Obsessed with the Player

1 - Dan “stuck-up” James

1

Dan “stuck-up” James

I never thought I would ever find myself in a situation where coming to my nemesis for help would be the best option for me. In fact, if anyone had asked me two years ago, right before I graduated college, whether I would ever do it, I would have laughed in their face and said I would rather go live in a frat. It was the metaphorical equivalent of sticking needles into my eyes for me, since I was someone that appreciated personal space and had never gotten into the whole ‘college party’ thing, and yet here I was, coming to beg.

Because desperate times called for desperate measures, and never had I been in a more ridiculously desperate situation.

Twenty-four. Single for the first time in almost six years. Jobless. Not exactly homeless , since I was crashing at my best friend’s apartment (which he shared with my younger brother, his boyfriend), and I technically could go back to my parents’s until I got my feet under me again.

So, okay, I wasn’t in a desperate life-or-death situation, but I was so not willing to have my mother watching over me every step of the way, worrying about how I was doing after my breakup or about the so-called quarter-life crisis I was having, so all it left me was to take the help where it was given and suck it up.

It just so happened that the help was coming from none other than Andy Jacobs, shameless player, ex-college boxer, now successful gym owner, who not only had a job for me taking care of the finances at his gym, he was also offering me a room in his apartment, which he had been conveniently hoping to rent.

I also shouldn’t forget to mention he was the bane of my existence, and had been on my blacklist ever since our eyes had first met in our second year of college.

This had to be a cruel joke from the universe. That was the only explanation why that cocky asshole that loved nothing more than to push my buttons every chance he got was my best-case-scenario option here.

And it also had to explain why it had gotten into my head that he was the only person that could help me with a slightly different matter—one I wasn’t even sure I would manage to speak out loud—but maybe I’d just gone insane.

Maybe that was it. Maybe I was going through a quarter-life crisis and I just needed to let things blow over before I made a terrible decision.

But I was already here, wasn’t I?

Waiting outside the cafe where I was supposed to meet with Andy, trying not to look like a creep as I attempted to gather enough courage to walk in.

The cafe was supposedly only two blocks away from his apartment, which happened to be in a stinkingly adorable neighborhood, with wide sidewalks, healthy trees lining the streets, and somewhere I would have actually wanted to live if given the chance. Which I was not happy about.

I would have probably preferred that Andy lived in a basement or a dungeon than someplace like this, because I was petty like that.

But none of that mattered.

I needed to give myself a pep talk and walk in—or leave.

Maybe crashing on my best friend’s (and brother’s) couch wasn’t so bad after all. Maybe the nightmarish possibility of hearing their sex noises didn’t have to be such a big deal. Earplugs had to be very good nowadays, right? Or headphones. Blasting death metal. Every night.

Just get over yourself and go in.

I paced around the block, hoping it would help with the tightening sensation in my gut.

It didn’t work.

Because the prospect of seeing Andy Jacobs for the first time in two years, knowing that I might have to start sharing an apartment with him, a life, did weird things to my insides that I had no plausible explanation for.

My stomach squirmed. Something in my chest fluttered. My heart raced behind my ribs. My throat tightened.

It had to be the hate. The annoyance that he awoke in me on sight. The tingling of irritation that I felt every time he looked at me, with those glacial blue eyes I still remembered all too well, or the grin he liked to send my way, like he wanted to turn me inside out, like he’d have so much fun doing it.

He was just so goddamn aggravating , with those broad shoulders, that easy gait that made it seem like confidence was his middle name, the ever-present flirty tone, and that sandy hair he always wore in a bun. He was a fucking modern-day Viking, one that would no doubt get into anyone’s pants if he got the opportunity, and I was so not going to be intimidated by him.

I just needed to get over the weird feelings he awoke in me, otherwise it would be torture living with him, even if I was only giving myself two months tops before I found something else.

Was I going in, or what?

He probably wanted me to humiliate myself in public as I asked him for the favor. It had to be why he’d asked us to meet here. He was probably brushing his hands, smiling like a crocodile expecting an easy meal. A meal of payback and ego satisfaction.

And I would have to take it.

Because I needed him.

Because he was helping me.

And because he would solve at least two-thirds of my life problems in one swift stroke.

People walked past me as I stared into the windows trying to find a familiar blond head in there.

Now or never .

I crossed the street.

***

Upon opening the door, the bright afternoon chatter and the smell of coffee hit me like a wave all at once. My eyes quickly scanned the crowd, searching for a specific familiar face, and all too quickly, like pulled to it by a magnet, I found him .

My heart stuttered.

Andy .

Sitting at a round table that looked made of fake marble which looked tiny next to him, the guy whose guts I’d hated on sight waited for me, watching me, a wicked grin stretching his lips. My stomach tightened with the impact of his intense gaze, his twinkling blue eyes, but steeling myself, I made my way to him.

His eyes tracked my movements like he was some sort of animal predator and I was the prey he’d been waiting for all day.

He’s not going to intimidate me .

I stopped beside him.

Looking up at me, completely unbothered by the height difference our positions caused, he said, “Well, well, if it isn’t Dan James himself.” He gave me a shameless once over, which made my skin tingle everywhere, and I tried to stop myself from doing the same before his eyes met mine again. “Still alive and kicking.”

“Can I sit?”

Andy raised an eyebrow at me, because, why the fuck would I ask if I could sit? He had been the one that made me come here in the first place, and never in my life had I asked Andy for permission to do anything.

I blamed it on the adrenaline coursing through my veins, the instinct to run , and the impact of seeing an older and even more buff Andy after all this time.

“Why, of course .” Andy gestured at the chair in front of him. “Have a seat.”

With a tight jaw and cursing myself for getting myself in this shitshow to begin with, I lowered myself onto the iron chair, and before I knew it, Andy had pulled it sharply into the table with his legs, almost trapping me against it, like he wanted to let me know he wasn’t letting me go anywhere.

The hairs at the back of my neck rose, and my heart raced like a rabbit behind my ribs.

This was going to be a disaster.

I glared at him.

“I’m not going to be intimidated by your macho bullshit, so if you’re expecting me to, you can go take a hike.”

Andy’s grin grew impossibly wider. “ That is the stuck-up Dan I know.” He got up. “Tell me what you want, and don’t think about leaving.”

I bristled, because I had definitely been considering how bad I would look if I did just that, and now I just couldn’t because it would give him the win.

Asshole.

I gave him my coffee order.

He left to get our drinks at the counter and before long, he was settling his big body in front of me, coffee in hand, in a way that should have been a lot less graceful than it was.

Our two years of separation hadn’t hurt Andy at all. In fact, I was pretty sure he looked even hotter than the last time I’d seen him.

Objectively speaking of course.

I didn’t like him.

The sandy shoulder-length hair that he now wore down with natural-looking highlights did nothing for me. Neither did the new stud in his left ear, nor the bulging biceps under his t-shirt or the impressively wide shoulders filling it.

His big hands set my coffee in front of me, and my eyes jumped to his, which was when I realized he’d caught me staring. I fought an infuriated blush, getting a sugar packet—because coffees were never sweet enough for me and I needed something to distract myself—but Andy stole it from my hand, ripping the paper with elegant ease and dipping a smidge of it into his coffee. Just because he could.

“I was about to use it,” I said stupidly.

“Then get another.”

We glared at each other from across the table.

Or, I glared at him , and he took it in with amusement, like he’d been looking forward to this for a long time.

I bet he even forgot I existed .

Or maybe he remembered me whenever he wanted to imagine himself annoying someone to give himself an ego boost.

I don’t care.

Bracing myself for what was to come, I took another sugar packet–I sure as hell was not going to take his–and stirred my coffee with one of those wooden sticks.

We drank our coffees in silence.

Was he not going to say anything? Did he expect me to interpret his invitation today as a blatant request for me to just come here and beg him for help?

After a long, tense minute, I was about to say something simply so I wouldn’t start sweating, or worse, fidgeting, but he finally decided to end my torture.

“So.” Andy put his coffee down and leaned onto his forearms. “It’s been a while since you last glared at me.”

“No doubt you missed it,” I said more to myself than anything.

Andy’s lips twitched, but he didn’t acknowledge it. “How’s life going for you?”

My stomach tightened. This was the humiliating part starting.

I gave him a dead look. “Outstandingly well, as I’m sure you know.” In fact, I knew he knew, because it was the way this had been organized to begin with.

Andy, my best friend Jonathan and I used to go to the same college, and we’d been in the same year. So had Andy’s best friend, Travis, who was dating my brother’s best friend, which made it so that it had been all too easy for Jonathan and Travis to concoct a plan together, which was why we were here in the first place.

My jaw shifted before I added, “You?”

Andy’s eyes almost twinkled with evil. “It’s been going great, not going to lie.” He leaned even closer toward me. “But not as good as right now.”

God , I hated him.

It’s just two months.

Gathering my determination again, I said, “While I would just love to be your punching bag for the day, I’m sure we both have shit to do, so why don’t we get to the point and do us both a favor?”

My sharp tone only seemed to amuse Andy, who added some distance between us again. “Right. Our business. Then why don't you go ahead and start telling me exactly why it is that you need my help?”

I exhaled sharply through my nostrils. I was going to do this. I could swallow my pride.

“I don't have a job or an apartment, and I've been told you have both for me, so would you, Andy, pretty, pretty please, let me move in with you and give me a job so I don’t have to listen to my brother and my best friend doing things I don’t want to know about through their apartment walls?”

Andy licked his bottom lip and tucked a stray strand of hair behind his ear. “I love your fake enthusiasm, Dan, it’s certainly giving you points in my naughty book, but I’m afraid it’s not going to be enough.” He grinned like the cat that got the cream. “I have one condition.”

My jaw was so tight, I could have broken a boulder with it. “What is it.”

Andy shrugged, then leaned forward again.“I want to know what happened.”

I stared at him like at any moment he was going to say that it was a joke.

He didn't.

Unease started filling me. “Left my job. Left my apartment. I wanted a change in surroundings. There's nothing much to say.”

“Isn't there? Because I think that the Dan James that I knew, the stuck-up little accountant-to-be, Mr. Always-follows-the-rules, always-follows-the- right -path, wouldn't just one day wake up and leave his carefully curated life just because he wanted some adventure, so something must have happened.”

My hand tightened around my coffee. “Sometimes people change.”

Andy didn’t budge. “And sometimes people lie about their reasons, and since you're at my mercy, I think it's fair enough for you to tell me.”

What did he want me to say? That I had just woken up one day and realized that I couldn't look at my life anymore? That after breaking up with my ex, I’d gone to the hard-won office job that I’d had since I finished college, looked at the stack of papers beside me, at my desk, at my surroundings, and felt that if I stayed there a moment longer I would explode, and so gave in my two weeks notice and used my two weeks of vacation as that in the cheekiest move I had ever done in my life, and now I was here, lost, and in need of his help?

I was pretty sure he already knew this, or at least, he knew the facts without the emotional baggage, but the latter I wasn't going to give to him, so exactly what he wanted to know, I couldn't begin to imagine.

“Why the sudden breakup?” Andy asked, expertly going straight for the button that hurt, for the tender wound that hadn't yet mended.

I tensed up.

Of course he’d go there. Of course he’d want to know all about my breakup, that he’d want to hear all the details about how I’d failed and want to laugh at my expense.

I bet he’d been waiting for it since the night we met, when I’d caught him flirting with my then-girlfriend.

I bet he was so satisfied when he found out.

I was not going to expose myself to him just because he wanted to have a laugh at my expense, so I said, “If that's your condition to let me move in, then I'll have to decline, I'll find somewhere else–” I started saying as I got up from my chair.

Andy caught my arm before I could even take a step. “ No , you’re not leaving like this.” His eyes were intense as they looked at me. “Sit down.”

I hated how easily I did it. He just had all of this command in him, without even trying, and I was just another idiot unable to get out from under his spell.

“Why, you’re that eager to hear all the gritty details? Are you that bored? Or do you simply want to get your chance with my ex?”

Andy’s jaw was the one that tightened now. He didn’t look happy.

But he forced himself to put a smile on again a second later. “Not quite. Your ex doesn’t interest me at all, but the reason for your sudden crisis does.”

That didn't sit quite well with me. I didn't like this illusion of Andy actually even trying to care about anything related to me. It made the feeling in my chest tingle, the feeling that needed to die for me to be able to function in close proximity to him.

I steeled myself again. “If you want me to tell you all of the reasons for my breakup, you’re going to be waiting for a long time. So either you give up on that or I'm going to find someone else that has a lot less questions with their housing,” I said, with a lot more balls than I thought I had right now.

Andy studied me, like he wanted to extract all of the answers from me with tweezers if need be.

I waited for his judgment.

“Fine,” he ended up saying, leaning back onto his chair and looking less than pleased with himself. “But I'm going to find out sooner or later. I'm sure I'll have enough chances to see you slip, seeing as we're going to be basically attached at the hip for the foreseeable future.”

The sudden win felt exhilarating, threat and all, but suddenly, the question that I had brought here, that I had been telling myself not to ask, came to the forefront of my mind like a blinding neon sign.

It's now or never.

“I also wanted to ask you something,” I said, forcing myself to hold his gaze and remain externally calm. “A different type of favor.”

Now, that caught Andy's attention, and his eyes were suddenly sharp, drilling into me, like I was the most interesting thing in at least a ten-mile radius, leaning back onto the table, legs spread as if ready to trap me with them if I attempted to run.

“Don’t keep me waiting, then, spit it out.”

I looked straight at him.

“I want you to teach me to be single.”