Page 43 of Only Between Us

They play fuckinghard.

The whistle blows between plays and I take the precious opportunity to strip off my helmet and pat the sweat off my face with the hem of this black practice jersey.

I scan the lower rows of seats behind the benches for the stunner in tangerine orange among the other partners. I’ve done my best to keep my focus on the game, but more than once, I’ve found my attention drifting to the stands during breaks in play.

Siena is enthusiastically chatting with a woman beside her—quarterback Shawn Hartley’s wife, if I remember right. She’s slotted into their group almost seamlessly since we arrived, settling into her fake role a lot better than she did at the alumni game.

“You holding it together, old man?” The helmet on Shawn Hartley’s head doesn’t conceal his smirk. The quarterback fingers a football someone tosses him. “Old bones not what they used to be, huh? Never thought I’d see the day where Brooks Attwood alligator-arms a pass.”

Fuck, I missed this. Nothing beats the shit-talking comradery of an NFL locker room.

“Maybe put a little more juice behind your next throw and I wouldn’t have been in the line of fire. And are we gonna pretend I wasn’t still in diapers while you were out having your first legal drink?”

Hartley breathes a laugh.

I zero in on Siena again. She’s watching me back this time.

“Nice ass,” she mouths.

I shake my head, trying to pull off the disapproving thing, but I’m suppressing a laugh.

Jay Adams, another receiver, lets out a long, low whistle. “Are you persona non grata around LA these days, Attwood?”

“Why would I be?”

“You’ve got Thomas Ivers’s girl eye-fucking you from the stands, that’s why.”

I track his gaze back to Siena, who’s now laughing obliviously with the woman at her side. In fact, several of these jackasses are openly staring at her.

“She hasn’t been his girl in months, dickbag.”

There’s a smattering ofoohs around me. “Touchy subject?”

This teasing shit is par for the course among teammates. In the Rebels locker room, I’d be quietly laughing in a corner. Listening to those idiots try to get a rise out of each other or letting it roll off my back if they were salivating over Naomi.

It’s nothing new. Doesn’t bother me in the slightest.

Siena isn’t a touchy subject at all. This relationship is a hoax, and any eye-fucking from the stands was probably done for the sake of onlookers.

They can tease all they want. I’m laser-focused on my game.

“Wouldn’t mind getting a little touchy with that one myself—”

I grab a fistful of jersey on the nearest guy and yank him around so that he faces the field. Do the same to the other idiots around me.

“Eyes on the goddamn football.That one’s mine.”

There’s not a single guy around me not bursting into laughter. Adams claps me on the shoulder pad, proud as fuck for getting me to snap.

Jackasses, all of them.

“What the hell are you all standing around for?” Over on the sideline, Lamar Wentworth, the Tigers’ head coach, gestures with his clipboard. “Are we paying you to gossip over tea and crumpets or play some football?”

I pull on my helmet as we position ourselves around the line of scrimmage, me on the far side of the field. I can’t help another look at the stands. It’s as if my brain can’t go more than a few seconds without checking on Siena. Wondering what she’s doing, whether she’s giving her new friends that bright smile, or if she’s tracking me on the field. The same way I can’t help tracking her.

Focus. Let her play her part out there, while you play yours over here.

As soon as the ball hits Hartley’s hands, the players unfreeze. Some crash together at the line of scrimmage while others take off down the field, me included, trying to stay open for a pass.