I see in his eyes makes my stomach swoop.
It’s need and lust and want, but there’s something else too.
Something deeper and far more important than anything I can even begin to parse on a fall afternoon, standing on a football field full of people who can’t know that the look in Cam Lowry’s eyes is making me think things I absolutely shouldn’t be thinking.
When Brian calls out that the pizza is here, I let out a quiet sigh of relief.
But the whole time we sit sprawled on the field, pizza boxes everywhere and Ethan asking me about my hockey career and the girls asking me everything from what it’s like to be a woman working in professional sports to whether I switch moisturizers when the seasons change, I feel Cam’s eyes on me.
And even though I shouldn’t like it, I really, really do.