Not Your Chick
Adrian
Present Day
“Call me. Now.”
Britt’s message flashes across the screen of my phone.
Fuck.
If she’s involved, that means our manager is involved and pissed. I can already hear his voice grilling me, ‘conduct unbecoming of a public figure.’
My phone has been buzzing all morning. I ignored it, grabbing my gym bag instead. After last night’s chaos, Alice had left with one of the other girlfriends. She screamed at me about what a child I was before storming off. I opted not to return to our room, booking a different one in the same hotel, and continued to avoid her this morning.
I push myself hard through my workout. Sweating out last night’s booze. The harder I push, the easier it is to forget about the shit storm I stirred up, being unable to keep it together. I punched my teammate and friend in the face.
My hand fucking hurts.
I flex my fingers, clenching and unclenching my hand. The skin across my knuckles is shredded, split open from where I caught Nate’s jaw. I push my thumb into one of the cuts, sucking in a hiss at the sting.
Good.
I deserve the pain.
Sitting up from a set and a sharp pain cuts through my ribs. Nate must’ve gotten a few decent hits in. I twist back and forth, confirming it’s nothing more than bruising. My phone rings. Again.
I put my head in my hands and glanced at the screen on the floor between my feet. Ronan’s face appears on the screen.
I already know what he’s going to say. I’m not ready for it.
I let it ring out and take a swig of water. Sweat drips off my forehead onto the floor, and I can’t believe she was there. Again. Not only there, but straddling our new defenseman and grinding into his cock like a bitch in heat, like she belonged to him.
Fuck.
I grip my water bottle tight, sending a stream of water spraying out. Setting the bottle down beside me, I grab some paper towels. I am kneeling to clean up the mess I created in my rage when the door to the small hotel gym opens. Simultaneously, my phone rings. I grab it and see the photo Alice set to her contact of us in Miami last season.
Nope.
Immediately, a text pops up. The preview from Alice is a paragraph-long rant. I don’t open or read it; instead, I swipe it away and drop my phone to the ground beside me.
I hear someone clear their throat and turn to Ronan, standing just at the door. His face is free from his usual smirk. He looks all too serious—not my friend, right now, he’s my Team Captain.
“Okay, man. I fucked up.” I say before he can get the first word out, hoping the acknowledgment will save me from a lecture.
His down-turned mouth indicates his agreement.
“What do you want me to say? I walk in and see that girl grinding into Nate. His hands were all over her and -”
My jaw clenches just thinking about it. I shouldn’t have lost it, but seeing her like that, with him… I couldn’t stop myself. Before I can finish, Ronan holds his hands up, signaling me to shut the fuck up.
“And what?” His tone is sharp, building to a yell. “And what, Liberty?”
I go from an apologetic stance to a defensive one.
“She is not your fucking chick. You met her ONCE.”
I am aware of that.
But all I see is the way her hands were on him.
The way his arms wrapped around her.
Tension coils in my neck, so tight it feels like my head might snap.
“You know who is your chick? Alice. She was there, man. She saw you sucker punch a teammate for a reason we all claimed not to know. Alice, who took a leave from work to follow you around on this string of games.”
His focus on me wronging Alice comes as a surprise. He doesn’t even like her. He certainly gave me a lot of shit when I told him she was planning to go with us. I hold his stare, unwilling to display any form of submission to one of my oldest friends.
He takes a breath, calming his tone before continuing, “That bar was full of people who follow us on socials, man. It’s already all over Instagram and TikTok. This isn’t a good look for the team.”
Ronan’s words hit home—Instagram and TikTok. I can already imagine the videos. Liberty sucker-punching his teammate over a girl. The comments must be tearing me apart. No doubt Britt was losing her mind.
Unlocking my phone, I scroll past Britt’s text, ignore the email with the subject line ‘Damage Control—Urgent,’ and open TikTok, quickly locating the video. 67 million views.
Holy shit.
Bushy Beavers Drama: Did Assistant Captain Liberty Just Deck a Teammate Over a Chick?
The clip is grainy, the flashing club lights making it hard to see, but it’s clear as fucking day. Nate has his hands on her, and then—
BOOM.
I filter through the comments; there are thousands of them. The top comment has over 50,000 likes. ‘LMAO, Liberty threw hands over some random girl? Relax, bro.’ I scroll down; the comments range from calling me out for shitty behavior to suggesting Nate press charges to women asking me to fight for them. What a fucking disaster.
I lock my phone, blocking out the video of his hands on her body.
“I know. I’m sorry. She got under my skin, and I was drinking. I wasn’t thinking straight. How do I fix this?”
He scrubs his hand down his dark two-day-old stubble and shrugs.
“I have no idea. I already pulled Nate aside for a chat. You owe him a couple of beers when we get back home. Brittney sounded like she was on the brink of a nervous breakdown when she called me this morning. You can deal with that shit.” He sighs. “The team shit will sort itself out. You and Nate will be fine; you’ve tussled before. Just try to remember that we handle other people. Try not to handle your teammates.”
“First time over a chick,” I interject in jest.
“Yeah, first time over a chick. Please don’t remind me. Man, I don’t know what the hell you’re going to do about Alice. She is pissed. I’m pretty sure she’s seen the TikTok by now. Pretty sure everyone has seen that fucking video.”
I lean my head back, taking that tidbit of information in. Millions of views—how could she not have seen it by now?
Fuck sake.
“That little dress your girl was sporting didn’t help any,” He says in a playful tone. “Damn man, even I gotta admit, she looked good.”
“Don’t.” I snap. This is too fresh, and that dress was too short.
Too. Fucking. Everything.
He shrugs, laughs, and shakes his head.
“You’re so fucked.”
“Shut up, Ronan.”
“Seriously, you haven’t even fucked this chick, and you’re throwing hands. What would have happened if you had?”
I glare at my best friend, and he laughs.
“I haven’t seen you like this in a long time. All twisted up over a chick. I would rather not go back to that, Adrian,” He says, walking to the water cooler, filling a paper cup, drinking it, and then carrying on. “Also, her friend. Good God. I’ve never paid for sex, but I couldn’t say no.”
That statement gets my full attention.
“What did you just say?”
He laughs loudly, that laugh he got from his mother’s father, the Italian , as we call him.
“Oh yeah, she was all over me and, after the fight, begged me to get her out of there. I took her back to my room, and just as shit is getting good - and I mean, really good - she tells me that her rate is $500/hour.” He is still chuckling, shaking his head as if he can’t believe himself.
“She’s a whore?” I ask.
“Please. Liberty. Whore is so 90s. It’s offensive. She’s a sex worker and a high-end one at that.”
I stare at him. I can’t believe this fucking guy.
Then it hits me in the gut: the dress, her all over Nate, her friend the sex worker.
No, no way. Not her.
The idea alone makes my stomach twist and my jaw tighten. I try to shake the thought off.
“You think she’s… like her friend?”
He laughs, “I knew that was where your head would go, man. One, who cares if she is? She’s. Not. Your. Chick.” He enunciates each word. “Two, no. She is a sales executive or whatever. Rosie said they met a few years ago when Lex moved here. She just told her last night about her lucrative career in fucking.”
My head’s a mess. I’m working through how I should navigate things. We are silent for a couple of minutes when finally Ronan looks at his watch and says, “Shit, man, we gotta check out. The bus leaves in 20 minutes.”
He spins and heads out the door, looking over his shoulder to say, “Good luck with Alice. I mean it. She’s out for blood. She was calling her mom when I saw her earlier.”
Perfect. Bringing in the big guns.
The door closes behind Ronan, leaving me alone with the mess I’ve made—Alice, Lex, and my team. The weight of it all settles in, twisting my stomach. I glance at my phone again, Alice’s face staring back at me.
My thumb hovers, but I don’t answer. I don’t care to.
I click to ignore the call.