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Chapter One

“I ’m out,” I slurred, throwing my losing hand down onto the table and lifting the next shot glass to my lips. I was far too drunk to continue claiming every new hand was going to be the one where I won my money back.

“You were talking a big game before, y boy.” Cooper said, sliding another shot in front of me, six empties already sitting next to the fresh one. With Seb’s new bar closed for the evening, there was no one to clean our glasses which meant we were surrounded by a reminder of how much we had slammed.

“Loser on and off the field this week.” Jay added, enjoying my misery far too much.

“Can we keep the insults away from my team?” Andy asked while indicating to Seb that he wanted another card.

“When you play like you boys did last week, the gloves are off.” Cooper chipped.

“The gloves are always off with you.” Seb’s always serious face not even cracking in the slightest when Coop shoved him playfully.

“First time we haven’t made the finals in eight years.” Andy huffed, the pain still just as raw as it was last weekend when that final buzzer sounded and we were down eighteen points.

“First season I haven’t been on the field in eight years too. What a coincidence.” Jay quipped and I did my best not to flinch. He was laughing, but I still sensed the way the room quietened the tiniest bit and how everyone suddenly avoided looking at me. After all, it was my fault he took early retirement last season and didn’t I know it.

Jay had never once thrown anything back at me. In fact, the one time we did discuss it, he was adamant it was his time and it was the push he needed — but I felt it all the same. A mentor, a leader, an altruistic mother fucker to the core and despite his resolve that he had to finish for his health, every bloke sitting around this table knew it was brought forward to save my dumbarse from a tainted career.

What was a ridiculously stupid decision to dabble in recreational drugs on a night out at Seb’s club, Nexus, turned into a media shit storm when someone used my status and position on the Hearts Football Team as an opportunity and leaked it to the media within the hour. I’d been hauled in for a please fucking explain at two in the morning, still pretty trashed on drinks and reckless decisions. I was barely able to tie my shoelaces let alone interpret the mess I was walking into and if it wasn’t for Jay I would have copped it all. The evidence was there and while the images were grainy and the public couldn’t be certain it was me, assumptions would be made. But Jay had met with his medical team only two days prior after another nasty head knock and they gave him the ultimatum – your health or your career. Officially he was told he could finish the season before hanging up his boots but ever the impulsive martyr, he formulated a plan which saw him labelled as the Hearts drug mule and me as an innocent bystander. Retiring effective immediately, he pleased his medical team and family but unfairly took the blame for what the media labelled as ‘Cocaine-Gate’, thankfully with no impact to his retirement payout.

“Yeah, and it was also the first year the boys could shower without worrying someone would take off with their gear. Right, o?” I knew Andy was trying to reel me back in, to remind me there were no hard feelings, but the guilt was heavy and I was reminded of it often. An unspoken, ever-present shadow I wore as a second skin.

“Losing your kit is a rite of passage,” Jay said, nudging me with his elbow, “Ask this prick.”

Everyone laughed and with the shots comfortably swimming through my veins, the guilt eased a little with Jay’s quip, and I chuckled too, recounting a time he had not only taken my gear but cleared the entire changeroom of anything resembling clothing.

“I had to cover myself with a bloody Hearts scarf.” I laughed and Jay threw an arm around my shoulder rubbing his knuckles across my head.

“You were my favourite to get because your face turns as pink as a fucking pig.” I rolled my eyes, wishing like hell I hadn’t gotten that little gem from my old man.

My phone vibrated in my pocket and I reached for it while the boys finished the round. Swiping open the message from my mum I sighed louder than I realised when Andy questioned who had pissed me off.

“Mum and Dad think they’re renovation gurus so their guest house is out of action. I was planning on heading home for the break but maybe not.” I knew despite Mum’s attempt at euphemising, the place would be a demolition site. Any time they decided to DIY something, it ended up taking six months longer than necessary and cost them double what it would have if they’d just paid professionals. But, as retirees with nothing else to do, it made them happy and kept them out of my hair.

“Doesn’t your wife have a place of her own? Stay with her.” Andy said, referring to my long-term friend and not even remotely close to being my wife, Winter.

Visions of soft dark hair and almond shaped eyes watching me as if I walked on water drifted through my murky thoughts.

“When did you get married and why weren’t we invited?” Seb asked knowing full well the boys were only geeing me up.

“He wishes they were married. Winter is the one who got away, isn’t she, y?” Jay ruffled my hair and I swatted his hand away which only made his smirk turn into a laugh.

“Shut the fuck up, would ya?” I retorted. I did not need them to know how deep that one hit because I would never hear the end of it. As it was, he only knew about her because he heard us on the phone pretty regularly, but she was Winter . My beautifully brilliant, but very much taken best - friend . She was kind, familiar and undoubtedly the smartest woman I had ever known, making me laugh more than all of these dickheads combined, but she was in a relationship and had never been interested in anything more than what we always were. Friends.

“When do you head home?” Andy asked, throwing his cards down and taking his own losers shot.

“Meant to be tomorrow…” I shrugged, wondering if maybe I should call Winter for a place to crash. We’d stayed together plenty of times before so it wouldn’t be out of character. I was in desperate need of a break from the city and it had been a few years since I’d had the time to actually get back home. With the season ending a month earlier than anticipated, it was the perfect opportunity to spend time with my folks, decompress away from the hustle of all that came with being part of the Hearts and spend some time with Win before the new season started and I would be back on the training paddock for another gruelling year.

I could tolerate whatever dipshit she was dating for a couple of months, surely.Kai or Kyle or whatever his name was would understand we were just friends. And if he didn’t, what the fuck did I care? She was never one to hold back with me, if there was an issue she would say so.

I pushed back from the table indicating I was going to the bathroom, but before I’d even closed the door I was calling her number, my face already breaking into a smile in anticipation of hearing her voice.

“This better be important, J-Man, because the enemies are just about to become lovers and it is about to get steamy up in here.” Her voice was honey, oozing through my body and softening any aches and pains. It was the most comforting, consistent sound in the world – so matter of fact and unfiltered when she was with me.

“Hey, Win.” I drawled, the shots well and truly loosening the chords. “Ooooh, tell me about these lovers.”

“So, he is her boss and is arrogant, but sexy as all hell, obviously. She’s his assistant and has been in love with him forevvverrrrr.” Holding the phone between my shoulder and ear, I washed my hands and leant back against the basin, smiling at the way she elongated the words.

“And she put her whole life on hold for him, doing whatever he asked, whenever he asked. Including travelling halfway across the world to secure a business deal he had been working on for years which then meant she missed her nephew’s first birthday party. I mean, he did threaten to fire her if she didn’t, but still.”

“He sounds like a dick.”

“We prefer the term morally-grey, thank you. Anyway, she never told him any of this, obviously.”

“Obviously.” I repeated with a sarcastic lilt to my reply.

“I’m ignoring your mockery because get this – son overhears her getting chewed out from her mum–”

“His name is son?” I interjected, my smirk turning into a full-blown smile.

“Mmmhmmm.” She answered as if I shouldn’t be concerned that she named her main character a strikingly similar name to my own. And made him a jerk.

“Anywayyyyy, like I said, he threatens to fire her, so of course she agreed because, urgh hello, she is in love with him. And then her mum calls her and totally berates her for missing the birthday party and he overhears this and realises how freaking amazing she is and always has been and sacrifices his chances at securing the deal to take her home immediately. On his private jet, obviously.”

“Obviously.” I interjected again, my smile still firmly cemented as she sucked in a much needed breath after that spiel.

“And now they are on the flight back to New York, where she lives, and he is standing outside the door to the bathroom which she has just opened and he is looking at her like he wants to eat her having realised she is the one woman who has always been there for him, always been his biggest advocate, and she is staring up at him,” her voice dipped to a whisper and I turned the volume of my phone up, desperate not to miss a word, “Internally freaking out because she wants nothing more than for him to devour her. And then the hostess interrupts so he yells at the unknowing attendant to go away because they’re about to join the mile high club, obviously.”

I knew it was my turn to repeat the word, confirm with an exaggerated reply that obviously he was going to fuck her on the plane, but my mouth was dry and there was something new happening in other areas of my body which shouldn’t be when talking to my friend .

“You hate it, don’t you? On a scale of one to throw the typewriter in the ocean, how bad is it?”

“That thing would survive a tsunami so it wouldn’t make a difference,” I joked.

“Don’t you dare criticise my beautiful magic maker. She brings me so much joy and helps me escape.”

Clearing my throat, I stood up straight and ran a hand through my hair.

“I think I’m going to need you to read me the next chapter.” I said, hoping my voice didn’t betray just how much I wanted that.

“You’re a grub.” She laughed and the melodic familiarity of that sound reaffirmed my decision. Home was exactly what I needed for the next few months and it would be even better with her there. “Buuuut, as soon as it is finished I will definitely need you to read it. I’ve never written an S-E-X scene before so it could be terrible.”

I barked a laugh at how a highly-educated twenty-six year old could not bring herself to say the word sex or any other word alluding to anything remotely erotic out loud. Thanks to her very embarrassing faux pas as an awkward fourteen year old when my father asked for help with his crosswords and she confidently screamed strum dick instead of drum stick. Both my parents and hers thought it was the funniest thing in the world, and I did my best not to join in when her cheeks flamed and after gaping at the room for a good fifteen seconds, she fled down to the beach where it took me two hours to convince her no one would care.

Which for a horny fourteen year old boy – was a lie. I cared. A lot.

Strum dick . Classic.

It was also the last time I ever heard her say anything even remotely close to sexual and I was forbidden from mentioning the incident again.

“I’ve missed you, Win.” The smile was evident in my words and I could hear her own in her reply.

“I always miss you, . Now when are you coming to visit me?”

“About that. I actually called because I have a favour to ask.”