Page 6 of Maverick (Playing For Keeps #2)

REESE

I didn’t remember driving home. I left the stadium and the next thing I knew, I was in my driveway. For a moment, I just sat in my car with cool air blasting in my face.

Maverick Crawford was back in my life.

When we got the news that he’d been traded, I thought I’d be able to handle it. We hadn’t seen each other in years. People could grow in that time, right? I was certain that he’d have forgotten about what happened back then, or at least have started to forgive me.

As if on cue, my shoulder ached. Of course he hadn’t—that tackle was personal.

In hindsight, I probably should have kept my mouth shut.

I’d never been very good at that. One thing I was good at was reading Maverick Crawford like a book—even if I hadn’t always wanted to admit it.

When those hunter eyes shifted, turning into something dark, I should have taken it as a sign to stop talking.

Frustrated, I yanked my keys out of the ignition, snatched my duffel from the passenger seat, and tromped inside. After a morning in the sticky July heat, lying naked in the air conditioning was calling my name. Or maybe the pool—I hadn’t decided yet .

What I had decided? I’d earned a strong drink.

Bypassing my lazy-as-fuck cousin sprawled across the couch, I dropped my bag by the door and paused in the hallway, briefly enjoying the air from the vent before continuing to the kitchen.

Beckham played hockey, so his lucky ass was currently in his off season and free to do as he pleased—like inhabiting my house like he lived there.

As I prepared the ingredients for a margarita, Beckham appeared in the doorway. For a moment, I considered chugging the tequila straight from the bottle.

It was my ridiculously early alarm for the next morning that made me reconsider, and I measured out a double shot.

“So…”

Another thing about Beckham: He was ridiculously nosy.

I was an only child, but Beckham and I being so close in age made sure that I never missed out on having an intrusive older brother around. Hell, we looked enough alike that we could pass for siblings, but he also assumed the luxury of having a front row seat to my business.

And Maverick Crawford being traded to my team meant that he was all up in there.

I only arched a brow in response, adding lime juice and ice to my shaker before popping on the lid and mixing it up. The stainless steel cooled against my palm, and I used the sting as a distraction.

“Did you see him?”

“Have you talked to Kit?” I countered.

Beck’s cocky smile faltered—just as I thought it would.

Last week, he’d had a meeting with his agent. Everyone in the industry knew about Kit Graves’s bulldog-yet-playboy reputation. If the noises coming from my guest bedroom that night were any indication—along with a very hungover Kit sneaking out the next morning—I’d say it was one hell of a meeting.

Grinning, I strained my strong margarita into a glass rimmed with extra salt, adding a couple wedges of lime before carrying it out the door. Pool it was.

Setting down my drink, I strolled to the pool house to change. Unfortunately for me, Beckham followed. When I stepped back onto the deck, he was standing there. Damn, he was relentless. “What do you want?” I groaned, making a beeline for my cocktail.

“I want to know how it went—is that a bruise?”

I twisted to look at my right shoulder. Sure enough, an angry purple mark was settling into my skin. Great; now I’d remember Maverick every time I looked in the mirror. “It’s nothing.”

I placed my glass on the edge of the pool and lowered myself into the water.

Then I was finally able to take a sip from my drink.

Tequila burned as it slid down my throat, and the lime tickled my sinuses.

The salt cut through the bitterness of both, and the combination of it all practically melted the tension from my body.

“He finally sacked your ass, didn’t he?”

My only response was another mouthful of my margarita, and that was all the answer that my nosy cousin needed. He rolled up his sweats, dropping his feet into the water as he sat next to me. “Seriously, Reese. I know it must have fucked you up to see him after all these years.”

With a sigh, I set my glass down. Clearly, I wasn’t getting out of this conversation. “Yeah, it did,” I admitted. I scrubbed my hand over my face, but the only thing that accomplished was letting an image form behind my closed eyes: Maverick’s pretty green eyes—wet with unshed tears.

He'd always been a bit softer. No, not in the literal sense of the word, but he’d always required a more delicate hand.

He’d come to Tuscaloosa from a small town in Georgia and had been separated from his family and his best friend for the first time in his life.

Nervous, he’d latched onto the first person he could: Me.

I was from an equally quiet town in the suburbs of Tennessee and even though Auburn was on the smaller side, it was a bigger city life than what we were used to.

The college experience was thrilling—and Maverick Crawford even more so.

The way he looked at me sent shivers down my spine and during a fresher’s week party, he rolled his swollen bottom lip between his teeth, and I had the overwhelming urge to bite it myself.

Emboldened by lust—and tequila—I hauled him into the nearest bedroom and did just that.

Only, it didn’t stop there. Teeth clashed and tongues tangled. Clothes came off… and then he was on his knees for me. With my back pressed against that stranger’s bedroom door and the sounds of the party making the wood thump as aggressively as my heart, I had my own sexual awakening.

But I’d kept him to nothing more than that: lingering stares and stolen touches, ravishing each other behind closed doors only. As much as I pretended not to enjoy it, the sounds that I could pull from his mouth said just the opposite.

The older I got, however, the more I realized what I did to him. I’d kept him my dirty little secret and in doing so, forced him back into the closet he’d so bravely come out of as a teenager. I couldn’t admit to myself then that he was stronger than I was. My ego was too big for that.

I’d been such a dick to him, and it had taken me way too long to get my head out of my ass. By the time I did, he’d sworn off everything to do with Alabama—including me. He’d been drafted in the second round, and he moved home to Georgia without so much as a glance back.

It wasn’t until I was left all alone in Tuscaloosa that I realized how much he did for me—how much he was there for me. By the time that happened, it was too late. I’d gotten a scathing message from his best friend, Stetson, which meant that I was as good as dead.

Glass in my hand, I took down half my margarita. We’d only just started training camp, so if Mav and I couldn’t work through our past, I was in for one hell of a season—especially if he kept taking me out on the field.

I’d never been the biggest of creatures, especially in the world of football, but Maverick was a beast. He always had been.

The unexpected tackle had been a shock, and I hadn’t had time to brace myself before I went down.

My shoulder ached, and I rolled out the sore joint.

I’d be fine; I knew that, but something about Maverick having been the one to cause that injury had me a bit more twisted up about it.

“What’d you do?” Beckham’s voice startled me. Frankly, I’d forgotten he was even there.

“Couldn’t keep my mouth shut,” I muttered.

My cousin let out a loud bark of laughter. “Oh, what a fucking surprise.”

“Beck…”

“I’m just saying—you should have learned that lesson by now. Although, Maverick Crawford doesn’t exactly have a history of losing his temper.”

I scoffed and drained the rest of my cocktail, shoving the empty glass at Beckham in a silent demand for another. “How would you know that?”

“You forget who was in the stands at every single one of your college home games,” he said, pulling himself to his feet.

“I saw how that man looked at you. I also know how your attitude was in college and if my advice means anything to you, you need to find a way to apologize to him—soon, if you don’t want this trade to tank both of your careers. ”

I crossed my arms on the warm concrete, resting my head. “How do I make him listen ?”

“Don’t give him a choice. You know you fucked up at that party. It’s your fault that man is as hurt as he is. No one else’s. You’ve always acted like you’re better than everyone because you come from money—don’t look at me like that. You know it’s true.”

A poor spider crawling across the concrete became the subject of my glare. Not many people had the capacity to shut me up but when Beck turned on his “big brother” voice, I had little say in the matter. Besides, as much as I hated to admit it, he was right.

Getting picked in the first round of the draft had been unbelievable.

I was high on the feeling and when Maverick approached me, I pretended not to recognize him.

I had two new teammates behind me, and I was admittedly showing my ass.

He tried to hide the tears in his eyes, but I was too in tune to him.

After all, I had spent the last four years getting up close and personal with every inch of his body.

I was too scared to admit it then, but I knew what made him tick.

I knew what he sounded like when I’d hit just the right spot, the one that brought him so close to orgasm that he damn near lost his mind.

Feeling blood surge south at the simple memory of it all, I groaned and hid my face in my arms. I knew all of that without being prompted, so how couldn’t I see that I’d hurt him?

Even after the party, I could have answered any one of his calls or text and made it all right—but I hadn’t. I’d pretended like they had never existed…

Like he had never existed.

And then he turned the tables on me. Of course we’d cross paths on the field, but he never even so much as looked my way. Fortunately for him, I was easy to ignore when we were on separate teams, but now we had to learn to play nice.

I had to learn to play nice. Even as I was doing it, I knew that antagonizing Maverick on the field was a bad idea, but it was like I just couldn’t help myself. Maybe it was because I thought I deserved whatever blow he sent my way.

Beckham returned with a drink in each hand, this time dressed to join me in the water. I gestured to his drink, teasing him as he slipped into the pool. “Is there alcohol in that?”

“Oh, hell no. I’ve learned my lesson. Do you know what you’re going to do yet?”

“Not even close. Do you?” I gulped down half my margarita, grateful for the Beckham-appropriate portion of tequila that was already making my head spin.

“Easy. I’m just going to do what I do best: ignore it until it goes away.”

“Beck, he’s your agent ,” I laughed. “You’ll have to address this eventually.”

“I’ll do that when you confront your ex-boyfriend.”

“He—” I stopped short, about to do what I always had. College-aged Reese was hell bent on the idea that Maverick Crawford was not my boyfriend, but that couldn’t be the furthest thing from the truth.

And I had to make it right.