Page 46 of The Aster Valley Collection, Vol. 1

MIKEY

After having sex with Tiller on Tuesday night, I walked around like I’d won a damned beauty pageant. Even Sam noticed when he came over on Wednesday night for dinner. Wednesday nights were usually mediterranean salad night which he loved for some reason.

“Why do you look like you just scored a multimillion-dollar recording contract from a homemade YouTube video?” He threw his leather jacket over a nearby chair and reached for one of the apple slices I had cut up for Tiller. Tiller hadn’t come in from practice yet, but he was expected any minute.

“What? I’m not. No reason,” I stammered, turning to make a cup of coffee. If I busied myself with the coffee maker, maybe he wouldn’t see the blush steal across my face.

When he spoke, his voice was slow and precise. “I’m thinking… you had a man’s penis in your little virginal asshole.”

I blew out a breath like the air had been punched out of me. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” And that wasn’t a lie. He didn’t know jack shit about what Tiller and I had been up to. Over and over again.

I turned around to scowl at him. “How do you know I hadn’t had anal before?”

He lifted an eyebrow. “I didn’t. But the particular use of past perfect tense in your question reveals I was correct. Who has the lucky penis?”

This wasn’t happening. Tiller was going to walk in and catch Sam interrogating me about anal sex. My face was on fire. I changed my mind about the coffee and went to the refrigerator to stick my face inside.

“Please tell me it wasn’t Colin Saris,” he said. “Because I never told you this, but he cornered one of the team interns in the bathroom at the Halloween party and asked him for a blow job. The guy’s a pompous ass.”

I opened my mouth to respond, but he was still talking.

“The ball boy was cute, though,” Sam muttered. “Real enthusiastic.”

I turned and stared at him. “Are you fucking kidding me right now?”

His grin was rare, but when he flashed it, it made even my heart flitter wildly.

I always assumed it was because he was a pretty stoic person most of the time, but maybe he just had an award-winning smile.

“Yes, I’m kidding. Come on, Mikey. You know I would never take advantage of a situation like that. ”

I rolled my eyes and inserted myself back into the fridge. It was true, though. Sam was the most protective person I knew. Our friendship had started when he’d decided to become my own personal bodyguard at school when there wasn’t another Vining around to do it.

“Do you think this is a good idea, Mikey?” His voice was serious this time, as if he knew exactly what was going on. I realized right away, he obviously did.

“No,” I said peevishly, slamming the fridge closed after yanking out the banana pudding I’d only made an hour ago. “Of course it’s not a good idea.”

I grabbed a spoon from the drawer and dug it into the bowl, pulling out the cool yellow pudding and shoving it in my mouth.

Sam stared at me. “Is that my dessert?”

I shook my head. “No,” I said around another big bite.

He stood up and reached for the glass bowl. “It is! That’s the dessert you made for me tonight. Asshole. Give it here.”

I yanked it out of his reach and cradled it. “I need it. Man can’t live on salad alone.”

Sam’s eyes were still wide in surprise. “You’re eating your feelings.

You never eat your feelings. Something about the destructive psychological effects of conflating neural pathways blah blah blah, I don’t remember the psycho-nutritionist bullshit, but the bottom line is you don’t eat your feelings. Ever.”

I picked out a particularly squishy vanilla wafer and spooned it in my mouth. “It’s just really good pudding,” I mumbled pitifully.

“Which is why, if you don’t mind, I’d like to have some later. After I eat the required polite serving of mediterranean salad. The only fucking reason I eat that damned salad is because you make dessert on salad night.”

I gaped at him before I started laughing. “I thought you liked my homemade salad dressing.”

“I do. But not enough to cancel a date for. Now that pudding…? That’s enough to cancel a date for.”

I sighed and handed over the bowl. Instead of digging into it, Sam carefully snapped on the lid and returned it to the fridge for later.

“Tell me why the hell you finally slept with him after five fucking years?” he asked, returning to his seat at the island.

I glanced at the back hallway to make I didn’t hear anything from the direction of the garage door.

“Because he’s so damned beautiful and sweet and kind and fit and sexy and gorgeous and so fucking sweet.

And kind.” I stopped to inhale. “And… and I want him so badly. I can’t stop. I can’t stop wanting him. Help.”

Sam sighed. “Mike. I told you from the very beginning to go for it. He adores you. When you’re in the room, he can’t look anywhere else. It’s been that way for years.”

He’d said that before, but I’d always thought it was complete bullshit. And even if it wasn’t, I’d sworn off messing around with my dad’s players. Well, except for Colin because I didn’t much care if he ended up traded to Seattle and I’d been horny at the time.

“He’s my boss,” I said for the millionth time in five years.

Sam reached for another apple slice. “Do you want me to list the famous boss/assistant couples throughout history? Because I can’t. I don’t know any off the top of my head. But I’m sure there are many. And if you’re not okay with it, quit. You can make a living on your catering easy peasy.”

I heard the distant rumble of the garage door opening. Suddenly I found myself scrambling around, running in a circle because I couldn’t remember what I was doing. “Act casual,” I hissed, reaching for anything I could find to look purposeful.

Sam stared at me. “What are you doing?”

When Tiller walked in, I froze. He looked up from the mail he was carrying and smiled at Sam before turning to me and tilting his head in confusion. “Why are you holding salad tomatoes up to your ears?”

“Oh, ah… They’d make really good earrings, don’t you think?” I wiggled them around a little like they were the dangly kind.

Sam snorted and shoved the apple slice in his mouth, no doubt to keep from calling me out for shits and giggles.

“Never mind,” I muttered, tossing the tomatoes back onto the cutting board. “How was work?”

My heart still thundered unevenly in my chest. He was right there and so fucking pretty. Familiar in a way that made my heart squeeze.

Tiller grinned which made me want to climb him like a tree. Preferably naked.

“Fine. Mopellei’s wife is pregnant.”

I thought of the Canadian quarterback who I still held a stupid grudge against for getting Tiller hurt—yes, I knew it wasn’t his fault—and his friendly wife.

“That’s exciting,” I admitted. “Zauna always gets heart-eyes when she’s around the other players’ kids. She’ll be a great mom.”

I was excruciatingly aware of the physical distance between Tiller and me. My fingers itched to touch him, and I had to hold my body still to keep from swaying toward him.

Meanwhile, Tiller had no such awareness. He tossed the mail down on the counter, strode over to me, grabbed the back of my head in one giant paw, and kissed the ever-loving fuck out of me.

Right in front of Sam.

It took about one nanosecond for me to forget about Sam, salad tomatoes, where I was, my own name, and anything else not related to Tiller Raine’s tongue in my mouth. When he pulled away, I was pretty sure I was a puddle of goo on the floor.

“Alrighty then,” Sam said in a voice laced with dry humor. “That happened.”

“Um…” I tried getting the goo back together and reassembling some form of human brain with it. “Um.”

Tiller smiled affectionately and leaned back in to kiss me next to my ear. He whispered, “I’ve been waiting all day to put my hands on you. I couldn’t wait a second longer.”

I blinked up at him like he was Elvis Presley found alive and well and sitting on forty some-odd years of new music. At least that’s what I assumed I looked like. Surprised stupid and pretty fucking happy.

“Do you want me to pretend to go in the other room?” Sam asked. “Because I can do that.”

Tiller laughed and let me go. “No. Sorry. It’s fine. How’d it go on the Kelsey job? Did you find a new carpenter?”

As they started talking about Sam’s current construction project, I wandered around in a lovestruck daze, cutting veggies and preparing the big salad.

I daydreamed about what it would be like to live this life for real.

To have my good friend and my… Tiller here with me all the time.

I mean… I already had them, but it was different if Tiller and I were a thing.

Which we weren’t.

But this was a daydream, and good shit was allowed to happen in Vegas. I went along on my merry way, tossing in red onion slices, fresh mozzarella, and marinated olives until the huge bowl was full. I moved on to making the dressing in the blender as their conversation moved to football.

“They going to put you in?” Sam asked.

I felt Tiller’s eyes on me. “Yeah.”

“You okay with it?”

“Depending on what the specialist says, I guess so. Coach was pretty insistent that the team needs me.”

And Tiller would never dream of letting the team down.

My back teeth ground together, but I kept my mouth shut. Not only was it not my place to interfere with his career, but he also hadn’t asked me. I’d known this was coming, and I was doing my best to be okay with it.

I was for damned sure not okay with it.

Sam glanced up at me. “We going to the game?”

I swallowed thickly and looked back down at the blender controls as if they contained the secret to world peace, eternal life, and flawless laser hair removal. “Ah, no. Actually, I booked a flight back to Aster Valley.”

The silence in the room was so thick, I thought it might strangle me. And, quite frankly, I deserved it.

Because I hadn’t actually booked shit. I’d made it up on the spur of the moment when I thought about sitting in that stadium box watching Tiller get smashed to bits by another linebacker.

I may not have been the world’s biggest football fan, but I knew the Steelers’ secondary well enough to know they ate cement blocks for breakfast just like the guys on their defensive line.

And one more hit like the one he got against the Raiders and he could kiss his hotshot career goodbye forever.

Because of my dad and his incessant need to win.

“Really?” Tiller asked. I couldn’t quite figure out his mood from his tone, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to look at him. I’d probably break. I’d blubber out an apology and promise to come to every football game played on earth for as long as I lived.

“Mm-hm.” I busied myself adding more fresh parsley through the little hole in the top of the blender lid.

“Are you going to talk to the Civettis about the lodge?”

It hadn’t even occurred to me, but now that he mentioned it… that would be a good excuse for my trip. I shrugged. It wasn’t a lie if I actually did it.

“Wow. That’s… No one would do it better than you would, Mikey.”

I couldn’t read his eyes. “I mean, it’s all up in the air…” As in, I’d just invented it. “Who knows if or when it would even happen?”

He cleared his throat and nodded. “They’d be fools to turn you down. Have they made an offer on the property yet?”

Every question made my guilt flag flap more briskly in the lying-liar wind.

“I’m, ah, not sure?” I glanced over to see Sam’s knowing gaze piercing me. I shot him a look that warned retribution if he narc’d on me. “Anyway,” I said, looking everywhere but at him, “let’s eat.”

After dinner, Sam and Tiller went into the movie room to watch SportsCenter before our scheduled movie night. I snuck off to my room to do some quick emailing to see if I could arrange a time to talk to the Civettis.

I had mixed feelings about it. When the Civettis had originally floated the idea, I’d assumed it was too good to be true.

Then, when Pim had confirmed the Civettis’ conversation in the diner, I’d realized maybe there was something to it.

But the truth was… I hadn’t wanted to truly consider a life away from Tiller. I still didn’t.

My hands shook as I typed my request for a meeting.

Even if the Civettis didn’t have any serious interest in me, it was a good excuse to go to Aster Valley and avoid the game.

I wasn’t Tiller’s boyfriend. Not really.

And if I went to that game, in front of my family no less, I’d be an obvious nervous wreck.

There’d be no way my mom and brothers wouldn’t notice.

My mom probably wouldn’t care. She adored Tiller.

But my brothers? They’d notice and care very much. More than that, they’d tell Dad.

And Tiller would be shipped out, especially if his hand didn’t fully recover and his stats started to suffer from his injury.

Being traded while down with an injury would be a huge step down in his career.

Speculation would run rampant about the exact nature of his hand and the possibility he’d never be the Super Bowl–winning, Heisman-winning man he’d been before the bad hit.

I couldn’t let that happen.

My stomach wobbled with nerves. I wondered what would happen if I made a plea to my dad, if I told him this time was different.

Unlike with Nelson, I had real feelings for Tiller.

Surely my father would understand that? But what if my floating the idea was enough to make him take action against Tiller?

Even if he didn’t trade him, he could treat him like shit on the field.

My father was a professional. Wasn’t he? Maybe not. I remembered every clip from a game where my dad had lost his cool and gone apeshit on the sidelines. Hell, there was probably a video montage on YouTube of all those stellar moments spliced together.

My father was not a professional. He was an emotional child fairly often, especially if the stakes were high.

And right now, the stakes were high. The Riggers were on the cusp of losing their playoff spot and not even getting the chance to defend their Super Bowl title.

I knew the pressure was intense on the team and its coaches.

But I was his son. That had to count for something, right?

In the end, it didn’t even matter. Because he found out in the stupidest, most unexpected way.