Chapter 3
Three
Gray
Say what you will about my teammates, but they’re funny—
Most of the time, anyway.
The rest of it, they’re annoying as shit.
The only good thing is after spending the afternoon in a marathon shopping spree at The Baby Emporium we grabbed beers and burgers.
And fries.
It has to be said that I may or may not have consumed my weight in garlic fries.
I can practically smell it coming out of my pores.
Whatever.
I’m going home to rot anyway.
There’s a terrible action movie calling my name.
And entire bag of microwave popcorn.
Maybe if I get crazy, I’ll toss in a handful of M&Ms, get that sweet and salty combination going.
My stomach growls—and seriously, how I can possibly be hungry after the huge burger and shared pitcher of beer and the body weight’s worth of garlic fries is almost unfathomable.
Except that the Pavlovian response of freshly popped popcorn can never be denied.
Mouth twitching, I turn down my street and navigate along the quiet road filled with old-growth trees, but I do it slowly. Carefully. My neighborhood is a well-established one not too far west of where the Grizzlies’ home arena is located, and it’s mostly families and empty nesters.
With those families, sometimes balls roll out into the middle of the street, followed by kids who aren’t playing the closest attention.
Occasionally, the family dog follows them.
Or sometimes it’s a rogue squirrel crossing the road or one of the empty nesters going to a neighbor’s house for a glass of wine.
An adult playdate, if you will.
And the kids have those too, dashing across the street to play hopscotch or four square—
Both of which they take extremely seriously.
Ask me the difference between skimmies and aces and cherry bombs.
I dare you.
So yeah, my neighborhood is cool.
It’s the right mix of close and not—neighbors who know each other’s names, who look out for my house when I’m out of town with the team (and I do the same when they’re traveling for work or on vacation).
We’ll bring in mail or deliveries, I’ll put Lizzy—my neighbor across the street’s Labrador—back on the rare occasion she escapes her yard, and we’ll share adult beverages on a fairly regular basis.
But they also know when to mind their own business.
My next-door neighbor especially does that.
Faye Sullivan is about all I know of the woman who occupies the house beside mine.
Along with the fact that she works from home and takes her turn hosting the neighborhood’s Book Club (or Wine Night as the men on the street call it—based on the cackling I’ve heard through the fence and then later, the sheer volume of glass bottles hitting her recycling bin after everyone goes home).
That’s it.
Oh, we exchange waves and neighborly smiles on a fairly regular basis.
Just not words.
In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever heard her say more than a dozen of them.
Something that works for me.
Women…
Well, women and I don’t mix.
Not that I don’t love women. I do. I love their curves, their hair spread out on my pillow, their sexy little smiles, and their tight, slick pussies. I love all of that and more—the scent of their perfume, their high heels, their lacy bras, their soft skin.
I love it all so much I seem to lose all common sense when it comes to the ones I invite into my bed.
And my heart.
Rolling my eyes because the last thing I need to be doing is worrying about my heart, I hit the button on the opener attached to the sun visor, wait for the garage door to roll up, and then pull inside. I’m just popping the trunk, pulling out far too many bags of clothes when I hear my name.
That voice…
It’s a prime example of me having lost all my common sense.
No. It’s the prime example.
Because that feminine voice strokes down my spine like fingers tracing nonsensical patterns over my naked flesh, moving further and further south, sliding forward, rounding my body and encircling my cock, stroking once, twice, three times—
Without looking at the woman who’s the embodiment of my mistakes with the opposite sex, I slam the trunk and turn for the interior door, hating myself a little as I walk.
Because I know she’s going to follow me.
She always does.
And, sure enough, before my fingers reach the panel to shut the garage door, she’s there, a foot behind me, her floral scent in my nose.
It’s intoxicating.
It’s fucked up.
But that’s Courtney and me—fucked up to the nth degree.
I still let her into my house anyway, holding the door wide as she walks inside.
I follow her through the hall, the fucked-up part of me who first invited her into my bed enjoying the view of her shapely ass lovingly cupped by her tight dress as I go.
We move into the kitchen and I head for the fridge, pulling out a beer, popping off the top, knowing I’m going to need it in order to survive the next interaction.
I take a long pull, swallow, then face my nightmare. “Why are you here, Court?”
She strolls over to me, hips swaying, heels clicking on the floor, smile full of feminine confidence.
She knows she’s beautiful.
The clothes she chooses to wear add to that allure, as does her precisely applied makeup, her hair curled carefully and hanging down her back in gentle waves.
Those blonde locks have spent a lot of time spread out over my pillow…almost as much as her legs have been spread on my mattress.
But even sex was deliberately enacted.
Each and every single move carefully planned and prepped.
Courtney is beautiful, but nothing is natural. Nothing is real. It’s all a carefully curated show.
And as much as my dick likes how beautiful and confident she is…my heart is done with it.
I just want something real.
Something like what Aiden has. What Smitty has.
Court—as usual—stymies my plans before I can show her the door.
She plucks the beer out of my hand, lifts it to her lips, and even the sip she takes is designed to tempt and titillate.
And my dick responds.
Christ, I’m a fucking disaster.
“I need to have a reason to be here?” she asks after she’s swallowed, fingers stroking—deliberately—along the neck of the bottle.
Yes, she does.
And she damn well knows it.
But I don’t say that out loud, don’t bother arguing (because it won’t make a difference). Instead, I ignore my dick and turn for the fridge, intending to get my own beer.
To numb my idiocy with alcohol.
How could that go wrong?
Fuck. I need to be done with this shit.
I need—
“I want a divorce.”
I freeze.
Because those were the words I was thinking.
The words I should be saying.
I spin back.
Before I can reply, she launches herself into my arms, and, reflexively, I catch her, beer sloshing over the rim of her bottle, dripping down onto my pants.
“Court—” I growl.
I don’t know how I would have finished that statement because…
She kisses me.
And the worst part?
I kiss her back.