32. Bluffing
THIRTY-TWO
Bluffing
SHANNON
As she waited on a wrought-iron bench outside the training facility, the late-April breeze ruffled Shannon’s hair and reminded her of the chilly fall winds that did the same six months before. Same bench, lingering on it for the same reason—waiting for a boyfriend—but not the same boyfriend. And she was definitely not the same girl.
She uncapped a bottle of cherry-flavored electrolyte water and smiled at the morning sky as her stomach churned with hunger. Caleb wanted omelets, which did not bode well for the egg supply of the restaurant he’d picked for his birthday brunch, a hole-in-the wall far enough outside Columbus it wasn’t afraid to offer one-price specials. When she called ahead to warn the manager that she was bringing a half-dozen hungry football players to his all-you-can-eat omelet bar, he thanked her for the heads-up.
A familiar voice jolted her from her daydreams about post-brunch plans for a trip to the library to study for finals.
“What are you doing here?”
She sighed with audible annoyance as she looked him up and down. Ready for his workout in team warm-up gear—red athletic shorts, tight black shirt with the university logo snug across his toned chest—Hayden looked as wholesome and handsome as he did the day they met. Speaking to him again was never in the scheme she and Caleb set in motion, but as long as he was staring…
Amusement curled one side of her mouth into a tight smile. “What an unpleasant surprise,” she said. “I could ask the same of you. I hear you’re leaving us soon.”
He glared. “It seemed like a good idea to stay in game shape for what’s next.”
“How optimistic of you.”
Trash talk is about getting under their skin with a smile on your face. Caleb’s words warmed and emboldened her. She tipped her head back, closed her eyes, and relished a ray of sun. Hayden stared until she opened her eyes and lifted an inquisitive brow. “What?” she asked. “I’m not here to talk to you. Shoo.”
“Then why are you here?”
“I’m waiting for someone.”
“Who?”
She ignored him and unzipped her backpack to retrieve a book.
“Fields?” he demanded.
“You can’t possibly be jealous.”
Hayden dragged a hand through his sandy blond hair and fumed. “I heard you hooked up with him.”
“I did. Would you like a play-by-play or something?”
“What the—I don’t want to hear about that.”
“Good, because I have no idea how to tell you and not make you feel inadequate. ”
It’s best when they know it’s one hundred percent true. She barely suppressed a giggle.
“Christ, Shan, what’s wrong with you?”
She opened a dog-eared copy of The Trial and kept her head low to hide her smile.
He tried again. “Why are you here?”
“Shall I flatter you by saying I’ve decided to follow you around again? You always did have a nice ass.” She craned her neck and pretended to look behind him. “Still do, I bet. Twirl. I’ll check.”
“Oh, I’ll twirl,” he said, snarling his sarcasm. “Because it means so much to be flattered by you anymore. I knew you were bluffing about the recordings.”
“I wasn’t bluffing.”
“If you had a recording of me saying what you think I said, I’d have heard from lawyers by now. Mine or hers. And I haven’t.”
“I can’t vouch for legal strategies.” Shannon kept her head down and flipped a page. “I’m sure you’ll find out when you see the judge on the thirtieth. Do you need a date? I might be free.”
“God, you’re such a bitch,” he huffed, and threw his duffel bag next to her feet. He flopped down on the bench.
“I have nothing to say to you,” she said, not looking up as she flipped another page. “You’re ruining my appetite. Go away.”
He made himself comfortable instead and leaned back, knees spread, to take as much space as he could. Unwilling to give an inch, Shannon focused on her book. He could land in her lap with his foolish posturing and she would not move .
“If you’re not here to talk to me, and you’re not here to talk to Fields, what the hell are you doing here?”
“You have no right to the details of my life anymore,” she said, folding a page corner. “But since it seems to matter so much to you, I’m waiting for Rashid Jaggers. We’re going to brunch.”
Hayden couldn’t hide a moment’s shock. “Damn. You were supposed to be a good girl, not a football slut. Going through the roster now, huh?”
She raised an eyebrow. “I’m quite slow compared to you working through the roster of sorority ladies. And whatever cheerleaders would stoop to have you after you posted that video of Luna and Marissa in November, shortly after you got the harebrained idea to buy me a ring.”
He nearly choked on his tongue. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Hayden, please.” She turned on the sunshine with the good-girl smile he knew. “You are the only person still insisting you didn’t do that. I was not for a minute under the impression that I was the only girl in your bed. I was just the lucky one you felt obligated to respect, so I got the pretty gifts and the pleasure of your company, and didn’t have to worry about being drugged or filmed.” She batted her lashes, flirtatious enough to confuse him. “It wasn’t a terrible arrangement for either of us, was it? You were pretty pleasurable company when you wanted to be, if you know what I mean. And I like to think I gave you a good reason to pay attention to me some nights.”
She winked and wriggled in her seat, then bent slowly to drop her phone in her bag, treating him to a show of cleavage in her low-cut top .
It’s insidious.
“I respected you,” he snapped, with no effort to hide his stare. “I did everything you asked.”
“Which, to my credit, wasn’t much. I don’t exist in a bubble, Hayden. Respecting me to my face and then behaving the way you did when I wasn’t looking is not respect. How many times did you tell me you’re not like your father? I refuse to be like your mother.”
“I know you think I went after you for the wrong reasons,” he said. “But I liked you from the minute I met you, Shannon. I really did. If you think that entire relationship was a sham image rehabilitation thing, you’re wrong.”
“You like a lot of girls, Hayden. I had the dubious honor of being the one you loved with your whole heart fifty percent of the time.” She sighed theatrically. “I’d like you to go away before the person who does not lie to me about that arrives, because he will not be pleased to see you.”
“Jags isn’t right for you.”
She nearly spit a sip of electrolyte water on him. “Oh, this is rich. I take it all back. Stay. Tell me more about who’s good for me, sweetie, because I am dying for your take.”
“I don’t care who you’re sleeping with,” he said, resting an arm on the back of the bench, close enough to touch her if he wanted.
“And yet here you are for a chat.” She puckered her lips and blew him a kiss. “What’s hurting you so much that you sat down to speak to me instead of stomping off? I was always a good listener. Was the offensive coordinator in Tennessee mean to you? Did the guy in Chicago not call you back for a few days? You didn’t look like such hot shit at Pro Day, baby. Are you nervous about this weekend? ”
Hayden’s jaw hung open as the color drained from his face.
“It’s a big deal, I know,” she said, lowering her voice. “So much stress. I bet you’re horny as hell from all the pressure, and you want to screw me right here on this bench.”
“You had better tell me what the hell you’re talking about,” he said, smoldering. His neck corded with tension.
She remembered that look. His blue eyes brightened in passion for any reason: in lust, in victory, in fury. That gaze once set her hungering for him—a weakness she despised even when she loved him because it made her feel so shallow—and now it now shot ice through her veins.
Without looking down, she knew his fingers were twitching on the back of the bench, fighting the desire to reach for her the way he did when she’d tease and call him a loser just to get his attention and make him kiss her a little harder. She lifted a hand to scratch her shoulder and bumped into him, just to confirm her suspicions. Chest heaving, he waited for her to open her pursed lips and dare him to respond to another taunt. His predator’s instinct would be to grab her, force his mouth onto hers and take her body into his hands so whoever she intended to meet at that bench would see him stake his claim to a territory that mattered so little he’d destroy it when he was done.
She let her tongue graze her lips for a moment—slowly, just enough to catch his attention before she bit her lip, smiled and shot a quick glance in his lap.
He ground his fingers against the back of the bench, but sat straighter.
“There’s nothing to tell,” she said finally. “I’m just bluffing. ”
“Of course you are,” he said, trying to release the tension in his shoulders as he shrugged his arm away. “You can’t just call up a bunch of coaching personnel and tell them I’m a dick. And who would listen to you, anyway?”
She dismissed him with a wave. “As if I have time to hunt those people down. What are you so worried about?”
Lashes again. Wide eyes, a little pout, voice edging into her upper register.
“I’m not worried, baby.” He glared like the slip of his tongue was her fault. “I’m not worried, Shannon.”
“Of course not. It’s such an exciting time for you, so why panic about the federal drug charges?”
“There are no federal charges.”
“Yet.”
“Ever.”
“Are you sure?” She flipped her hair over her shoulder, a swish of blonde and blue. “What a waste of a draft pick you might be, if that were hanging over your head. But you know more about that than I do. And if it doesn’t work out, there’s always free agency.”
“Quit trying to freak me out. It’s not working,” he said, the quaver in his voice giving away the lie. “Of course I’m sure.”
“I always envied your confidence.” She re-opened her book and flipped to the page she’d marked. “The supreme self-assuredness of Ryan Hayden Hamilton, whose myriad legal wranglings remain incomplete and, in some cases, unsearchable unless one knows precisely what to look for under ‘pending.’”
“For God’s sake, Shannon. I’m sorry, all right?”
“You’re sorry?” She slammed the book on the bench so hard it bounced and hit him, and every shred of restraint that maintained her sarcastic, careless veneer fell away in a blink. “You’re sorry , after all this? No one cares! This was never about getting an apology from you. It’s about accountability. I made every excuse in the world for you not knowing what love really was. Your family screwed you up early in that regard. I even tried to believe you about Delilah. But even if your family is awful, and even if the car accident was a genuine accident, there is still no excuse for hurting people to get what you want. There’s no excuse for the kind of person you are. What you tried with Nina and with who knows how many other girls was a choice, and you can’t blame your daddy for that. And between me, Nina, Marissa, Luna, Delilah, and?—”
He threw up his hands. “Being an asshole isn’t illegal. I didn’t drug anybody.”
“Because people stopped you.”
“And Luna and Marissa didn’t say no.”
“They told me they didn’t say yes. Do you remember why the cheerleaders had that party?”
He frowned, startled. “What? No.”
“It was Luna’s birthday. Luna’s a freshman, you know.”
The color drained from his face.
“It was her eighteenth birthday on Tuesday. The party was on the Friday before.”
She enjoyed his silent shock and the whitening of his knuckles on the back of the bench for a moment before continuing.
“You terrified that girl, Hayden. You took advantage of her and Marissa when they made a stupid decision to drink a little, and for what? A power trip? A night you barely remember? She couldn’t tell her parents. She couldn’t fight you to take the video down or go after you for filming her like that when she was underage. She didn’t have the money to hire an attorney to keep it all private without their money, but she does now.”
She kept the last of her lingering pity locked away so she could lie through her teeth, and the bluff held. The night of the party, Luna Magill and Marissa Pierce were twenty-one-year-old seniors, and so expendable to him he didn’t know their last names, let alone their ages.
“Shannon, you can’t prove?—”
“Yes, I can.”
“Girls like that say one thing and then change their minds when they sober up,” he flustered, curling his lips in an unbecoming snarl. “Now she wants to take advantage of me when she was having fun, too. It’s just like Delilah did when she said in court, under oath, that I pressured her. Before that, she never acted like she didn’t want it. Her parents never liked me, and they steamrolled her into putting on this act. She was a total pushover.”
“A pushover? She pushed back on you about keeping the baby. Your baby.”
“Yeah, and look how that turned out for her.”
He closed a fist when he realized what he said. Shannon balled her shirt in her hands to keep from clawing his pretty blue eyes out, but kept her breaths calm.
“I’m not recording you this time, loser,” she said, nudging her backpack with her toe. “I already have enough to deliver what I promised.”
“What you promised?”
“Either she’ll be the biggest mistake of your life, or I will.”
Shannon stood and peeked over his shoulder where Caleb, Jags, Berk, and Nicksy exited the training facility and headed their way. She waved. Fresh from his shower and with damp hair loose under a headband, Caleb approached with a satisfied smile for his girlfriend and didn’t so much as glance at Hayden before pulling Shannon close for a kiss.
“I’m hungry for breakfast,” he murmured against her lips. “Again.”
She breathed him in: the crisp cotton of his shirt, and delicious rosemary and mint hair wax his brother gave him. “Watch it, birthday boy. I told him I was waiting for Jags.”
He kissed her neck. “Hammy’s confusion does not concern me.”
“Caleb,” she whispered, “pay attention, or you’ll look insecure, slobbering all over me.”
He squeezed her waist. “Shan, when you say my name like that…”
“I knew you were bluffing,” Hayden said, pointing back and forth between Shannon and Caleb. “You lying?—”
“Big weekend coming up,” Berk said, clapping Hayden on the shoulder. “We’re all hyped to see how it goes for you, man.”
“There’s a lot of competition at QB this year, and not a lot of teams looking,” Jags said. “Cory Thatcher from Michigan will go in the top five, and he’s… well, aside from beating us, I hear he’s a pretty nice guy. You guys used to be friends, right?”
Caleb didn’t give him time to answer. “Thatch said it’s going to be hard to play on Sundays because he’ll miss church. What a guy.”
“You should be glad to miss the first round. Backup quarterback sounds like a sweet gig,” Berk said, slapping his shoulder. Still flushed from his workout, he looked able to rip Hayden’s arm off. “You get the check, you get to sit, and when you get up, no one expects you to play like the franchise guy. I’d take that contract over the pressure of starting.”
“Wouldn’t want to get in over your head,” Nicksy said. The edge in the offensive lineman’s voice cut like a blade through the fake banter.
“I’m not worried,” Hayden said, eyeing him warily.
“Nor should you be,” Caleb said, grinning. “What could go wrong?”
“Marc Argent and Ollie Lamont draft high and Hammy’s a bust,” Jags said, then glanced around. “Did I say that out loud?”
Berk inclined his head to the parking lot. “Let’s go. I’ve got an omelet calling my name.” He poked Shannon’s shoulder. “Eggs and no Hammy for you, girl.”
Without a word, Nicksy wrapped Hayden in a headlock and cranked his head down for Shannon to kiss his cheek. At nearly three hundred pounds and only six feet, two inches tall—short, for an offensive lineman—Evan Nicks was a muscular force on and off the field. After releasing Hayden’s neck, he delivered a game-day smack to his ass. Caleb followed with one that bordered on violence.
“No one’s blocking for you anymore, Hamster,” he said. “It’s going to be a long weekend.”