CHAPTER 12 Maverick Jennings
She’s Fucking with Me
She was too close.
Too close in proximity, yes. That too. She smelled like fucking wildflowers and sunshine, and I don’t do flowers or sunshine. But it wasn’t that.
She was too close to getting in.
I don’t let anyone in, but being that close to her felt like something woke up inside me.
But giving that side of me life again would only spell the end of everything I’ve come to know. Working from a place of anger allows me to perform the way I do on the field. Like the man on the elevator said, I command the field. If I’m a less intense version of myself, that might be the trade-off.
In essence, having my life ruined and my heart broken turned me into the valuable player I am today.
The brass at Dallas doesn’t like my personality?
They dealt with it for years when I put up numbers.
But then they took the rest of my offense away from me, and it’s a team effort.
I didn’t keep my mouth shut about it, and they didn’t like that.
So here I am.
Fighting another day in a new city.
And once I’m cleared to get back on the field, this city will grow to love my numbers, too. My accuracy. My command. Nobody gives a shit about who I am off the field as long as I’m performing on it—or at least they didn’t until I came here.
If only fucking Dex hadn’t taken that away, forcing me to sit out of the first four games of the season.
I don’t give a fuck how I feel next week when I meet with Dr. Baker. I’m playing next Sunday. I’ll fake my way through the exam if I have to.
But the rest of it? I think I may be stuck with this woman who literally makes a living out of getting under my skin.
I head to the newest lounge in Vegas, the one Ben Olson took me to the night my rant about Dex went viral. The place is called Legacy, and to be quite honest, I don’t give a fuck about the white marble floors with gold veins or the leather chairs.
I like that I won the night I went there with Olson.
I got the membership the night I went with him. It’s exclusive and invitation-only, but I’m in now that I’ve been invited by a member. I opened a credit line that night, and tonight I plan to use that to continue my winning streak.
Only it doesn’t quite go that way.
Last time I won, but tonight, I’m losing.
I’m running up a huge tab on blackjack, but I can’t seem to stop.
I keep thinking my luck will turn around.
Then a woman in a tightly fitted French maid outfit brings me more scotch, and every time my glass even comes close to empty, she swings by with another one.
In the past, maybe my eyes would have followed her ass each time she walked away, but tonight, I’m focused on the cards.
I’m not sure why, and I think that’s what’s distracting me.
That and the fact that this woman keeps bringing me alcohol while I lose more and more and more and drink more and more and more.
I have a limit in my head for how high I’ll go, and then I blow past it and set another limit.
It’s exactly the behavior this kind of place wants.
I blow out a breath as I lose another hand.
Shit’s just not in my favor tonight.
I’m halfway to drunk when I decide to call it, and I head up to the bar to get one more round before I head home. At least that’s the plan.
Until I spot her sitting at the bar.
Yes, that’s right. Everleigh Fucking Bradley is sitting at the bar in this VIP lounge that she has no business whatsoever being at. She’s fucking with me. Again. She probably followed me here.
She raises a brow as she raises her glass in my direction. “Seems we had the same idea for escaping each other tonight.”
“Yet another failure,” I mutter.
She pats the empty stool beside her. “Come on. I’m really not so bad.”
“I beg to differ.” I don’t know why I slide onto the stool as she chuckles at my response, but I do. The scotch, probably. Sober me would know this is a bad idea.
Drunk me knows it, too. He just doesn’t give a fuck.
“What are you doing here?” I ask her.
She toys with the cocktail straw in her glass, and I pluck mine out of my glass and start to chew on it.
Her eyes follow my straw, and I glance at her glass. It’s filled with some clear liquid over ice. It’s bubbling, so I’d guess it’s soda, possibly mixed with something since a lime is perched on the edge of the glass.
“Checking the place out,” she says.
“How’d you get in?” I ask. I don’t say the words, but I thought this was a VIP lounge.
She narrows her eyes at my insinuation. “Through the front door. Probably the same way you did.”
I roll my eyes.
“Dex,” she murmurs.
“Of course.”
She opens her mouth to say something else but seems to think better of it. She shakes her head a little. “What about you? What are you doing here?”
“Blowing through way too much cash and drinking the complimentary Lagavulin 16.”
“You’re a scotch guy?” she asks.
I glance over at her. “You know scotch?”
“You don’t grow up with five brothers and not learn a thing or two about single malts.”
“And yet, you’re sipping on a vodka soda,” I say, venturing a guess.
She holds up her glass. “Casamigos.”
“You’re a tequila girl?”
“You seem surprised by that.” She tips the glass to her lips, and I watch enraptured as the liquid moves from the glass to her mouth.
“I am.”
She chuckles. “Why?”
“I guess I associate cheap tequila with college girls and what you’ve got in your glass with trend chasers.” I raise a brow and nod to her glass.
“Trend chasers?” she demands. She shakes her head at the insult. “I drink it because it tastes good, not because I give a fuck about trends.”
“Don’t you? Isn’t part of your entire life’s work to chase trends?” I point out, using her own words from earlier.
“You’re an asshole. Do you know that?”
“I’m aware. And you resort to insults when you’ve run out of creativity.”
“Well, then I guess we’ve got each other pegged,” she says, and I have the sudden urge to kiss her, to taste that tequila on her tongue. To feel those pretty lips as they move against mine.
To take her back to the condo building we share and cut to the right instead of the left once we get off the elevator. To show her a good time just for a few hours, and then return to my own home to sit in regret.
Yeah, it’s a bad idea.
But just because I’m aware that it’s a bad idea doesn’t mean it’s going to stop me from doing it anyway.
I order another scotch.
She orders another tequila soda.
The more I drink, the more I want to act on the attraction between us.
I know she wants it. I saw the way her breath hitched when I got close to her. I could feel her heart pounding against my chest when I backed her up against her door.
I wanted to kiss her then, too.
I wasn’t drunk then, though. I had enough wits left about me to stop myself.
But tonight, all that shit’s out the window.
We’re both staring into our drinks, contemplating probably opposite ideas, when some guy walks up on her other side and shouts to the bartender.
“Coors for me and whatever the lady’s having,” he says, indicating Everleigh. He turns to her. “Nick Crawford,” he says, his tone cocky and assuming, as if everyone has heard of him.
Newsflash. I haven’t.
“The fuck you think you’re doing?” I demand.
He holds up both hands. “Sorry, man. Didn’t know you two were together.”
“We’re not,” she assures him. “I’m Everleigh. You can ignore him. We work together.”
He glares at me. “You’re that football player, aren’t you?”
“That football player? Which one?” I challenge.
He chuckles. “Definitely a football player with the way you’re puffing your chest up right now.”
Everleigh presses her lips together, and I think it might be because she’s hiding a smile.
Well, she won’t be smiling anymore after what I’m about to do. “The fuck you just say to me?” I ask, rising off the stool and barreling around Everleigh and toward this dickwad.
This might be the sort of attitude Dallas was done with when they traded me to Vegas.
“I said you’re acting like a tough guy. Stand down, soldier.”
I can’t tell if he’s drunk, too, or if I misheard him, but in any event, it’s far too condescending. Nobody talks to me that way.
Somewhere in the periphery, I hear Everleigh’s voice. “Maverick, stop!”
But it’s too late. Nothing can stop this train wreck.
I won’t stand for some douchebag insulting me.
I pull my arm back, and my fist collides with his jaw. It’s nearly slow motion as he grabs the place of my offense, and I drop my hand as I shake it out at the pain that explodes with the contact of his jaw.
I’m sure I’ll get in trouble for that tomorrow.
Maybe I’ll even feel bad about it for a change.
I think I’m starting to want to feel things again.
And I’m afraid it might be because of the beautiful woman who’s determined to ruin my life.