Chapter 12
Connor
Pour Decisions bar always felt like stepping into a time warp, with its scuffed wooden floors, low amber lighting, and surfboards mounted above the booths.
The speakers sang with a lazy Fleetwood Mac track while a jukebox flickered lazily in the corner, too stubborn to die, too temperamental to be reliable.
Vinyl covers papered the walls like a love letter to another decade, Springsteen, The Clash, Blondie, each one water-stained and curling at the edges.
I loved it here.
A couple of women at the bar clocked me as I walked in, one nudging her friend with a look that wasn’t subtle. I offered a polite smile, nothing more. Hooking up wasn’t on my agenda, and I’d learned enough from Jake’s mistakes not to hook up near our watering hole spot.
Our table—center booth, back left—was unofficially reserved. It always smelled faintly of spilled rum and old leather, and tonight, the boys were already mid-story when I slid into the seat beside Jake, who wheezed into his pint at something Nate said. “You dumped the bird girl?”
“Technically, the parrot did the dumping. It told me to get lost,” Nate grumbled.
“Sounds like the most intelligent one in the relationship.”
“I’m telling you, we need to start a podcast. ‘The Try Line: Tales of Tragedy and Testosterone.’”
I shook my head. “You’d have one episode before you were all canceled.”
“Well, now that you’re here, Cap,” Ramirez said, raising his beer. “An official cheers for saving our asses and increasing our air miles this season. Let’s fucking make it worth it and bring that championship home.”
I clinked my glass to his and nodded. “Damn right. We didn’t crawl through six feet of swamp just to phone it in.”
Jake leaned forward. “I want that trophy so bad, I’m dreaming about it. Like, genuinely. Had a nightmare last week where Bobby was lifting it, wearing nothing but compression shorts and a tiara.”
Nate nearly choked on his drink. “Wait, why a tiara?”
“No clue. Ask my therapist.”
Laughter broke out around the table, easy and loud, the kind of stupid banter that made nights like this feel worth it, even when everything else was chaos.
Even when the pitch was trashed and our season was stacked against us, this team always came out fighting.
Last year wasn’t our year, but this year, we were going far.
I signaled to the bartender, Leo, for a beer, and within minutes, I had a cold one between my fingers.
“Oh, lads, incoming,” Jake muttered, looking over to the door.
Nate twisted in his seat, then let out a low whistle. “Shit. Didn’t think she knew how to let her hair down.”
I didn’t need to look. I already knew who it was. But of course, I looked anyway.
Teddy Sloane stood just inside the bar, lit by the soft gold of the overhead string lights, and true to Nate’s comment, looked like she’d rather be anywhere else.
Her dark hair was pulled back, makeup clean and simple, and she’d swapped her usual Valkyries hoodie for dark jeans and a black sleeveless top that showed off the defined muscle in her arms. She didn’t smile or pause to soak in the attention that rippled through the room as people noticed her, but plenty of people took note.
Her assistant coach, Micah, was beside her, smiling and holding hands with our outside center, Bobby.
“Fuck,” I said out loud, when that meant to remain in my head.
Jake swung his gaze to me. “Okay over there, Cap?”
I swallowed hard. “Nothing.”
“You’ve been staring since she walked in.”
I didn’t answer. Mostly because I had been staring, and because I wasn’t in the mood for the smug grin that was already forming on his face.
“Relax,” he added, nudging my shoulder with his. “You’re allowed to look. It’s not like she’s gonna bite.”
“She might,” Nate said, eyes still trained on her. “Has she forgiven us for the gym mix-up, yet?”
“I don’t wanna bring it up, but I did some damage control at the shoot the other day to cover your sorry asses.”
“I saw all that coverage. Dude, it didn’t look like damage control,” Nate muses. “You tap that after?”
“Feck off with that,” I scoffed, but my cheeks flamed at his accusation.
“It wasn’t like that, at all.” Truth is, I wasn’t sure what anything was like since then.
The few days that had followed that shoot, I’d found myself searching for her in the stadium with no luck, because she really did airtight our schedules to not overlap.
I’d found myself thinking about things that I shouldn’t be thinking about.
While Jake dreamed about Nate in tiaras, I’d been plagued with images of her.
I didn’t have time to sit and analyze dreams with a million other things I should have been focusing on, but Teddy Sloane had invaded my mind, and she was as stubborn there as she was in real life.
Flashes of her leaning into me during the shoot, how soft and strong she felt beneath my palms. Her scent that I found myself almost searching for in the stadium.
And no amount of extra exercise had burned it out of me.
I’d also spent the last few days in talks with our head of PR, coming up with ideas that would redirect the narrative. Why had I offered that? Panic? Redemption? To show her I wasn’t just the asshole she knew in college.
I wasn’t sure, but I knew she’d gotten under my skin again. Only this time, I wasn’t willing to beat her. I wanted her to win.
Teddy Sloane had started a fire within me, and I didn’t just mean because she’s hot. There’s more. So much more to her.
“You’re a bad liar, man,” Ramirez said, laughing into his cup.
I shook my head and took a long sip of beer, but my eyes kept drifting back to where she was at the bar with those long fucking legs.
Men flocked around her, which wasn’t a surprise, but she effortlessly batted them all away with a scowl or a smile that was too bitter for them to stick around.
All it did was make my blood run hotter.
Wanting her was a new development, but I couldn’t lie and say that it was one I was mad about.
Her head tilted back as she laughed at something Leo said. I never had an issue with the guy, until now. Irrational thoughts of punching him right in the face for making her laugh swarmed my mind, but that was exactly what they were, irrational. Something I couldn’t afford to be.
Her fingers danced along the condensation of the glass she’d been handed, filled with soda. Suddenly, my mouth went dry at the idea of licking that water off her finger, of using it to trail down her body and…
“Cap?”
My head swung to the boys at the table, and their faces told me they knew exactly where my thoughts were headed. But before anyone could say a thing, she was right there.
“You clean up nice, Sloane.” Jake wolf-whistled as she slid her drink onto our table but didn’t sit, but the fact she chose to be near me made all my nerves fray.
She smelled divine, like expensive perfume, and all I wanted to do was rub myself against her like a dog in heat. Fucking get it together, man.
“Boys, if that’s the bar for complimenting women, no wonder you’re all single.”
The table dissolved into ooos and burns that seemed to satiate the woman in front of us. Micah arrived a second later, with Bobby wrapped around her, as always. “Hey, team.”
“Your captain is just roasting Jakey here,” Ramirez said with a shit-eating-grin.
Micah laughed. “Again? What, he didn’t learn his lesson yet?”
“Man just needs a woman who knows how to deal with kids,” Bobby added, giving Micah’s waist a quick squeeze. “Preferably one with the patience of a saint.”
Jake held up his hand. “I’ll have you know, I’m extremely dateable for all women.”
Bobby let out a short laugh. “No one’s arguing with you, Jakey. Just saying you might make someone work for it.”
Micah nodded, sipping her drink. “A challenge can be good, though.”
Jake brightened. “Exactly. Thank you.”
The group eased back into chatter, no one taking any of it too seriously.
It was the kind of teasing that comes from knowing each other well.
But that only made Teddy look more uncomfortable.
She still hadn’t sat down with us. Hovering near me like a gravitational field I couldn’t escape.
Every shift of her body was a hit—her shoulder brushing my arm, the warmth of her thigh grazing the table near mine.
I pretended to take a drink to take a breath. But her presence was its own gravity. A steady pull I felt more than I understood.