Page 96 of Only for Me

I grinned at how protective his tone was.

"I bet if I introduced your mother to my parents they would have a lot to fucking talk about."

"Probably but how about we don't do that?"

He smirked and squeezed my ankle. “Come here.”

“Why do you want me over there?”

“I gotta have a reason to want you close?”

“No, but me being close to you leads to sex.”

He grinned arrogantly.

“I want to ask you a question, but it’s about your brother, so if you don’t want to talk about that you don’t have to.”

“Come put your hands on my face and you can ask me whatever you want.”

“You just want me on your lap.”

“You made the rules. We’re about to talk about some deep shit, and if we do, you have to make me feel safe.”

He smiled sexily and I rolled my eyes but climbed over the sofa and straddled his lap. After I had my hands on his face, I asked what I wanted to know.

“Your brother was killed in a car jacking but I’ve never seen anything about it. No articles, headlines, or anything. How is that?”

“Why you asking?” He frowned hard.

“Because you just said you have to clean up your father’s messes and you do that a lot. I’ve never seen anything about him and you’reyou, so how is that?”

“With my father, he does the same shit at the same places. There’s always somebody around to hit me up before things get too bad, but also, like I said, nobody cares about me having a drunk for a father. With my brother, it happened right after the Super Bowl and my team made sure it was kept quiet.”

I frowned. “Why?”

“My reputation with the Sharks wasn’t the best. I did a lot of dumb shit. The owners were talking about a buyout for my contract to trade me if I didn’t get my shit together.”

“You won a Super Bowl, would they really have done that?”

“Hell yeah. Sports are a business before anything else. They don’t give a damn about us personally. They care what puts people in seats and fills stadiums. Having a player that the fans don’t like doesn’t do either, no matter how much they’re winning. My coach fucks with me heavy but he only has so much pull. The decision is up to the owners and they wouldn’t think twice about getting rid of me. After that night, I fucking spiraled. I wouldn’t listen to anyone and didn’t give a damn about my career. My team cared enough about me to make sure I didn’t mess it up though. I was an unstable player who was already in trade conversations. Being unreliable because of what was going on with my brother would have given them everything they needed to get rid of me. Raaj handled it. Kept it out of the mediaand made sure the world didn’t find out. Only the people closest to me know what really happened. A few of my teammates, my coach, Van, and Raaj. Everyone else knows I lost him but not the details. Raaj and Van made the decision on how to handle things. I wasn’t in the right headspace but I’m glad they did because I don’t want that to be his legacy and I also would have thrown my career away. Wouldn’t have fucking cared if they wouldn’t have stepped in.”

“You care now.”

“Some days are better than others, but yeah, I care.”

“Then I’m glad they made that decision for you.”

Chapter 16

Omiri

“No, hell no.” Makari shook her head and glared at me. I had been putting this off for weeks but after the situation with my father, Vanessa finally put her foot down. I paid her to make sure my name and image remained clean, so it was counterproductive not to trust her advice. She insisted we do an interview, even though I was opposed, but she felt it would work. More or less presenting Makari and I as a united front, and whether I liked it or not, it was a good idea.

“Can you hear me out first?”

“Yep, you can say whatever you want and I’ll sit here and listen but my answer is the same. Why the hell would you want us to sit in front of a camera exposing ourselves to the people who are trying to drag every detail of our lives?”

“I don’t like this any more than you do but we’re in the thick of this shit. I don’t necessarily care about people’s opinions of us but I do care what this is doing to your image…”