Chapter 2
TWO
PEARCE
I pressed the app button again, and Cassius whipped his head in the direction of the door, his earlier confusion making way to frustration. With a huff, he grumbled all the way and tore open his front door.
“The fuck.” Slamming the door shut, he turned, grouching about “fucking nonexistent doorbells” and something about “selling the fucking place” and “pain-in-the-ass ghosts.”
“Just take your shot and stop procrastinating,” Joel said, straight-faced. A moment later he shot me the side-eye. From that look alone, it was clear he knew I had something to do with this fuckery.
I swallowed back my smirk. “Yeah, Cassius, get on with your shot.”
He flipped me off and lined up his pool cue. Bending low, he aimed, tongue sticking out slowly, concentration forming a deep line between his brows.
With his focus completely on the pool game, which he took far too seriously, I read that as my signal.
Slipping my hand into my pocket, I angled away from my teammates whose focus was on the pool table.
Phone in hand, I tugged it out, thumbed in my PIN, and once again pressed the button on the app that I was having far too much fun with.
The doorbell rang, persistent, annoying, and Cassius’s shot went wide, the white ball bouncing off the table in a spectacular fashion. It hit the ground with a thud just as Cassius shouted, “The fuck!”
I couldn’t take it anymore. My laughter spilled free, immediately drawing my friends’ attention.
“You dickbag.” Cassius threw his cue on to the felt table and stalked toward me.
Still laughing, I jolted in the other direction. “What did I do?”
“It was you. I should have fucking known. I don’t even have a doorbell.” He jerked to his right, and with the pool table between us, I dodged in the other direction.
“Hey.” I lifted my hands, palms out, not doing the best job at calming him since I directed a cheek-splitting grin at him. “You said you were… what did he call himself, Joel?”
“The god of sticks, and I quote, ‘Give me a stick and I can wrangle that piece like it’s a serpent and I’m a snake whisperer.’ I’m sure those were the words.”
I cracked up laughing. “Didn’t he proceed to list off the types of sticks he could… uhm… did he also use the word ‘rule’?”
Ollie, our team captain, snorted loudly, grabbing all of our attention. “Don’t mind me,” he said, gesturing to us with his beer. “You say stupid shit about dicks and cues, Cass, you’re on your own.”
Cassius crossed his arms, narrowing his gaze at me. “And I was whooping your ass at this game. But the fuck has my god status got to do with you and a doorbell, cockhead?”
Asking for trouble, I bounced my brows. “You also said you had the concentration of a…” I clicked my fingers, pretending I couldn’t remember the dumb shit my friend said.
“An alligator,” Joel added helpfully.
Amusement punched out of me once more. “Maybe concentrated juice. The weak kind,” I offered, darting to my left when Cassius made to move again.
On opposite ends of the table, I raised my brow in challenge. Cassius may be an exceptional shot on the basketball court, but I was a lot lighter on my feet. In response, he flipped me off and shook his head, not doing a great job at concealing the twitch of his lips.
“Right, my pains in the asses, you about done here? We finishing, or calling it now?” From the tone of Ollie’s voice, it sounded like he was a fan of the latter, and honestly, as much as I loved pissing Cassius off, I was beat too.
We had a game tomorrow. And while every game mattered, tomorrow’s mattered even more.
It was why a few of us had got together at Cassius’s place to attempt to kick back and chill.
Nothing heavy, beyond me finding ways to piss off Cassius.
But to be fair, he’d set himself up with the whole stick thing.
The douche in him was strong, but he was still loveable as hell, almost as much as he was ridiculous.
“I suppose we could call it, though other than lover boy over here, it’s not like we’ve anywhere to be.” Cassius flicked his gaze to me as he spoke, but it still took me a second to realize I was apparently lover boy.
I rolled my eyes at him, not bothering to put him straight, though from the challenge in his gaze, he was really hoping I would.
“What?” he said with a grin, prodding me for a reaction. “You’ve got the cute journo whose chain you’re yanking and the hot DILF on speed dial. Lover boy totally fits.”
“Whatever, man, you know it’s not like that.
” I clamped my mouth shut when a spark of satisfaction registered on Cassius’s face.
The asshole knew how to push my buttons, and he sometimes wore his douche label with pride.
The annoying thing was, he didn’t even try to get a rise out of me with venom.
This was just a game we played. Him teasing, me playing pranks on him.
“Joel, what do you think? Who’s going to eventually win our boy’s heart here, get him tied down? The DILF or the journo?”
Shaking his head, Joel started putting away the pool balls. “Well, since Eddie isn’t a DILF for me, MILFs all the way, I couldn’t possibly comment.”
“Bullshit.” Cassius smirked. “Your five hundred bucks says differently.”
I groaned. “Seriously. This is the latest bet in the team?” I wasn’t sure why I was so surprised, since I’d been super active in other bets. Hell, I’d won a tidy sum with the whole Jayden-and-Sutton saga.
“Latest?” Cassius shook his head and snorted.
“Hell no. Well, since you hooked up with the local journo, the odds changed a little, but the one with Eddie, yeah, that’s been around since the moment you returned from Montview like a lovesick puppy talking about the legendary Eddie Phelps in every other sentence. ”
I dropped my head and rubbed a hand over my face.
I could do the generous thing and tell them me and Eddie would never happen.
I’d tried to start something up with the man once, but his resolute no, alongside his determination to stay friends, had been my clear answer.
And since he was absolutely my best friend these days, I had no doubt that was the way it would remain.
No way I’d be telling the guys Eddie had rejected me a few years back. Screw that. These friends of mine didn’t need more ammunition.
The guys weren’t wrong, though, about how I talked about the man.
Eddie was important to me, as was his daughter.
Our friendship had grown exponentially over time, and I’d pretty much cemented myself into his and his daughter’s lives.
Would I risk it all if Eddie and I had a chance to be more?
Fuck yes. The man was lodged in my soul, and whether he knew it or not, when I’d fallen for him, I’d given him a piece of said soul in return.
“What is happening with the journalist these days?” The question came from Ollie, surprising me, as he didn’t usually pry into my personal life—or anyone’s as far as I was aware. To be clear, he was a kick-ass captain and we spent a lot of time together, but personal sharing was minimal.
“Tony’s a good friend.”
“Yeah he is.” Cassius bounced his brows, and if the pool table wasn’t between us, he would have earned himself a shove. “The whole friends-with-benefits thing still working out for you, huh? Nice. I knew you were downplaying at the bar a couple of weeks back.”
Somehow I kept my eye roll at bay. “We’re more like just friends these days. Life’s busy, you know?”
Joel frowned. “What, too busy to get your cock sucked? Dude, something’s seriously wrong if that’s the case.”
“Not wrong. It’s just… he’s a good guy, and I don’t want to lead him on.”
“He wanting a relationship or something?” Curiosity colored Ollie’s words.
“Jesus, what is this, get-the-dirt-on-my-sex-life question time or some shit?” My chuckle sounded awkward, which pretty much was accurate. We never talked about stuff like this, so I had no idea what sparked this conversation now. “What’s with all the questions?”
Cassius shrugged. “The pot’s big and things seem, I don’t know, a little stagnant.”
Incredulous, I laughed. “The hell? So this is your intervention to get the dirt and give me a shove so someone can win the pot?”
“Well, when you put it like that, then yeah.” Cassius’s grin was far too self-satisfied and ridiculous to ignore. Genuine amusement bubbled in my chest. These guys, though I expected Cassius mainly, were dicks. But they were my… uhm… dicks…. Of the nonsexual variety.
“How about you just use the fund to take us all out after the season’s over?”
“What?”
“Hell no.”
“No chance.”
They all spoke at once, so I had no idea who said what. “Guys, you’re being extra, and I’m not even going to ask how much money’s riding on this bullshit with that sort of reaction. And on that note, I’m going home.”
“For phone sex?”
I snorted at the hope in Cassius’s voice. “To sleep and get a good rest before tomorrow’s game, god of alligators.” I followed up with a back slap, and after saying goodbye to the guys, I headed out, chuckling loudly at Cassius’s, “God of sticks. Jesus. How hard is it to get right?”
It took me all of five minutes to get home, courtesy of living in the same gated estate as Cassius. It came in handy, living so close. Though with their weird investment in my pretty much nonexistent love life these days, maybe I needed to move and find somewhere with huge-ass gates.
Once at my pad, I showered, got my running gear ready for the morning, then headed to bed.
Tucked up, I opened my phone and call list. Eddie’s name was at the top, like it usually was.
I hesitated before clicking on his name, feeling called out by my friends and my fixation on Eddie.
They didn’t actually know we spoke every day.
Sometimes it would only be for a minute, another for a couple of hours.
But that’s what you did with your friends, right?
I ignored the echo of “bullshit” zipping around my brain.
There had never been another friend I spoke to every day.
Ever. Not even when I was a kid. The thing was, with my heart and soul heavily invested, and friendship the one thing on the table, I grabbed on to it like a lifeline.
Wanting and needing and, hell, loving our connection.
Sure, phone sex, just like the real deal, would be a hell of a sweetener, but this had to be it. And I was okay with that, or as okay as I ever would be.
Did I think it was healthy? The hell if I knew, but I wasn’t prepared to change a thing. With that thought in my mind, I hit Eddie’s name and smiled, waiting for him to answer.