Hard Count (The Piper Ashton Saga #1)

Chapter One Los Angeles

Piper Ashton had a rule. Don’t watch the other quarterback warm up.

He built the rule during his second season, after spending an entire pregame studying a veteran so closely he could’ve diagrammed the man’s footwork from memory.

His team lost by twenty-four points and the loss was on him.

Afterward, Piper knew exactly what had happened.

He’d spent more time mapping someone else’s every move than trusting his own.

The rule had held for eight seasons and Noah Reyes made him break it in under thirty seconds.

Piper noticed him across the field near the opposite thirty-yard line. He was performing smooth throws that arrived exactly where they were supposed to, every time. The ball left Noah’s hand with a careless looseness and a perfect fucking arc.

His build was solid muscle. He was Mexican American, six-foot-six, with eyes that would make anyone feral. His ass filled his skin-tight uniform. Piper caught the faint outline of his jockstrap beneath his white leggings.

He looked away. Flexed his fingers. Then he looked back.

Another perfect throw, another clean catch, like the route had been drawn in the air and the receiver was just following the line.

Piper didn’t dislike quarterbacks who made difficult things look effortless.

He fucking despised them. That kind of looseness suggested instinct over architecture.

Instinct was unreliable. Structure worked and Piper thrived on structure.

He jogged toward the tunnel, rolling his shoulders beneath his pads, already calculating the next four quarters.

He and Noah had never been in the same division.

Six seasons of proximity with no collision; Noah in New York, Piper in L.A.

, their orbits close enough that Piper had studied the film, tracked the tendencies, built a read on the mechanics.

But this was their first year sharing a division.

Their first real game was now and studying was over.

***

The locker room smelled like dried sweat and bleach working overtime to kill the staph infection that someone was bound to get. All Of The Lights by Kanye West rattled the overhead speakers loud enough to cause an aneurysm.

Tank Jefferson slammed his locker. “Dude, you look like you’re doing your fucking taxes, but I’m sure you love doing your taxes, right?”

Piper didn’t break eye contact with his playbook. “I’m figuring out how we win this game with their guy throwing like that.”

“We’ll handle Noah.”

Tank dropped onto the bench. “New York traded him for a reason.”

“Cap space. He still won MVP last season.”

“Man throws like he’s fucking bored.”

“That works until it doesn’t.”

Piper finally looked up. “Usually around the fourth quarter.”

Tank grinned and left him alone.

Piper’s phone buzzed inside the locker. He glanced at it.

Jayson Days. He turned the screen face down on the shelf without opening the message and went back to the playbook.

He clenched his jaw, teeth grinding as the pit in his stomach grew like a demon.

The demon was always in Piper and he was used to the fucking asshole.

He had a window. Two hours of game, an hour and a half of postgame, then the drive home. Three hours, give or take. After that, the screen would need to be answered, because that was the arrangement with Jayson.

He set the playbook on his thigh.

Piper stood, feeling the weight of the pads settle across his shoulders. He stepped toward the tunnel with Tank walking beside him. Tank was always beside Piper and practically his brother at that point.

They turned to each other at the mouth of the tunnel, the same pregame edge, Tank grinned. “Fuck Seattle.”

“Fuck Seattle,” Piper agreed.

The crowd noise pressed through the concrete walls in waves. The tunnel lights hummed. Players lined both sides, shoulder pads brushing.

Piper adjusted his posture, gave his best impersonation of someone with actual confidence, imposter syndrome on a ten, and stepped toward the light.

“You good?” Tank said.

Piper took a breath. “First game of the season jitters.”

Tank shook his head. “You need a fucking hug, bro.”

“I’ll be okay,” Piper giggled.

“Find me like you always do. Okay?” Tank slapped Piper’s ass and headed for the field.

The field opened at the end of the tunnel, glowing under the lights, as cameras hovered near midfield.

Across the field, Noah Reyes jogged, helmet tucked under one arm. Confident stride like the night was already his and he was simply waiting for the rest of it to catch up.

Noah glanced across the field.

Their eyes met briefly. Piper turned away first, a flicker of competitive irritation, and turned back to his receivers.

L.A. was out on the field first. The first play was a tight spiral and Tank caught it clean. Forty yards. Touchdown.

Tank celebrated by spinning on the goalpost like he was auditioning for Showgirls. The crowd lost their shit. It would cost him fifty thousand dollars, minimum, and he would absolutely do it again because the fans loved it.

Noah answered with forty yards into the end zone, and then he jogged back to his huddle, laughing like he had just phoned in a beautiful throw. The looseness bothered Piper more than the throw itself.

Score: L.A. 7, Seattle 7.

Piper threw again, this time a short route. He focused on rhythm, on the cadence settling into something automatic, the game narrowing from a stadium to a pocket to a receiver’s hands.

Then a linebacker overran a route and collided with a receiver mid-pattern. Pads cracked.

The linebacker shrugged. Piper took his next throw. Across the field, Noah was watching him.

Piper released the ball without breaking eye contact. Perfect spiral. Tank caught it in stride. Touchdown. Score: L.A. 14, Seattle 7.

“Oh yeah. Bitches can’t cover my ass.” Back on the pole. Swirling for his life as if he was at an Atlanta strip club. Another fifty thousand fine.

Piper looked away before Tank reached him.

Then, before he’d finished deciding not to, he looked across the field again.

Noah had his helmet back on, but his posture had shifted, the first trace of something competitive working through the looseness that was so fucking annoying to Piper.

Piper hated arrogance and cockiness. Part of him wished he had a confident bone in his body in spite of being the highest paid quarterback in the league.

The scoreboard clock ran. Players moved toward the sidelines. Tank leaned close.“You keep looking at him like that, the league’s gonna charge extra.”

Piper grabbed his helmet. “We’re playing football. Shut the fuck up.”

Tank smiled. Said nothing. The referee moved toward midfield. The crowd noise climbed louder as the smell of communal Bud Light breath saturated the air.

Piper tightened his chin strap and stepped forward. Hey Joan, who the fuck does this dude across the field think he is? Piper said to his inner self who he had named “Joan” because his obsession with Joan Rivers as a kid made naming easy.

He had asked five separate psychiatrists if he had multiple personality syndrome, but they all just said he had layered thinking patterns, for which he said, okay, then give me fucking Adderall already.