Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
brIAN
Liv
Sweet win today. Congrats. You going to guys’ night tonight?
Me
Thanks, but it’s not like I actually played the game.
Liv
Maybe not, but you did all that operations stuff that I’m sure made it so the team could play well.
Me
You have no idea what I do every day, do you?
Liv
One hundred percent I do not, but occasionally I get really good seats to games, so whatever you do, I’m sure you do it well.
Also, I know that once upon a time you started a company that made some prospect tracking software that is now used by every single team in the NFL and then sold your company for a bazillion dollars before you moved to Pittsburgh. Do I get credit for knowing that?
Me
Nah, everyone knows that.
Liv
Wow, Bry. Fucking wow.
Me
I’m kidding. You get so much credit for knowing that. I like that you know stuff about me.
Liv
And why is that?
Me
Because it makes me think that you’ve thought of me the same way I’ve thought of you.
Liv
And how have you thought of me?
Me
I think that’s a conversation for a different time.
Liv
Fair point. You haven’t even taken me out on a date or anything. All we’ve done is kiss in your kitchen.
Me
A lot. We kissed in my kitchen a lot.
Liv
And you sure can kiss.
Me
Same goes, Liv. Gold star kissing.
Liv
I think maybe I’d like to do some more of that gold star kissing.
Me
Yeah?
Liv
Fuck yeah. So, are you going to my brother’s for game night?
Me
You bet. I’m just finishing up at the stadium now and then I’m heading over.
When can I see you again?
Liv
Probably sooner than you think.
“Iwin!” Gabe crows, dropping his PlayStation remote on his gaming room couch and pumping a fist in victory.
“Of fucking course you do,” mutters Asher Hansley, tossing his remote down just a little harder and with a little more attitude than necessary.
Asher is one of our other friends and a former NFL quarterback who hates to lose.
Unfortunately for him, he really sucks at video games.
It’s usually just Gabe and me for game night, but everyone else picked tonight to crash.
“I just can’t believe I came in second,” says Ben, reaching for his beer on the coffee table and then turning to me. “You and Gabe always go one-two.”
“Yeah, what’s with you tonight?” Jeremy asks, eyeing me from his perch on one of the gaming chairs set up on either side of the couch, his newborn baby girl, Grace, tucked into the crook of his arm. “You came in third. That’s not like you at all.”
Standing, I pluck the baby from Jeremy’s arms as a distraction so I don’t accidentally say something like, I kissed Gabe’s little sister the other night and I can’t think of anything except for her soft lips and the way she moaned when I licked that one spot on her neck and now that I know what she tastes like, I am wholly, entirely fucked.
All the blood in my body rushes directly to my dick at the thought of our night in the kitchen, and I force my brain to think about something else.
Literally anything else. “Got a lot on my mind. Playoff shit.”
It's a plausible lie. As director of football operations for an NFL team that’s probably about to go to the playoffs, I do have a million things I need to deal with. It’s just that, in this current moment, I’m thinking about exactly none of them.
“Fuck yeah!” Asher says with a grin. “You can get us Renegades playoff tickets, right? I’m counting on you, Simpson. Don’t let me down.”
I chuckle, never not amused by this puppy dog of a guy.
By all of them, really. Ben and Jeremy have been best friends since college.
About five years ago, Ben married his childhood best friend, Hallie, who owns a law firm with Ben’s twin sister, Julie, Jeremy’s wife, Emma, and Gabe’s wife, Molly.
Julie married Asher, and the eight of them formed this big, sprawling found family of sorts.
I love being a part of it, even if it sometimes feels weird being the only single guy in a sea of wildly happy couples and families.
My mind drifts to Olivia again. What it would feel like to be a couple with her.
To wrap my arm around her and kiss her whenever I wanted and share a home and a family and to have the kind of happiness and contentment I see in all of my friends and—Too soon, Brian.
Too fucking soon. I turn to Asher to change the subject in my brain.
“Asher, you’re a two-time Superbowl MVP and one of the most successful quarterbacks the Renegades have ever had.
Just call marketing and tell them you need tickets. ”
I adjust a stirring Grace in my arms as Asher rolls his eyes.
“If I call marketing, they’ll give me tickets in one of the boxes so the camera can find me during the game or some shit.
That’s not how you experience a playoff game.
I need seats on the fifty-yard line. I want to drink beer and eat nachos and feel the winter air on my face and watch the game the way it’s supposed to be watched.
As in, not from a fucking climate-controlled box. ”
Ben snorts out a laugh. “Tell us how you really feel, Ash.”
Asher just shrugs. “I feel like watching some playoff football with my girl and my kids, and it’s a good thing the Renegades’ director of football operations is my best fucking friend.”
“Are we talking about football tickets? Because I absolutely need to go to a game before I leave for Italy.” Olivia’s voice has my brain shorting out, butterflies exploding in my stomach as I turn to the game room doorway.
Fuck. Me.
She’s standing there, wide smile on her face, wearing the red University of Pennsylvania sweatshirt I gave her the other night when she slept over at the loft.
The sweatshirt I slid my hands under while we kissed, feeling the smooth skin of her back before we went to sleep in separate rooms even though I wanted so, so much more.
The sweatshirt I’ve thought about every day since, fucking my fist to the thought of what it would have been like to strip it off her so I could see what her tits tasted like.
The sweatshirt I told her to wear home the next morning, after I kissed the breath out of her against the front door of my loft, my hard dick grinding into her stomach while she gasped.
The sweatshirt that’s making me feel some kind of way right now, and from the smirk on her face when she looks at me, she fucking knows it.
Little hellion.
“Liv!” Gabe grins, popping up from his spot on the couch to wrap his sister in a hug. “Why aren’t you with the girls tonight? They’re all at Ben and Hallie’s house.”
She shrugs. “I know. I skipped girls’ night because I had a bunch of planning to do for the gala, but then I finished all of that and got antsy.
I know I’m interrupting guys’ night, but I was in the neighborhood, so I thought I would stop by and say hi.
” She gives me a surreptitious side-eye, and suddenly I know, without her saying a word, that she’s here because of me.
My heart thuds as my brain races, calculating how I can get her out of here and alone, my lips on hers, as soon as humanly possible.
“Kids asleep?” she asks Gabe.
“Yep. Both girls crashed hard after an epic Disney singalong.” Gabe’s face goes soft as he talks about his kids, three-and-a-half-year-old Sophie and two-year-old Ellie. “Soph has been asking for you. You up for babysitting one night next week? Mol and I are due for a serious kid-free date night.”
Olivia grins. “Spend the night with my two favorite ladies? One hundred percent yes. Take the whole night. Use some of your billions to book a hotel, and I’ll sleep here with the girls. Call it my, I’m leaving for six months present to you.”
“Sold.” Gabe kisses the top of her head. “Even though I still hate the idea of you going to Europe alone for six months.”
Olivia rolls her eyes. “No shit. But I’m going anyway, so deal with it.”
Breaking away from Gabe, she plops down on the couch right next to me, pressing her leg against mine as she leans over the now wide-awake baby in my arms. “Jeremy, she’s so big!”
“Tell me about it,” Jeremy says with a grin as he glances over at his daughter. “I want to slow down time.”
The guys all start bemoaning how fast their kids are growing, but I’m barely listening because Olivia’s tits are pressed to my upper arm as she plays peek-a-boo with Grace.
Her hair smells like lilacs, the solid warmth of her body presses against mine, and she’s wearing my sweatshirt and a pair of tight black leggings that leave every single one of her curves on display.
I know what sounds she makes when I kiss her and what the skin of her neck tastes like, and I need my hands on every inch of her with a desperation that settles deep in my bones.
Is this what obsession feels like?
“You okay there, my guy?” Olivia says in a low voice only I can hear.
“I am one hundred percent entirely not okay.”
She snorts out a quiet laugh. “Something on your mind?”
I move surreptitiously closer to her, nudging her shoulder lightly with mine. “Yeah, I’m thinking of how fucking good you look in my clothes and how badly I want to strip that sweatshirt right off of you.”
Olivia sucks in a breath. “I’m sure that can be arranged.”
“Careful,” I murmur, glancing at Gabe out of the corner of my eye, even though the last thing I want to do is be careful. I want to kiss her right here and tell the entire world she’s mine. Except she isn’t. Not really. I just wish she was.
Olivia smirks at me. “No, I don’t think I will be. Meet me in the downstairs bathroom in five.”
I stare at her. “What?”
Her smirk turns sly. “You heard me.”
With that, she stands from the couch and saunters out of the game room without another word or a single backwards glance.
Jesus Christ.
Taking a long, slow breath, my eyes glued to the doorway she disappeared through, I’m trying to get myself under control when Jeremy takes the seat Olivia vacated, reaching over and taking his daughter from my arms. “Go,” he says quietly.
“Go where?” I try for casual, but the way I stumble over the words is the opposite of that.
Jeremy chuckles. “Wherever Liv is going. She asked you to follow her, right?”
“How do you know that?” I hiss.
He grins. “I’m a master lip reader. Comes from all my years of playing hockey in loud arenas.
And also, she showed up here, on guys’ night, wearing a Penn sweatshirt.
You’re the only person any of us knows who went to Penn, and I know she just happened to stay at the loft the night of the snowstorm.
You’ve had a serious thing for her for years, and it looks like something is finally happening. Is something happening?”
I stare at him, absorbing his words. “I thought I was subtle,” I mumble.
Jeremy shrugs. “To everyone else, maybe. But you’re my brother. I knew.”
My chest squeezes at Jeremy’s words—at the easy acceptance of what we are. Brothers. It’s an odd thing, finding your brother in your thirties. Our relationship was hard won, which makes the knowing he mentioned one of the sweetest parts of my life. “She’s too young for me.”
Jeremy rolls his eyes. “Give me a break. Emma is seven years younger than I am, and she’s the love of my damn life. The only girl in the entire world for me. My fucking soulmate. When it’s right, age doesn’t mean shit.”
I blow out a breath, looking around to make sure everyone else is still occupied, and then I tell Jeremy the real thing. “Gabe is going to murder me in my sleep. She’s his little sister.”
Jeremy winces. “Yeah, that won’t be an awesome conversation, but Gabe also knows what it’s like to find the love of your life. The person you can’t breathe without. Everyone in this room does.”
I consider Jeremy’s words. I know that all four guys in this room have amazing love stories.
The ones that seem fictional and unattainable, except I know they’re not because I see them in these couples every day.
Jeremy and Emma, Ben and Hallie, Asher and Julie, Gabe and Molly—their loves are huge and beautiful and so completely right that it’s hard to be around and not want that for myself.
Not to wonder if maybe I already found it.
“Don’t say anything, okay? This just happened, and I don’t know what it is yet.”
Jeremy nods. “I would never. Now get the fuck out of here. I’ll cover for you.”
“Thanks, Jer,” I say, my mind already in the bathroom with Olivia.
He points at me. “Babysitting. Next week. All three kids, and overnight. I think I’ll take Ems away for the night too.”
“Done,” I say, and then I stand and head straight out of the room. When I push open the bathroom door, Olivia is leaning against the sink, legs crossed, pretty pink lips curved in a smirk. My head spins, and my cock jerks in my pants
“What took you so long?”
“Just covering my tracks,” I say, taking a step forward and sliding an arm around Olivia’s waist and my free hand around her neck, tangling my fingers in her soft, chestnut strands.
“So sneaky,” she murmurs, pushing away from the sink and plastering her body against mine, winding her arms around my waist. “I like it.”
I spin us and walk her backwards until her back is pressed to the door, my lips hovering over hers. “I like you.”
“Do you?” she asks with a smile.
“I really.” I lean in and kiss her neck. “Really.” Her collarbone. “Do.” The spot behind her ear that makes her gasp.
Olivia pulls back, her eyes dark and a little hazy. “Show me.”
Motherfucker.
The air in the bathroom is electric, and everything I have ever wanted is standing right in front of me. The most beautiful girl in the world, the star of all my dreams, chest heaving, looking at me the way I always hoped she would.
Crashing my mouth to hers, I throw caution to the wind, and without words, I show her exactly how I feel. She meets me right where I am, and I am one hundred percent sure that nothing in the world has ever felt as perfect as this.