8. Asher
EIGHT
Asher
“Why the hell are you in such a rush?” Blake and Gideon rag on me as I shove my things into my duffle.
“You guys are dumber than a bag of rocks,” Billy jeers, slapping Blake up the side of the head. “Did you not see his hottie girlfriend in the stands?”
Pinning Billy with a warning glare, he shrugs, scrubbing a towel over his wet hair.
“Don’t let Kennedy hear you say that.” Kai strolls in, a loud snap making Billy yelp and clutch at his ass.
“Fuck you, Kai. That bloody hurts,” he whines, taking the towel in his hands and spinning it into a weapon, attempting to snap it back at Kai.
“Leave the kid alone.” He winks at me, his support welcomed, but not warranted.
“Yeah, I’ve got a fucking stunning woman who happens to be mine waiting for me. So, if you don’t mind, I’ll be leaving all your stinky asses behind and going to spend time with her.” Hauling my duffle over my shoulder, I head for the door.
“Hey,” Kai calls out, his wet feet slapping on the tiles as he jogs over to me. “Don’t forget, bus leaves tomorrow at eight. Be on it, okay?”
“I’ll be there,” I assure him, one foot already out the door. Every minute here is another I don’t get with Wiley.
“Have fun,” Kai’s voice catches me as I leave him standing there, my mind already wired for our first kiss.
“Oh, I intend to,” I mutter, taking the stairs two at a time as I head down into the main part of the stadium.
Coming out of the tunnel, thankfully there aren’t as many people here, but I still pull the hood of my jacket up as I hit redial on my phone. I scan up and down the length of the wide walkway, hoping to spot her.
“Hey, you,” she answers, and all I can think about is seeing her in that jersey with the Number One Cute Boy Fan words on the back.
“Is my cute girl ready to get out of here?” I start walking toward an exit, just hoping to catch sight of her.
“As soon as I find my cute boy, you bet your sweet ass I am.” I falter, my brain not able to send my feet the message to keep moving because Wiley Nolan just claimed me as hers.
I knew without knowing—if that makes sense—that she was the one. Yeah, it might have taken Mandy to make me see it, but once my eyes were open, there was no denying it. Having Wiley claim me back…I feel high. If love were a drug, I’d test positive—FUCK! I…I love Wiley Nolan.
“W…where are you?” I stutter out, my heart beating a million miles per minute, sweat beading across my forehead.
“I’m waiting by the Pacific Parade exit, just inside the tunnel.” Jerking to a halt, I know exactly where she is, this stadium, my old stomping ground. I begin to wonder how I never saw her before, but shake it off.
“I’ll be there in a minute,” I state, hanging up and jamming my phone into my pocket. “Okay, brain, let’s get us to Wiley without fucking up, yeah?”
Putting one foot in front of the other, I kinda feel like some baby giraffe taking its first steps, all wobbly and uncoordinated. What even is that?
As the tunnel twists in a curving arc up ahead, I realise I came out on the opposite side of the stadium and pick up my pace. My body and my mind finally catching up to each other. As I round the bend, it all comes undone again when I spot her standing there. I trip, like a fucking idiot, and just mange to catch myself from face planting on the concrete. Plastering a smile on my face, even from here I can see laughter on Wiley’s and I don’t fucking care. I couldn’t give a shit if I just made a fool of myself. I’d do it ten times over just to get to her.
With a shake of my head, I calculate twenty steps are between us and each one seems to take forever in my mind. It’s like the ground has suddenly become quicksand, but when she starts heading towards me, that fucking jersey like a homing beacon, I break free.
I’m gonna kiss her as soon as I get there. I have to kiss her. I need to kiss her. It would be criminal if I didn’t. Metres, centimetres, fucking millimetres?—
“There you are!” A body comes around the corner and moves right in front of me and all I can see is the disappointment on Wiley’s face. “Asher. Hello?!”
Fingers snapping in my face only serve to piss me off. “What!”
Glaring down at the owner of the offending digits, it’s my manager’s face I see. Honestly, he’s the last person I want to deal with now.
“Well, that’s a nice how-you-do. When did it stop becoming appropriate to say hello to someone like a normal person?” he gripes with a shake of his head, and I spot Wiley tilting her to the side curiously.
“When they snap their fucking fingers in your face, Warren,” I retort, getting down in his face. “I’m a little busy right now. Can’t whatever this is wait?”
“No! It can’t,” he snaps back. “Didn’t you get my messages?”
My relationship with Warren is complicated. I signed a five-year deal with him and that time runs out soon. In the beginning, I would have jumped off a bridge if he’d asked me to. The deals and bonuses he got me were far beyond what any normal twenty-one-year-old could expect. When all the shit with the Rays went down, Warren was less than helpful. I don’t think he believed I was innocent of everything the club had accused me of. He sure as shit didn’t go to bat for me in the media. If it wasn’t for Mandy, putting in a good word at the Dingoes, my current contract might not have even come into play.
“You know I don’t answer any calls the night before a match, Warren.” Five-fucking-years and he chooses now to forget that fact.
I’m so sorry —I mouth to Wiley, who waits patiently by the wall, her wild hair being tousled by the breeze blowing down the tunnel. She’s like this untamed wild beauty and I’m hard pressed not to shove Warren to the side and just take her right here.
“Yes, well, you should have taken these,” he presses on, not paying any attention to my efforts to get rid of him. “Are you listening to me?”
“Clearly not. What the fuck is this all about?” I love my career. I do. Right now, I just want a few hours away from it. A few hours where I can be Asher Scott, the man struggling not to smack Warren in the face.
“You need to get yourself a damn P.A. I swear. I’ve sent you three emails regarding your itinerary. I had hoped you’d see at least one of them,” he whinges, clapping a hand to his forehead.
“Itinerary?” I croak, confused as fuck.
“Yes, Asher! I-tin-er-ary,” he stretches the word out, his frustration only fanning my anger. “That thing that tells you what you have to do and when.” I stare blankly at him, Wiley tugging at the hem of her jersey and I know I’m making myself look less than professional. “My god, boy. You’re lucky you’ve got talent on the field because you’ve got shit for brains sometimes. The Hot Bods photo book. Does that ring any bells?”
Wiley stands to attention at his words and I can’t help smiling at the mention of the book. It’s where this all began. Where I was lucky Wiley saw past the idiot I made of myself, to the man beneath all my cocky attitude.
“Yes, bells rung, alright. Still doesn’t tell me what you’re talking about.” I offer Wiley the same cocky smile I did that day and the hues of pink that colour her cheeks and the shake of her head do things to me. Things I wish I could take her somewhere private and return the favour.
“You have commitments. Things you can’t ignore, Asher. One of those being this book.” He glances over his shoulder at Wiley, mostly because I can’t keep my eyes off her. “Can I help you? If you want a photo with Asher, I’m sorry you’re going to have to come back later.”
Wiley’s mouth opens and closes in affront and the way her eyes narrow on Warren, like he’s about to get his ass handed to him. I’d love to see it, but now isn’t the time or the place.
“Pull your head in, Warren,” I snap instead, shoving past him to come and stand by Wiley’s side, slipping my arm around her waist. “This is Wiley, she’s my…”
“I’m his…very close friend,” she completes my sentence. Apparently, neither of us sure about our current status. The feel of her fingers skimming across my back as she wraps it around me, though, holy fucking shit.
“Friend, huh?” Warren snorts derisively. “Well, friend , you look like a smart woman. Maybe you can explain to pretty boy here what responsibilities are, because I’m done trying. Here,” he reaches into his pocket and pulls out an envelope, shoving it in my chest. “Do with it what you will.”
He stalks away, both Wiley and I left to stare after him in disbelief. I kind of don’t care, though. Having Wiley’s hands on me more than making up for his fucking asshole attitude.
“What was that about?” Wiley asks, turning in my arms and the need to push her against the wall and claim her mouth overrides everything.
Capturing her chin with my other hand, the envelope fluttering to the ground; I do exactly what my instincts want. A soft squeak escapes her mouth as her back hits the wall, those ocean-blue eyes of hers wide with need as I dart my attention from them to her glossy lips. The hand Wiley has on my back scrunches my hoodie, urging me closer as she lifts up on her toes slightly.
I crowd her space, forcing her back onto her feet. Leaning down, her exotic flower perfume wrapping around me, I brush my lips over hers. Once. Twice. The connection is brief and the way she reacts…so fucking perfect. When a soft moan fills the space between us as I pull away, my restraint is tested.
“Fuck, Wiley,” I breathe, my eyes darting back and forth to hers, searching for some small hint of regret or caution.
What I see is need. Deep and fucking sexy as hell. I suddenly don’t give a shit who’s watching. I take her mouth this time, like I’ve been dreaming. It’s not soft and gentle either. I’m demanding and dominant and Wiley lets me in. Her body moulds to mine, her other hand finding its way up under my hoodie, her nails raking across my skin.
“Fuck, yes,” I mumble against her lips, probing at the seam of them. She opens up for me like a flower to the sun and we become a writhing, needy mass, our lips and tongues tasting each other. Branding each other.
“Get a room.” Someone yells in the distance, and I reluctantly break away from her mouth, resting my forehead on hers. My breath disturbing her hair, hers pushing down the opening of my hoodie and heating me in other ways.
“Hi,” I manage between breaths.
“Hi.” She smiles, the hand under my hoodie moving slowly down to come to a halt on the waistband of my shorts.
“Sorry, I just?—”
“Don’t apologise,” she cuts me off. “It was…perfect.”
“Yeah, you are.” I pull back, winking at her. The soft laugh and the way she plays with her bottom lip, her tongue poking out to capture the remains of our kiss, tasting it, hot as fuck. “You okay?”
“I’m still tingling,” she murmurs, and I spot this twinkle in her eyes. I want to horde it away so no one else will ever see it.
“How about we take this somewhere else, so I can do more than make you tingle?” The twinkle in her eyes becomes a supernova as she sinks her teeth into her bottom lip and my heart does this weird flip-flop thing. While my cock stands to fucking attention.
I take a reluctant step back, her body gravitating toward me, but she stops, her eyes shifting to the envelope on the ground. Stooping to pick it up, she hands it to me. “It could be important.”
Ninety-nine percent of me wants to tear it up. Rip the damn thing to shreds. A look from Wiley stops me and I take it from her, flipping it over. “I’m sorry about Warren. He’s such a dick.”
“Him being your manager isn’t going so well?” she asks, as I slide the envelope open with my thumb, pulling out the thick wad of paper.
“Not for a while now,” I sigh, flicking through the pages. “Fuck!”
“Is everything okay?” Scrunching the papers, I turn away from her. Whatever we are, I don’t want her to see my agro side, not yet anyway. “Asher?”
“NO! Fucking nothing is okay,” I growl, shifting my duffle from across my body to drop it on the ground. “Fuck, I’m sorry, Wiley.”
“Sorry? For what? You haven’t done anything.”
“For this.” I wave the papers in the air, hating myself for not remembering. I’ve been so caught up in this thing between Wiley and me and trying to fit in at a new club that it completely slipped my mind.
Handing her the papers, she waves her hands at me, but I push it forward, insisting. “I want you to read it, Wiley, please.”
Swallowing, she takes them as if they were some deadly snake liable to bite her at any moment and begins to read. The moment it hits her, I know. The slump of her shoulders, and the deep exhale. The little scratch of her eyebrow as she moves onto the next page.
“I wanted today to be perfect,” I admit, regaining the space I created between us. Hoping my confession softens her disappointment.
“It’s not the end of the world,” she answers, though by the look in her eyes, I’d say it’s pretty close to it. “So we’ll have to wait a little longer. Is that so bad?”
“It’s the worst thing in the fucking world,” I howl to the roof, and then cup her face in both hands. “Wiley, I don’t think you understand how much I want you.”
“Trust me, Asher. I understand completely. And yes, I’m disappointed, but it’s not like this,” she waves the papers out to the side, “means we can’t be together, eventually. It just means we’ll have to postpone all the things we wanted to do with each other.”
“God, when you say it like that, it makes me hate it even more.” I funnel my desperation into another kiss, this one deeper and connecting us more than the last, but it’s Wiley who breaks away first this time.
“You better stop now before I tie you up so you can’t go anywhere.”
Placing my hands in front of her, my wrists together, I’m begging her to do just that. “By all means, take me. Tie me up and do all the dirty things this mouth has been promising me.”
Instead, she places the papers in my hands, closing my fingers over them. “I’ll pick you up from the airport when you get back to Australia, I promise. And I will even think of some more dirty things while you’re away.”
“I fucking…” the word love sits on the tip of my tongue, but it’s too soon and instead I opt for something else. “You better.”
“Cross my heart,” she smiles, but it’s tinged with a heaviness neither of us can hide.
“I’ll ring you every day. Twice a day. No. Fucking three times a day.” I plant a kiss on her face after every word, a giggle chasing some of the gloom from what should have been the best time of our lives today.
“I look forward to it. Now go, before you miss your plane.” I walk backwards, not wanting to miss a single moment of being with her, but almost fall on my ass.
“I did that on purpose,” I yell, as she turns and starts walking the other way, blowing me a kiss. Catching it, I plant it on my lips and mutter to myself. “I love you, Wiley Nolan.”