Page 4

Jordan

I breathe in and out in a deep, even rhythm, my feet pounding against the conveyor on the treadmill. Music rattles the windowpanes around me, aggressive notes pinging off the walls loud enough to silence every thought in my head. Except…it’s not fucking working like usual.

Most days, I can drown out anything with music. I can punish my body into exhaustion, make it so I’m too goddamn tired to think. It’s not working this time. Even after a grueling game, my mind refuses to shut off.

Seeing Sutton again has my head all fucked up. She’s so damn fiery, so passionate. I wanted to push her up against my truck and fuck my way into her soul yesterday, hear her screaming my name loud enough for the whole city to hear it breaking for me.

Instead, I did the one damn thing I never meant to do. I told her the truth. Now, she knows my little secret…knows that I’m the kind of man who fell in love with her when I shouldn’t have.

I can’t outrun that reality, no matter how hard I try. I can’t outrun the old feelings battling for attention, either. They’re still right there. They’ve always been right fucking there.

I crank the treadmill up a notch and try anyway.

My lungs burn. My side twinges.

Her face flashes through my mind, haunting me just like it has for the last five years.

I grit my teeth and run harder.

My phone vibrates in the tray with an incoming text.

I always felt the same way about you.

“Fuck,” I mutter, stabbing the button to stop the treadmill as I stumble. She still has the same number.

I’ve had to talk myself out of calling her a thousand times over the years just to hear her voice.

Just to remind myself that there was still something beautiful out in the world, something worth climbing out of the pit for.

Didn’t matter if she ever knew it or not.

Didn’t even matter that she hated me. I clawed my way back to the top for her. Because of her.

Because I couldn’t spend the rest of my life as someone she pitied on top of everything else.

I hoped like hell that I’d see her in the stands one day, even if it was only a glimpse.

I never have, though. Doesn’t matter how many times we’ve played the Bucks over the years. She’s never in the stands.

I look for her anyway.

Sutton: When Jamison told me that you were in love with Vanessa, it broke my heart.

Sutton: Maybe I should have been pissed that you put him in the hospital, but I was devastated that you were in love with my best friend when I was crazy about you.

Sutton: Just thought you should know.

“Jesus Christ,” I mutter. Is that why she slapped me? Because her heart was broken?

All this fucking time…

I battle the urge to pick up the phone and call her.

What would it solve?

What would it change?

Maybe she was in love with me then. But that was another life. Any dreams I had crumbled when I attacked her brother. The only reason she’s here now is because she thinks I can help her with him.

I can’t.

I won’t.

Not even for her.

I shove the phone into my pocket, shut off the music, and haul myself up to the shower. But as the hot water beats down on me, I can’t get her out of my head. She’s stuck like the notes of a song playing on repeat.

Her fiery brown eyes. The way strands of her hair always wave around her face. Those full lips wrapped around my name.

“Fuck,” I groan, wrapping my fist around my cock. I squeeze my eyes closed and imagine she’s in front of me again. She’s in my arms like she was today. But I don’t haul her away from the truck. I haul her to it, bend her over the tailgate.

She moans and squirms, grinding against my cock as I take a taste of her, tormenting both of us. I already know she’ll taste sweet. So fucking sweet. Like sugar and cinnamon.

My cock throbs in my hand, my balls drawing up.

My fist flies up and down, twisting, pulling…imagining she’s the one wrapped around it. Her hand. Her lips. Her hot little body.

“Sutton,” I groan, ropes of cum painting the shower wall. I slap my free hand against the tiles to hold myself upright, working out every last drop. My heart pounds. My goddamn legs shake.

Jesus.

I suck in a lungful of air, rattled. Unsteady. She’s wrecking me all over again, pulling me apart piece by piece.

I think maybe she’s putting me back together again, too.

She was in love with me back then. It shouldn’t matter now. But who the fuck am I kidding? She never stopped mattering. I doubt she ever will.

Jamison wanted to take everything from me, and he did.

He thought taking my career and reputation was his grand revenge for daring to call him on his shit.

For humiliating him in front of the world.

For whatever bullshit lies he told himself about me and Vanessa to justify the shit he did to her.

He was wrong. Turning Sutton against me was what destroyed me.

I’ve fucking hated him for it for five years. As far as I could tell, his life continued like nothing ever happened. He was treated like a hero, an innocent victim. And I spent mine in hell.

But maybe that isn’t entirely true. If she’s telling the truth, it isn’t. He’s…what? Gone off the deep end again? Hurt someone else?

I won’t help him. Not when I’m beginning to think that Sutton has spent the last five years in hell, too. That she’s here right now because she never got over it, either.

And that’s his goddamn fault.

It’s mine, too.

I scrub up quickly and then climb from the shower. My phone on the counter taunts me, screaming at me to respond, but I ignore it as I brush my teeth and then drag on a pair of boxers.

By the time I’m in bed, I can’t ignore the voice screaming at me anymore.

My mind races as my fingers fly across the screen.

Me: Who is this?

I don’t even have time to set it aside before she’s responding, like she was just waiting for me to answer her.

Sutton: JORDAN!!!

I crack a smile, a rusty laugh rumbling from my lips. I can imagine her shouting my name just like that, stomping her foot while she does it, her eyes flashing a combination of irritation and amusement. And even though she fights it, she smiles.

Goddamn, I would have done anything for her when she smiled at me. Guess some shit hasn’t changed. I’d still kill to be the reason she smiles. To be the one she smiles at.

Sutton: Crap, please tell me this is still your number, and I didn’t just confess my biggest secret to some random stranger.

As if I could change my number. I kept the damn thing, hoping that she’d call someday. Even when I knew she wouldn’t, I hoped anyway.

My fingers hover over the screen, ready to tell her that it’s me. But I hesitate. Some fucked up, twisted part of me wants to claim her just to show Jamison that I can. Just to punish him for daring to take her in the first place.

I want to destroy him the same way he destroyed me.

But I’m not that guy, and using Jamison as an excuse would just be that: an excuse.

He has nothing to do with the way I feel about his sister.

He never has. I want her because she’s her.

Because she’s the one person on this planet who sets me on fire.

But I let her believe his lies for a reason, not just to protect my secret, but to protect her .

Because I know her. Telling her the truth about what happened will destroy their relationship now, just like it would have back then.

And as much as I hate the prick, as much as I hope he suffers for the rest of his life, I won’t let her be collateral damage like he did.

Letting her hate me is still the lesser of two evils when the alternative is watching guilt tear her apart for choosing me over the brother she always idolized.

He’ll never deserve her loyalty. But she’s always deserved mine.

Me: Sorry, I don’t know a Jordan.

I intend to end it there; to fall back into my hole and pretend she didn’t knock my world out of orbit today. But apparently, she isn’t finished.

Sutton: Well, I do. At least, I did. But I guess he’s a coward just like my brother now.

“Goddammit,” I growl, tossing my phone onto the nightstand. But I don’t sleep. Not for a long fucking time.

Her text haunts me all goddamn day. I manage to piss off Coach and half the team with my attitude. I can’t focus on shit. All I think about is that text.

I guess he’s a coward just like my brother now.

I guess he’s a coward just like my brother now.

I guess he’s a coward just like my brother now.

Fucking hell.

Is that what’s happening here? I’m running because I’m a fucking coward? Using her relationship with Jamison as a shield to protect myself?

By the time practice ends, my mood is pitch black.

I stomp down the hall to Emilia’s office, desperate for a little clarity. She has to provide it to me and pull me back from the brink because I’m losing it.

"Hey, Jordan." She stares at me from behind her desk like she’s shocked to see me. Shit, I guess she probably is. I’ve been dodging every request she’s made for me to talk to her.

Frankly, I wouldn’t be here right now, but…

I need to talk to someone. At least she’s not allowed to discuss anything I tell her. "Do you need something?"

"Yeah." I stomp inside her office, my hands in my pockets. I feel like I’m going to crawl out of my skin as I pace around, trying to figure out where to start. "I need you to psychoanalyze me or something."

"Okay…" she says carefully, doing a shit job hiding the fact that she’s shocked I’m here. "What's going on?"

"We're playing the Bucks.” Might as well start there, right? It’s as good a place as any.

"You're still dealing with the fallout of what happened between you and Peters," she guesses.

"Fuck him," I immediately snarl, pinning her with a sharp look. "He deserved what happened between us."

"Okay," she says, just…accepting my version of events. She doesn’t question me, doesn’t doubt me.

She just quietly accepts that I’m telling her the truth.

The same way the guys on this team do. I’m not even sure any of them know the real story.

I’ve never told them. I figure Archer knows because he knows every goddamn thing, but the rest of them?

They’ve never asked. They just accept that Jamison deserved it.

"He sent his fucking sister to try to talk me," I say. It’s basically the truth. She wouldn’t be here right now, asking for my help, if he hadn’t told her to ask me, would she?

I’m not sure that’s true. She lives here now.

She didn’t move here just for the hell of it.

"She ambushed me in the parking lot the other day, begging me to talk to him. "

"Ah." Emilia leans back in her chair. "And you don't want to talk to him?"

"He should have been banned from the game for life,” I mutter. "But she doesn't know that. He fed her some bullshit about it being a misunderstanding."

That’s not entirely true, but it’s close enough to get the point across. The details don’t really matter. I’ve kept them to myself for so long, I don’t want to share them now, not with Emilia.

She eyes me silently for a moment, assessing. "What's her name?"

"Sutton."

"You like her."

I whip my head around, pinning her with a hard glare, but she just smiles like she already has my number. And I don’t deny it.

I do like Sutton. Far more than is good for her.

"You're allowed to like her, Jordan. Just because you have issues with her brother doesn't mean you have to have issues with her."

"She's his sister," I point out.

"There's no rule that says you have to forgive him." Emilia shrugs. "That's up to you. But you don't have to punish her for whatever he did."

"She doesn't even know." I resume pacing. "How the fuck am I supposed to tell her what he did, Lariat?"

"Do you want to talk about what he did?"

"Hell no," I snap. "Not with you." People like her shouldn’t ever have to know what pricks like Jamison can do to people they claim to love.

"That bad, huh?"

"Yeah."

"Do you want to tell her?"

Do I? I shrug, not sure how to answer that question. Part of me—the pissed off, vindictive part—does want to tell her. I want to take her from him, blow his life apart at the seams. But the rest of me? No. For her sake, no.

"Then don't tell her. You can hate him and what he did, and still protect his relationship with her. That doesn't mean you're doing it for his sake, Jordan. If they're close, let it be for her sake."

That’s…not really helpful. Or hell, maybe it is. That’s been my plan all along, hasn’t it? To protect her for her sake. But…maybe I can do that without breaking her heart all over again. Jamison took her from me once. Who says I have to let him do it again?

Is there a world where she and I might have a future without me telling her the whole ugly truth? Without her having to choose between me and Jamison?

"Yeah," I finally mumble. "Yeah, maybe I can do that."

"Then problem solved."

I shoot Emilia an assessing look, impressed. "You don't suck at this."

"Surprised?"

I fight a smile, holding my thumb and forefinger an inch apart. "I had my doubts after the whole lizard dick, circle jerk fiasco, Lariat. But…you might actually make it around here."

"Might?" She arches a brow at me, her expression pert. "Don't flatter me too hard, Silvestri. I might begin to think you actually like me."

I grin, striding for the door. "Who me? I don't like anyone."