39. Colton
COLTON
It shouldn’t have shocked me when Brynn wiggled her way behind the bar, despite the fact that she had the night off. Still, it gave me time to scan the bar in order to make sure the boys weren’t disrespecting any of the property they came into contact with after our win.
Fucking hell, if we kept playing like we did, we could take everything.
“Hey, hey, hey!” Jett exclaimed as he came out of nowhere and tossed his arm around my shoulders. “Look who it is! The man of the hour!”
The bar erupted into applause and whistles as Jett patted my chest. I just shot him a look, though.
“Oh, come on now, Coach, ” Jett said as he walked backwards into the crowd, his hands extended outward. “Don’t tell me you’re going to go all night and not crack at least one smile.”
I peered over at Brynn, who tossed me a wink before she settled herself behind the bar. She slapped that rag over her shoulder, began cleaning and disinfecting glasses, slinging drinks and margaritas and cracking open beers as if she were made for the job.
Huh.
I never realized how comfortable she felt behind that bar.
“There’s the smile!” Jett exclaimed, which brought me back to reality long enough to realize that I was, in fact, smiling. I quickly melted it off my face, which only made Jett laugh harder. That was until he looked in the direction where I was looking.
His gaze returned to mine before he gave me two thumbs up.
If he wasn’t careful, I’d break those fucking thumbs.
Can’t wound the boys, you have a season to play.
Everyone stopped me on my way to the bar.
People wanted to shake my hand and take pictures.
Patrons were already asking at the game next week and who we were going against. There were half-off drink specials for cocktails with names that I’d never heard of before, and all of the beer on tap was 31% off.
Since the score was 3-to-1, us.
Finally, after what felt like a journey into fucking Mordor, I bellied up to the bar and placed a coy smile on my face.
“And what do we have here?” I asked as Brynn walked over to me, her curves jiggling softly beneath that goddamn jersey I wanted to rip off her.
It would look spectacular on the floor of my kitchen.
Brynn gave me the brightest smile as she rested her forearm against the bar and shoved those tits together just for me. “Lookin’ for some food tonight, Mister? Ooooor, maybe a nice bourbon?”
I licked my lips as my eyes scoured the parts of her body that I saw. “Depends. What’s the magic order that gets you to share some of this food with me?”
She giggled as she raised up, her cheeks tinted with a soft blush. “You’re insane. You want me to get you a bourbon?”
She was already reaching for it when I shook my head. “No.”
She paused. “No?”
I shook my head. “No. Just a tonic water with lime, and maybe a splash of Coke in there for something sweet.”
She tilted her head. “You know if you wan—”
I pinned her with my voice. “I know exactly what I want.”
She swallowed hard and I watched that beautiful neck of hers flush. I steadied my voice. But she beat me to the punch and her words were certainly a punch to my gut.
“What is it you want, then?” she asked.
I leaned forward, resting my forearms on the top of the bar as my gaze locked with hers.
“Everything,” I said with such sincerity that I thought my heart might burst. “But I’ll start with a tonic water with lime and a spritz of Coke, along with a batch of those double-crisped fries for us to share.”
She shook her head and put my drink order together. “I don’t eat when I’m behind the bar.”
“Well, you’re not supposed to be behind the bar tonight, but you are. So you’ll eat.”
She slid me my drink before she parted her lips to say something, but before she could speak, another flood of patrons entered the bar.
She put on her best smile and chirped above the swirling sounds of the bar, and I just watched her.
I watched how she smiled for everyone. I watched how she called all of them out by name.
I watched how comfortable she felt in her atmosphere, and I swear, for someone who had alternative plans for her life, she sure as hell looked comfortable working in that place.
I lost myself so much in my thoughts that I didn’t come up for air until she slid the order of fries I’d completely forgotten about in front of me.
“One large order of double-crisped fries,” Brynn said as she reached for the ketchup and slammed it playfully onto the bar in front of me. “And ketchup, if you’re that kind of person.”
I reached for the ketchup and squirted some onto the side of the container of fries. “Are you not a ketchup person?”
She grinned. “Nope.”
I paused. “So, you don’t dip your fries in anything?”
“I do.”
Now, I was just curious. “What do you dip your fries in?”
She giggled. “Honey mustard.”
“Huh,” I said as I picked up a bare fry and held it up to her mouth. “Open.”
“Colton.”
I didn’t move. “Open, Brynn.”
She shot me a look. “I can feed myself.”
“I know,” I said as I moved the fry a bit closer. “Now, do as I ask. Open.”
Despite the flat look on her face, she did as I asked, and when I fed that fry into her mouth, all it did was remind me of how I fed my cock down her throat.
I released the fry and swiveled around in the bar stool chair, surveying the packed bar and the way the boys bounced from table to table, recounting their game with the fans, taking pictures, and generally having a good time, without destroying a damn thing in the process.
“Hey!” Moose barked over everyone’s heads. “Anyone seen Rhett!? Him and I have a pool score to settle!”
“Oh boy,” Brynn muttered as she cracked open a couple of beers and passed them to a woman on my left, “better go make sure all of the pool tables are set up for playing.”
Before she moved, I downed my drink and slid out of the stool. “I got it.”
“Colton, I can—”
I held up my hand. “I said, I’ve got it. Okay?”
She nodded and gave me a soft smile. “Okay. Thanks.”
“Not a problem.”
As I made my way over to the pool tables, my head was on a swivel for our center.
He should’ve been out here celebrating with us.
After all, him and Jett’s pulling off that play was reason enough to get a drink or two.
But as I took the long way around the bar, heading to the alcove where the jukebox and pool tables were, I realized something.
Rhett wasn’t at the bar with us.
“Huh,” I said as I pulled pool balls out of the pool table holes and racked them on the tabletop.
“I’ve got ten on Moose!” a patron of the bar shouted.
“Oh, hell no,” a woman said as she came up with a ten-dollar-bill in her hand, “if Coach is playing? My money’s on him.”
I quirked an eyebrow as some of the team gathered in the miniature pool hall off in the corner of the bar.
Before I knew it, all five pool tables were taken up with me and the guys from the hockey team, and the bar patrons all pooled together a betting pool to see who’d win in their games.
Some of the men drew brackets, readying to whittle us down as each of the winners were scheduled to go up against one another until there was only one left standing.
As I chalked up my pool cue, I looked over everyone’s heads toward the bar, only to find Brynn already looking at me.
I was about to sink my second ball when I saw him.
Some guy at the bar. Mid-thirties, decent looking in the way that guys who didn’t have to work very hard for it were decent looking.
He’d been sitting there nursing a beer for the last twenty minutes, and somewhere in those twenty minutes he’d migrated three stools closer to the end of the bar where Brynn was working.
I’d noticed it the same way I noticed everything — automatically, without meaning to, the way your eye went to movement on the ice before your brain caught up with it.
Now he was leaning forward on both forearms, talking to her.
Brynn had that smile on, the professional one, the one she used on everyone, warm and easy and completely unreadable.
She reached past him to grab a bottle from the rail and he said something that made her laugh and tilt her head, and the hand that wasn’t holding a pool cue curled into a fist at my side.
“Coach.”
“Your shot,” Rhett said from somewhere beside me.
I looked at the table. I looked back at the bar. The guy was writing something on a napkin now. Sliding it across the bar toward her. Brynn glanced down at it, and that professional smile stayed exactly where it was, which told me nothing I wanted to know.
I sank my shot without looking at it. Handed the cue to Rhett. And walked to the bar.
I didn’t storm over. I didn’t make a scene.
I just walked to the end of the bar where Brynn was working, pulled out the stool directly beside the guy who’d been watching her all night, and sat down.
He looked at me the way men looked at other men when they were trying to figure out if they had a problem.
I looked back at him the way I looked at players who were about to find out they did.
He left three minutes later.
Brynn appeared in front of me with her arms folded and one eyebrow raised. “You want to tell me what that was?”
“No,” I said.
She studied me for a second. Then something shifted in her face and she dropped her arms. “Tonic water with lime?”
“Please,” I said.
She turned to make my drink and I watched the napkin disappear under the bar rail without her ever picking it up.
I didn’t say anything about it. Neither did she.
But when she slid my drink in front of me a minute later, the corner of her mouth was doing something she was trying very hard not to let it do.
Would I really have to go back to New York?
The question slammed into my chest in the middle of that crowded bar, and I damn near couldn’t breathe.
I watched Brynn as she leaned over the bar, placing her hand on a woman’s shoulder while they talked.
I watched as she took care of orders. Cracked open more beers.
Poured them from the tap like a professional, with perfect heads on top of all the pints.
She didn’t carry herself as a woman who wanted to be a professor and write a book.
She carried herself like a woman who was destined to own this bar.
All at once, I questioned my four-year plan.
Every time I racked the balls and cracked them with the cue, I thought about what it might be like to do this after every game.
Coming to the bar and celebrating the win with a tournament set of pool games.
Enjoying Brynn’s presence, and burying myself into her body to celebrate every win.
Sure, the PHL was where I left my legacy. Yes, I missed it.
But as I won my first pool game and advanced on the bracket board, I watched Brynn slowly make her way over. She leaned against the wall with her arms crossed over that voluptuous chest of hers while her eyes watched me.
Clocked me.
Smiled at me, whenever I looked at her.
Sure, New York held my legacy. But Las Vegas was quickly becoming the place that held my peace.
And as I racked the balls for my second round of pool, I turned my thoughts away from New York. Away from top franchises. Away from the idea and the plan of getting back to my old life.
Because to be honest?
This new life didn’t seem that bad after all.