Chapter 19 #2
“No, I didn’t fucking growl,” I shoot over my shoulder, wishing for a second I could make my voice as menacing as Caitlin can because I have a sudden need to impress upon my friends the urgency of this situation, but I’m too damn cheerful for menacing.
I should have cornered the market on broody when I had the chance.
“I’m simply expressing my surprise at seeing a strange man standing six inches from my best friend.
We’re in the goddamn NFL, Cameron. We know men are trash, and there is currently a trash man getting all up in Sophie’s space. ”
I suck in a breath as the trash man runs a finger over Sophie’s hand.
The hand I once ran my finger over.
My goddamn hand.
And she smiles at him.
The gorgeous, perfect, beaming smile she gives to me.
My fucking smile.
My hands clench into fists and my body is primed to pounce before my absolute and utter descent into chaos is interrupted by my friends lapsing into hysterics.
Spinning around, I pin them with a glare. “What’s so fucking funny?”
“Just friends, huh?” Drew manages, before collapsing back into giggles. The best wide receiver in the entire National Football League is giggling, for fuck’s sake. At me.
“Not so much,” I mumble, grabbing a can of ginger ale out of the ice bucket.
I pop it open and take a long sip, trying to cool the inferno in my blood.
“At least, I wish we weren’t. Just friends, I mean.
I wish we weren’t just friends. I wish we were way, way more than just friends.
Turns out Sophie is…” I cut myself off, slamming my mouth shut before I spill to my friends that Sophie is ChaosQueen.
It’s felt wrong enough talking to her on the app when she doesn’t know it’s me.
Telling my friends before I tell her feels like a whole ass betrayal.
I shake my head. “Everything. It turns out Sophie is everything.”
Cam reaches over and ruffles my hair like I’m one of his kids. “Welcome to earth, Ty. We were wondering how long it would take you to finally figure it out.”
“You guys too?” Jack says with a grin. “Ollie and I have been talking about it for years. In college we even placed bets on when Tyler and Soph would finally get their shit together.”
“You what?” This time I actually do growl.
Oliver shrugs. “Neither of us had you waiting nearly this long. That’s some impressive restraint considering you’re pretty much an overgrown toddler with impulse control issues.
So, what finally sealed the deal? Was it living together?
All that roommate tension finally snap? Did you accidentally walk in on her naked? ”
“Don’t talk about Sophie naked,” I shoot back, my brain immediately filling with an image of Sophie naked because I’m allowed to think about it, and goddamn.
I shift when my dick goes half hard behind my zipper before I turn my attention back to Oliver.
“Don’t think about Sophie naked. As a matter of fact, as far as you’re concerned, Sophie is one of those never-nude people who never takes her clothes off, ever. ”
Drew laughs so hard tears stream down his face. “Better tell that guy,” he manages, gesturing over to the bar. “Because the way he’s looking at her makes me think he’s imagining an always-naked Sophie. And hoping he gets to see it in real life. Tonight, preferably.”
“What the fuck?” I mutter, whipping around just in time to see the trash man step farther into Sophie’s space. When he puts a hand on her hip, fingers curling possessively, my stomach clenches, my heart slamming against my ribs and beating out a rhythm that sounds a whole lot like mine.
And when he leans in, bringing his free hand to her other hip and dipping his head to whisper something in her ear, the flash of discomfort on her face has a red haze floating across my vision.
“No fucking way,” I spit out, standing so fast my chair topples to the ground behind me.
The sound of my friends cheering is background noise as I stride across the bar, three thoughts and three thoughts only racing through my brain.
Get to Sophie.
Keep her safe.
Make her mine.
She’s fucking mine. This is happening. Tonight.
When I reach the bar, the guy’s back is to me, and Sophie’s eyes are bouncing around the room as if she’s looking for a way out of her current situation.
At your goddamn service, baby.
I toss the girls a quick glare for not noticing Sophie needed an out before I turn to the matter at hand, covering the space between Sophie and me in two seconds flat.
“Get your fucking hands off her before I break your goddamn fingers,” I growl, stepping up behind the guy.
If I wasn’t so angry at the idea of another man touching Sophie, I would clock the way Maddy laughs and Sarah practically cheers.
The smug smile on Maya’s face and Emmy’s beaming grin.
Caitlin’s look that gives It’s about fucking time, and my dad and Gabe’s enthusiastic thumbs ups from behind the bar and my dad’s gleeful “Finally.” And I would wonder whether I was the absolute last person on earth to know I was head over heels in love with my best friend.
But I don’t notice any of that because my hands are too busy clenching into fists to keep from punching this guy in his smug, stupid face and knocking out his way too-bright veneers.
“What are you doing?” Sophie demands, narrowing her eyes in that grumpy way of hers that has lust arrowing through me. Fuck, I love grumpy Sophie.
“Can I help you?” the guy asks with a bored expression on his face.
I cross my arms over my chest, straightening to my full height of way taller than this asshole. “As a matter of fact, you can help me by taking your hands off her.”
“And you are?” he asks, turning his back to Sophie to face me, which enrages me for no good reason but for the fact that Sophie shines way too brightly to have anything less than anyone’s full and undivided attention. She definitely has mine.
“Hers,” I say, eyes pinned to Sophie’s.
“What the fuck, Tyler?” Sophie hisses, looking at me like I’ve lost my damn mind, and it’s entirely possible I have. None of this feels wrong, though. Not one single part of it.
“What did you say?” the guy asks cooly, taking a step backwards either to get away from me or to get closer to Sophie. My money is on door number one. Eat a bag of dicks, asshole.
“I said, I’m hers. Hers,” I say again, pointing to Sophie to make sure he gets the message. And that she does too. “And she’s mine, so I’ll be needing you not to touch her ever again, and to go somewhere far, far away because she’s not interested. Not tonight. Not ever.”
This time Sarah literally cheers, and Emmy lets out an impressively low whistle, but I don’t notice how anyone else reacts because my eyes are glued to Sophie, who is now staring at me like she’s never seen me before.
And she hasn’t. Not this way. Because figuring out I’m in love with her has rearranged my damn cells. Changed me right down to my deepest depths.
Fuckhead has the audacity to laugh, and my anger rises like a geyser, ready to explode. “I’ll leave when she tells me to leave. Until then, I suggest you leave us the hell alone.”
I open my mouth to speak, but Sophie beats me to it, pushing off the bar and shoving the asshole aside.
“I suggest you both leave me the hell alone. I don’t know what’s going on right now, but I don’t like it.
I’m not a goddamn prize.” Sophie pins me with a searing glare before pushing past me and storming away.
“Shit,” I mutter, elbowing my way through the gathered crowd to follow her, Maya calling, “Go get your girl!” behind me.
I see her the second I turn down the hallway to the bathrooms. She’s muttering to herself, hands on her hips and toe tapping on the concrete floor. Her face is flushed, eyes flashing with irritation.
I need her like air.
I must make some sort of noise because she whirls on me, curls flying wildly behind her.
“What the actual fuck? Like seriously, did you have a personality transplant in the twelve hours since I last saw you? Whatever made you think you could swing your dick around out there like you own me or something? I’m all set, Tyler, so you can back right the fuck off. ”
I take one step towards her. Then another. I’m careful not to get too close because if I can reach her, I’ll be kissing her, and I feel like maybe we need to have a conversation first. “I can’t back off. He was touching you.”
Sophie rolls her eyes. “So the fuck what? A lot of people touch me, and some of them are men. In fact…” she starts, voice calculated, eyes narrowing just a touch, something that isn’t anger sparking behind the whiskey brown. “If I’m not mistaken, you have been touching me quite a lot lately.”
I take another step towards her, my body drawn directly to hers. There is nothing on earth that would make me leave this moment. This place. Not with her looking at me like that—like she might finally understand. “I have.”
She tilts her head, studying me. “Why?”
I run my hand through my hair, smirking when her face immediately flushes. “Because you’re mine.”
“Yours?” Sophie scoffs incredulously. “I’m not yours.”
I chuckle because she can’t possibly be serious right now. And then I take one more step towards her. “You.”
Another step. She takes one backwards, but her eyes never leave mine. “Are.”
One more step for me. Another backwards step for Sophie that has her colliding with the wall, pressing her hands to the plaster on either side of her hips like she’s trying to anchor herself.
To figure out if this is really real, and I almost laugh because fuck yeah, this is as real as it gets, baby. “Fucking.”
One more step. I’m right in front of her now, so close our bodies are practically touching. I can feel her warm breath on my lips, see the pulse fluttering in her neck. The way her pupils dilate when I ease a little closer, planting one hand on the wall above her head and leaning in. “Mine.”
And with that final word hovering between us, I slide my free hand around her neck and tilt her chin up, crashing my mouth to hers.