Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Brayden
There are voices coming from Savannah’s room. The room where she got ready. The room where we—
Voices. Right. I’m not drunk—I’m not that drunk. Just enough to take the edge off this party. Practically sober. Sober enough to make out two voices, then a series of thumps. What the—?
I knock again. “One minute!” Savannah calls. Then she says something too low for me to make out.
I should storm in there. See what’s going on. We danced together earlier. She kissed me earlier, the press of her plush, glossed lips to mine. If I find her with someone else…
I get a weird burning feeling at the back of my throat.
Humiliation? Jealousy? Something I should drown in more liquor.
I’ll divorce you. The thought rises quick and dies off just as fast. She might need me long term, but a rapid marriage followed by a rapid separation won’t exactly show the team I’ve turned over a new leaf.
I seize the door handle. Rotate it. Open the door.
Find Adler sitting on one of the couches, scrolling idly through his phone like he’s completely unbothered to be found—caught—in here.
“Where’s Savannah?” I demand.
He gives me that flat look of his, the one that makes me want to wrestle him to the ground and rub his smug face into the carpet. “Changing.” He nods toward the bathroom.
Which doesn’t explain what he’s doing in here, but I can guess: he’s here to take something else that’s not his. First Blake’s spot on the roster, now my wife.
She’s not yours either. Not really. That doesn’t matter. “You lost?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “Not really.”
“Sorry, didn’t mean to be polite. Get out.”
He doesn’t budge, just stands up to meet me with his shoulders stiff. Finally, he gestures toward the low coffee table, where one gold high heel is sitting. “She lost her shoe. I was returning it.”
“Great, it’s back, you can go now.” Maybe I’m louder than I should be, but so what? The party is going hard down the hallway. No one can hear us but Savannah.
Adler still isn’t leaving. He brings his index finger to his lips as if he’s shushing me. “She has a migraine.”
“What does that have to do with—?” I don’t have time to finish the sentence.
Adler grabs me and shoves me into the nearest wall, arm a bar across my chest. We’re the same height but he’s maybe very slightly taller than I am.
That doesn’t stop me from pushing against him, moving him back a few steps.
I’m going to win: this fight, the rivalry we have on the field, whatever else we’re competing over.
Until he stiff-arms me into the wall and holds me there.
I struggle against him. I lift just as much as he does—not that I’ve been paying attention to him when we’re in the weight room together. But I definitely do. It doesn’t help. Adler’s angry, fire behind his normally flat expression. “Get the hell off me,” I say.
“I told you to be quiet,” he snaps.
“Just ’cause she has a headache doesn’t mean I can’t know what’s going on with my own wife.”
“She has a migraine.”
“A headache,” I repeat, a little dumbly.
“Do you not know what a migraine is?” He whispers it low and fierce.
“Yeah, a headache—”
“Your wife gets migraines, and you didn’t Google what that means?” Adler’s eyes gleam challengingly like he can see right through me—and doesn’t much like what he finds.
“Stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?” But he has on that fucking smirk as if he knows exactly what I mean.
I should just punch him and get this over with. But what my mind sticks on is your wife. “Sav has a migraine and what—you’re in here playing hero?” I say. “Or is this just your way of trying to fuck her?”
“I was checking on her.”
Fuck. That’s somehow worse—that he knew something I didn’t. I won’t be embarrassed. Not here, not in front of him. Not with Savannah in earshot.
“Let me go.” I need to get away from Adler and his burning accusations and the dark line of his eyelashes and his fat, wet lower lip and that smug expression I want to punch. The vent blows cold air on my face. Better. “Stay away from my wife.” My voice is sticky in my throat.
Adler’s nostril flicks in disgust. At some point, his hand curled into a fist. Slowly, he unclenches it like he’s struggling against himself. But he releases me. Runs a palm down the front of my shirt as if smoothing it out. His lips twitch when I bat his hands away.
“Be seeing you, Forsyth,” he says, then he finally, finally leaves.
For a moment, I stand there, adrift. I straighten my clothes. My suit is wrinkled, my hair out of place. If anyone was watching and saw me come in here and Asher leave, they might think we were…
We were fighting. Just fighting. I straighten my already-straightened shirt some more.
Noise echoes from the bathroom, the sound of fabric rustling and water running. Savannah emerges a moment later in a tank top and sweats, her hair pulled up in a messy bun.
One of her tank top straps trails down her arm.
I want to run my thumb under it, the way I did that bandage-y corset-thing she was wearing earlier.
She said it was to help her dress fit better—as if her body was somehow a problem.
Mostly, her dress fit her so well that that shapewear was the only thing stopping me from continuing that pretend kiss, from parting that high slit in her dress and asking her if my aching cock felt anything but real.
That shapewear—and the fact that she would have told me no.
She stops short as if surprised to find me in the room. “Oh, Brayden, hey.” Her forehead looks…tense.
Adler might have been lying about her having a migraine. Worse, he might have been telling the truth. That means Savannah was here and in pain and I didn’t know anything about it. “You have a headache?” I ask.
She winces, then nods. “Sorry I’m missing the party.” She glances down at herself. “Probably not what you were expecting for tonight. I enjoyed meeting your family. Well, some of them.”
I laugh, and that makes her wince again. “Are you…” I trail off. Bothered by me being here? “Is the noise a problem?”
“Yeah, noise isn’t great. Sometimes when these happen, the best thing is just to be alone for a little while.” She glances toward the door, an implied get out.
If she wants to be alone, I’ll leave her alone. But she wasn’t alone with Adler here. The thought makes my gut churn in a way that has nothing to do with anything I’ve drunk. Be seeing you. Said like a challenge.
No, said like a threat.
If he wants to try to win her over, he’s welcome to try. Unlike some people, I don’t give up easy, and I don’t run away when things get tough.
So if he thinks he can take Savannah from me without a fight…game fucking on.