Chapter 10 Mia
Waiting for Ava to finish her last class of the day, I scrolled through my phone, my head looking up from it furtively in case I was caught.
Because I, Mia Davis, avoider of all things sports — except the actual players sometimes — was looking at the stats and online sports articles about the Saints game tomorrow.
I was nervous for them. Nope, lie. I was nervous for him, which was ridiculous.
We barely knew each other, and he had been some fun nights, nothing more.
Of course, now that we were living together, it was hard to try not to remember the way he felt or the way he touched me.
Or the bone-melting orgasms the man gave me, let’s not forget them.
The guy had skills in the bedroom department; there was no denying it.
I remembered the night of the bar, when they had come to talk to Wade, and Jett had been all over Ava, but Ash .
. . the way he looked at me that night, I’d never reacted like that to another guy before.
He quite literally made me break out in goose bumps when he touched me.
Ava had questioned me about it, and I’d been so busy trying to process what had happened that I’d brushed it off.
The night of the party when the guys from ’Bama had turned up had been another encounter where I’d been so aware of him, and even though I was at the party with Alex, my eyes had strayed far too many times to the tight end of the Saints — his butt was attractive, too.
After Mayhem at the football house party, I’d been more and more aware of him.
The pull to him was ridiculous, so when he made a move the night of the Halloween party, I had gone willingly into his embrace.
I’d never been as forward or as free with any other partner as I had that night with him.
I’d seen his need, and even though I didn’t know what exactly was going on between him and his friends, I knew he needed a release.
I also knew that I needed to get him out of my head.
He had taken up lodging in my brain from nothing more than a few heated looks and harmless caresses.
My thought process that night had been to be another notch on his belt.
He probably wouldn’t remember me anyway, and I would get the fascination I seemed to have with him, dealt with.
Because you wouldn’t look like he did and actually live up to the hype. But he did. Lordy, he more than did. One taste of him wasn’t enough; I needed more. Maybe I’d been drunk, and he wasn’t as good as my imagination said he was.
Roll on to another night, another party.
Ava and Jett were curled up in each other, while his scary-looking brother — the one who looked like he was ready to decapitate someone — spoke to Ash, but Ash had been watching me all night.
He was subtle; the others never noticed, but I could feel his eyes on me the whole time.
I watched girls approach him, I saw him flirt, and I knew exactly who he was when it came to women.
The Devils were known for sleeping around.
Okay, that wasn’t fair — Gray wasn’t. He was actually discreet .
. . or celibate. He was hard to read. But Jett, before Ava, was a one-and-done.
Ash was known to revisit his hookups, but on a strict no-relationship policy.
It hadn’t bothered me. I knew what he was like. I wasn’t known for one-night stands, but I was flirty in my own way. He was someone I wanted another night with. Despite his reputation for being a Casanova, I wanted another experience with him.
The party had been at a house on Orchard. I knew the girls who lived there, and I had permission to use the upper floors for the bathroom.
Pushing open one of the girls’ bedrooms, I wondered if he would follow me, and I left the bedroom door slightly open in the hopes that he would.
A few minutes later, my question had been answered when he pushed the door further open, saw me waiting, and simply closed the door behind him, flicking the lock.
We hadn’t even spoken. I don’t know who moved toward who, but we were on the bed and naked within minutes.
It had been hard, fast, and everything I remembered.
When we were done, he’d kissed me long and slow and then left me to get dressed.
I hadn’t felt used or cheap or anything else like that.
It had been good, and it had been what I wanted, and it seemed we both needed it.
Rejoining the party later, I had seen a girl cozy up to him, but Ash had merely left with his cousin. At the door before he left, he had looked over his shoulder as if he was looking for someone. When he saw me, he gave me a smile, and he and Gray left.
It should have been enough. It wasn’t.
Saturday night, I hadn’t been in the mood to party.
Ava had gone home to see her mom for a belated birthday visit.
And she also wanted to tell her mom she was completely head over heels for the college quarterback, a fact Jill was going to hate.
Before she even knew he was a Saint, she was going to give Ava a lecture about dating in college.
But Ava was a good daughter, and she wanted to tell her mom face-to-face.
I had the apartment to myself and had made plans with Bea, Wade’s girlfriend, to go to a small party of one of her classmates. The last place the Devils would be.
Ash, Jett, and a few of the team gate-crashed in style.
The admittedly dull party was suddenly the most popular place to be.
Within an hour of them being there, the music changed and was louder, the number of people there was spilling into the street, and all I could focus on was the anger that seemed to be rolling off of him in waves.
Jett was by his side, but watching them, I realized something wasn’t right. Their dynamic was off.
Jett got pulled to a game of beer pong, and I saw him reach for his cousin, but his cousin stepped back and raised his cup as if to say he was okay where he was.
His vibe was all wrong; even the girls weren’t approaching him.
He reminded me of a bear with a sore paw.
I saw that Bea was now with Wade, and I knew I could leave as they would be doing couple things, and I wasn’t interested in the party anymore.
Feeling confident, I made my way past him as I made my way to the door, making sure he saw that I was there.
I was halfway down the block when he caught up with me.
His hand tugged mine to change direction, and we had walked in silence to the football house.
Ash sneaked me in and led me upstairs to his room.
“Hey,” he said softly as his lips traced my jawline.
“Hey,” I answered him as my hands slipped under his shirt. It was the first words we’d spoken, and it didn’t feel wrong that it was. “You look . . . wrong.”
I felt a rumble of agreement as he kissed down my neck. “I need a few hours to forget,” he told me as he drew back to look at me. “Can you give me that? No questions?”
Somehow, I’d already known not to ask what he was forgetting. “We’ve got all night,” I said instead.
“Fuck yeah, we do.” Swiftly, my clothes were on the floor, and I was lying on his bed, flat on my back with his head buried between my thighs.
He wasn’t gentle, but he didn’t hurt me, and I knew that if I let him, he would go harder, rougher, but I wasn’t sure I was able to open myself to him like that.
There was already an aura of urgency when we were together.
I was already drawn to him too much. I couldn’t let myself be vulnerable with this man; I couldn’t let him in.
What I gave him seemed to be enough. A night to forget whatever had upset him so much.
The night spilled into morning and then the afternoon.
No one was ever supposed to know about us.
There had been no contingency plan in place when his cousin walked in on us, just as we were finishing.
Then, as I hid naked in the bathroom, I hadn’t been ready to hear how I was nothing more than a distraction.
I mean, I knew it; I just hadn’t been ready to hear it.
Which is why I threw a mug at him. Which I hadn’t apologized for, although I did regret.
It was bad form to be ruled by your emotions. That only led to heartache.
“Whatcha reading?” Ava called out as she approached me.
My screen had locked while my mind had wandered, so thankfully, she couldn’t see that I had been reading up on football. “Looking at the gossip, see if Mama’s in the columns.”
Ava blinked in surprise. “Why would your mom be in the columns? Has something happened?”
“She said her check’s late, wants me to get a job. There has to be more to it.” I tried to keep my voice casual, but Ava knew me well.
“A job? But she promised you wouldn’t need one, that she’d saved for college.”
My mom saving anything was unheard of, but she’d shown me the account where the money for my tuition and books would come from.
It had been a full account, and I remember so clearly her telling me I would have no worries while at school; she had it taken care of.
We had a rocky relationship, but I’d truly believed her.
My mom was a mediocre actress at best. Even on my brattiest days, I knew she wasn’t bad .
. . she just wasn’t good. The TV show she’d been on in the late nineties to early noughties had been weird and quirky, and had an undyingly loyal fanbase.
The show streamed on the major streaming services and was a worldwide hit, albeit not as huge as it was back in the day.
It was still enough that Gloria Davis never needed to work again.
But only if we were careful. Mama wasn’t always careful with her money.
She’d worked on another TV show when I was younger, but it wasn’t the main part, just a season regular.
She did a lot of voiceover work for commercials that kept what she termed the wolves from our door.
The fact that I didn’t want to be an actress was a relief to her, not because she knew I recognized it was a hard life, but I think the awkward reality was that she was glad I wasn’t going to be competition.
Which would have been a skill in itself, as the stage terrified me. However, singing was all I wanted to do. I didn’t want the limelight; a good backup singer was hard to find. I just needed to be ready for when I was found.
“I can’t believe she’s telling you to get a job. What are you going to do?” Ava asked me.
“Well, I’m not completely useless, I can work. I’ve done it before.”
“I didn’t mean that you couldn’t — we’ve both worked before — I just thought we wouldn’t need to. That I was covered with my scholarship, and your mom had you covered.”
“Well, Gloria is Gloria.” My tone was as dry as the leaves on the ground, which my boot was currently kicking at. “I’m sure next week she’ll have received something for something, and this will be another conversation she thinks I exaggerated when I next talk to her.”
Ava chuckled as we both knew my erratic mother well. “You could sing.”
“Say what now?” I asked her in disbelief.
“Wade’s begged you a million times to sing with Atticus Dawn. He gets paid well for the shows they do. You could totally sing with them.”
“I love you, Ava, but sometimes I do wonder what planet you came from,” I scoffed as we saw Quinn approaching us. “Why do we all need to be at the football house?” I changed the subject.
Ava shot me an exasperated look as she waved at Quinn. “You know why, stop being a whiny little bitch,” she scolded.
I didn’t take offense. Ava meant no harm by it, and I was being whiny.
Ash’s ex glided toward us. She didn’t shuffle forward like the rest of us mere mortals; she practically floated, she was so graceful.
The worst part was, she genuinely seemed like a nice person.
With her picture-perfect hair, skin, clothes, and walk .
. . I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t feel self-conscious beside her.
“Hi,” Quinn greeted us with a wide smile. “Gray just called, Ash is already asleep, and Jett has the offense cornered with nowhere to hide as he talks routes. Gray’s not even stopping him, he’s such a hard ass.” Her smile was full of love, and I felt a twinge of anger, but I wasn’t sure why.
Ava grinned at us both. “They are so ready to win tomorrow they won’t even notice Gray isn’t playing.”
They both shared a look, and then Ava crossed herself. “Dear Holy Mother, don’t let them get beat.”
“You’re not Catholic,” I reminded her. “You got the cross wrong, pretty sure you just summoned the Antichrist.”
Quinn snorted out a laugh as Ava slowly went through the sign of the cross again. “Oh yeah, it’s a man’s watch arm, not mine.”
“Wow. Every Christian person, everywhere, is ashamed of you right now,” I mocked her as the three of us started walking to the football house. I saw Quinn frowning and explained. “It’s a film from the nineties, Nuns on the Run,” I told her. “‘Spectacles, testicles, wallet, and watch.’”
“Oh right, never heard of it. Sorry.”
“We should watch it tonight,” Ava suggested eagerly.
“No,” I said firmly.
“Okay then,” Ava said as she nudged me. “Quinn, do you still have the swim team’s karaoke machine?”
My eyes widened in horror at my best friend. “Ava!”
“No, but the guys have one built into their TV sound system, something to do with one of the game consoles and a guitar. Those kinds of games aren’t my thing.
I prefer to kill things.” She shrugged. “We can use it though.” Quinn looked over at me and smiled in encouragement.
“No one else but us will hear you. We can totally break your fear.”
Ava linked her arm through mine and then Quinn’s. “I’ll make snacks, and Quinn can make cocktails.”
“And if I don’t want to sing?”
Ava’s laugh was unrestrained and loud. “Then I’m a crook in a nun’s outfit. You always want to sing.”
“You’re the worst best friend ever,” I mumbled as she squeezed my arm.
“Bullshit, you love me.”
“Doesn’t mean I have to like you,” I grumbled as she started to list what snacks she was planning to make, and Quinn suggested appropriate cocktails.
It had only been four days, and I was actually missing my new roommate. He would be so against this and would have found a party instead. Maybe I had summoned the Antichrist, or a demon at least, if I thought I was missing him instead of actually spending time with my best friend and Quinn.
I needed to snap out of this. I couldn’t start to have feelings for him or fall for his easy charm. He was a flirt, he was a notorious player, he was a Devil, and he was quite frankly . . . trouble.