The Linebacker (Portland Mountain Lions #3)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

“Who wants to go for two?”

The Mountain Lions owner who had recruited Amil Halsted stood in the middle of the locker room at the team’s training facility and shouted this question.

No, they hadn’t just scored the tying touchdown and were throwing caution to the wind in an attempt to win with seconds left until the end of the game.

It was two weeks before the beginning of the season, and Amil had just been traded.

To the Mountain Lions, in case that part wasn’t clear.

No one said anything. The current roster all looked at each other like they had no idea what the owner was talking about. Amil guessed he didn’t often make locker room appearances. Plus, there’d been no preamble to give away his intent.

The trade itself had been hush-hush, the front office probably hoping for the shock factor once it went public.

“Two Super Bowls, back-to-back,” the guy clarified, not at all nonplussed that his joke had not landed well.

“Hell yeah,” somebody shouted.

“Fuck yeah,” someone else added.

“Let’s go!” The enthusiasm was growing, the guys slapping each other on their backs and glaring each other down like they were working themselves up for their next game.

“Well, here’s how we’re going to do it,” the owner shouted over the melee. He did a goofy little dance—kind of reminded Amil of a leprechaun—and then flourished, drawing everyone’s attention.

To Amil.

“Welcome your newest teammate!”

Amil grimaced.

Yeah, he was proud of his position and proud of his accomplishments, but a lone linebacker was not going to win them a second consecutive Super Bowl.

And saying it like that was not the best way to instill team comradery.

Shit, Jalen Packerton, their best receiver, already hated him. Not entirely unjustified, either.

After accepting the trade deal, Amil had studied the Mountain Lions. Game tape, yes, but more importantly, the interviews, the sports blogs, the write-ups in the local papers.

All of it led him to one conclusion: this team functioned like a family. And a family protected their own.

Which meant they probably weren’t exactly thrilled to have him in their locker room. With his own locker. His own jersey. His own number.

His own agenda.

The owner—Amil wasn’t even sure of his name—patted him on the shoulder and backed away toward the door. “Well, I’ll let you all get to it. Let’s win that Super Bowl again this year, boys!”

The locker room was silent after the guy left.

Coach pushed away from where he’d been lounging against the wall near the offices. Instead of attempting to counteract the damage undoubtedly done by that little intro speech, he said, “Be on the practice field in five. And expect to sweat. Like he said, we have another Super Bowl to win.”

He slipped into his office.

Somebody bumped into Amil’s shoulder from behind. Jalen stormed straight into the coach’s office without so much as glancing in Amil’s direction.

Two seasons ago, when the Mountain Lions had played—and beat—the 49ers in San Francisco, Amil hooked up with Jalen’s girlfriend. He didn’t know at the time that she was his girlfriend.

And honestly, it sucked that she was, because Amil couldn’t get the damn woman out of his head. He wanted her back in his bed, even after two years of no contact.

But he had some morals, as it turned out. Once he found out she was dating Jalen, he didn’t bother reaching out to her again, regardless of how badly he may have wanted to.

Of course, his morals only extended so far, because every time he and Jalen had been on the turf together since, Amil had rubbed the affair in the guy’s face.

His chirping—and Jalen’s poor reaction to it—had damn near cost this team the Super Bowl last season.

Everyone in this room knew it.

Maybe a single linebacker did have some impressive clout after all.

“We need to get Jalen laid,” Pedro Torres, the team’s all-star tackle, said.

Dante Kelley, the quarterback, shook his head. “I’m starting to think you’re right.”

“Wait,” Amil said, watching Jalen through the window as he gestured wildly while Coach calmly leaned against his desk with his arms crossed. “He and Diana aren’t together anymore?”

He should not feel so damn excited about that. She’d cheated on Jalen. Did Amil really want to pursue a woman like that? Cheating was shitty.

Pedro snorted. “He and Diana were never together.”

Pedro walked away, presumably to head to the practice field. Amil strode after him. “What do you mean, never together? I thought—”

Pedro cut him off with a withering look. “You thought what? What the hell do you know about Jalen’s love life?”

Amil threw up his hands, surrender style. He already had one enemy on his new team—he did not need to make another.

“Nothing, man, I swear. He’s the one who said…”

What had he said? Their only interactions had been shit-talking on the field, an attempt to get under the other guy’s skin so they’d screw up and lose yardage.

Which happened to Jalen pretty much every time he and Amil faced off.

“They really aren’t together?” Amil asked again.

And they hadn’t been when he and Diana hooked up almost two years ago?

Pedro abruptly swung around and grabbed the front of Amil’s T-shirt. Amil was twice the size of this guy. While he was certain Pedro could hold his own, he was just as certain that he could pummel the guy if need be.

He hoped it wouldn’t come to that. Amil was sick of fighting as the fallback to defending himself.

With his hand twisted in Amil’s shirt, Pedro glared at him.

“Listen, man, I happen to agree with Royce’s assessment that you belong on our team.

You may well be the key to winning our second Super Bowl.

So I’m going to give you this one piece of advice.

Stay the fuck away from Diana. No, she and Jalen are not dating.

No, they have never dated. Which doesn’t even matter. ”

Amil disagreed. That little tidbit mattered a great deal.

He wisely did not speak his thoughts out loud.

“What matters is that you and Jalen need to figure out how to play nice. You gotta work together or we aren’t going to make it to the Super Bowl. You’re part of this team now, so quit mooning over someone you can’t have and get your head in the game.”

He shoved Amil away and stormed down the hall without looking back. The rest of the team headed toward the outdoor practice field, veering around Amil like he was a boulder in the middle of a river.

Finally, Amil kicked himself into gear and followed.

And while he ran sprints and did push-ups and ran sprints and did sit-ups and ran sprints and did tackling drills and ran sprints, he dissected everything Pedro said.

First and foremost, Royce had recommended Amil join the team.

Made sense that he’d be the one to make that assessment.

As the center, he had a bird’s eye view of the other team’s defense.

He saw every move Amil made. Probably got pissed off every time Amil tackled the runner on a running play, every time he blocked one of Dante’s passes.

That glorious sack he’d made during that last playoff game.

Looked like Amil might have at least one friend on this team, even if the guy wanted him strictly for his talent. He could work with that.

Then there was Jalen and Diana. They had never been together.

She hadn’t cheated when she and Amil hooked up that one incredibly awesome night two years ago.

Pedro’s assessment that Diana was out of his league—at least, he assumed that was what Pedro meant—was probably true.

While Amil and Diana had talked during the postcoital cool down, under the guise of darkness, he’d realized that she was a really cool person. Confident. Happy. Funny. Intelligent. Damn proud of her team.

Which was probably why he hadn’t been able to get her out of his head, even after two years of no contact. Okay, yes, the sex had been off-the-charts phenomenal, but he’d had phenomenal sex before and honestly couldn’t even remember the chick’s name. Because that was all it had been: sex, period.

Amazing sex, smart, and a cool personality? Bonus that she hadn’t used him to cheat on her boyfriend after all.

Yep, totally out of his league.

Pedro’s warning drifted through his head again.

You and Jalen need to figure out how to play nice.

After all the chirping and shit-talking (that he’d started, by the way), after the way Jalen just stormed into the coach’s office and was clearly venting about the trade, Amil knew he was going to have to be the one to extend the olive branch.

Stay the fuck away from Diana.

That was the line that sucked the most.

Because regardless of Amil’s libido standing up and cheering over the fact that Diana was single and available, Pedro was right.

She was out of his league. Besides, he was here in Portland for one reason. To win the Super Bowl.

Rehashing that one incredible night over and over was not going to accomplish that goal.

He needed to focus on the game. On bonding with his new team.

It was time to stop antagonizing Jalen. They were teammates now. And teammates did not deliberately provoke one another. Not if they wanted to stay teammates for long.

And if working all that out wasn’t bad enough…

It looked like Amil was going to continue his celibate lifestyle for yet another season.