Page 14 of The Playmaker (The Legends of Fire #1)

JAX

I hated seeing Avery almost choke up as she walked away on the plane yesterday.

Damn it—life is messy. And I hate messy.

Hawk heard through the grapevine that someone started a rumor that I slept with Avery.

No idea who, but that meant Coach was up in my business every day and night of that trip after we left LA, just waiting for me to mess up.

I plop down on a bench in the Phantoms' training gym, unlocking the barbell and doing chest presses as if my life depends on it.

I need to burn off steam. I hate feeling babysat.

And that's how I feel. Coach means well, and he's been like a father to me since I joined the NFL, but I'm not a kid.

And Avery isn't staff. She's a visiting journalist who is writing an inside look at the Phantoms as well as a web series.

But when I told Coach that the rumor was false, he looked at me like he knew I was lying. Then when I immediately told him Avery was not employed by us, he definitely knew I was lying about having slept with her.

"Let me spot you," Hawk says, suddenly looming over me. "You're lifting heavier today. Is that wise?"

I ignore him, continuing to lift until my arms and pecs are shaking. He grips the barbell .

"Okay, Tarzan, you've done enough for today with the bench presses. Let's jog on the treadmills."

I shake my head. "I will when I'm done. I want to use the bag first."

Hawk wipes sweat off his face with the towel that's draped around his thick, muscled neck. "After bench press? Man. Your chest is gonna be on fire."

I shrug. "We've got four days off."

He holds his hands up. "Okay. It's your funeral."

He runs me through a few cycles of the punching bag, randomly calling out punch and kick sequences to test how fast I respond and how accurately I recall them.

I feel the delicious burn of my muscles and my lungs full of oxygen.

The physical pain is a welcome distraction from the mental chaos.

With each punch, I try to knock away the image of Avery's hurt expression, the cold distance between us on the plane.

"Alright. Your turn," I pant as I step away.

"Uh-uh. I'm done. Been done for an hour."

Only then do I look around. None of the other players are there. Everyone's left for… home. For their wife. Their girlfriend. Someone other than a nanny and their kid sister. For the first time in forever I feel lonely. Avery did this to me. Without even trying.

I rake a hand down my face. "God, this is so frustrating."

"Do I even want to know?" Hawk asks.

I shake my head.

"Right," he says with a skeptical look. "That reporter. Dude! You've got to let it go. You can't keep pining over someone who could wreck your whole secret with one line of text from her keyboard!"

"I know, okay? I know." I groan as we pick up our things and walk to the door. "She isn't so desperate for a story that she'd throw me under the bus like that, I don't think."

Hawk scoffs. "You don't 'think'? You're willing to risk Riley's privacy over a 'think' instead of a 'know'? "

His words hit like a blindside tackle. He's right.

I've spent years protecting Riley, building this entire persona to keep her out of the spotlight.

And now I'm risking it all because I can't stop thinking about a woman who literally makes her living exposing athletes' secrets. What the hell is wrong with me?

"Riley has social media now," I say without preamble.

Hawk looks impressed. "Wow. The overly protective brother has a heart, after all. I bet the kid is psyched."

I raise my eyebrows. "Yeah. She has our mother's last name so…it would be unlikely anyone would put two and two together."

"That's a big step," Hawk acknowledges.

"It's a hell of a lot. Sometimes, I wonder if…maybe I should just call it quits, throw in the towel, you know? If I weren't in the NFL, none of this with Riles would be an issue. She could just be a normal teen."

He grows serious. "Is that what you want? Is that what she wants? It seems like you're going from one extreme to the other." He clasps a hand to my shoulder. "You know I'll support you, whatever you decide. It's your life. Your future."

I nod my thanks. Hawk's one of the few people who knows the whole story, who understands what I've sacrificed to keep Riley safe and give her something close to a normal life. The weight of that responsibility has shaped every decision I've made since my parents died.

"It's just. I wonder where it'll stop, you know? There's even bigger stressors with her—she wants to go to ballet school in London." I shake my head. "My kid sister, sixteen going on thirty. Wanting to travel and…"

"Live," Hawk finishes. "She just wants her chance to live her life. You've got to give it to Riley one day, you know."

I nod. "Yeah. And that terrifies me."

"One step at a time." He claps me on the shoulder as we turn from the water machine to the door.

I stop in my tracks. Two dancers stand there, tittering softly and sticking out their chests. I don't usually stay this late and it looks like they're just arriving for their training or practice—but even I know they aren't allowed in the players' side of the underground part of the stadium.

Giselle pouts at me.

"Aren't you going to ask me in, Jaxsy?" She gives me a calculating look.

I almost gag. "No."

"Ahhh, come on, sexy man. I know you've been avoiding me." She and her friend are blocking the door. "You weren't even at the club the other night with the rest of the team."

A year ago, I might have played along. Might have flirted back, kept up the image that's served me so well.

But now the act feels hollow, exhausting.

All I can think about is Avery's expression when she talked about athletes being unfaithful, the hurt in her eyes that went deeper than professional disapproval.

Hawk pushes his way through the girls.

"Please move." I stare Giselle down, my heart tied up in Avery and my mind still annoyed at Coach babysitting me. "I wasn't there because I didn't want to be there. Also, you can't be here."

I gesture toward her and then back to me. "We, have nothing to talk about." With that gesture my towel falls to the ground. I bend to pick it up and when I do she's angled her chest to be all but in my face.

"Okay. No. I'm leaving." I make eye contact with Hawk in the hallway.

He unhelpfully calls out, "Should I man the hallway while you work out some of your angst, man?"

I bulldoze out to join him and once we are in the locker room, I don't even shower. Those two girls are ballsy doing what they did. I don't want to be caught in the shower and have one of them waltz in on me .

"That," I point back at the hallway. "Wasn't cool. You're supposed to have my back."

He has the decency to look sorry. "I got caught up in giving you a hard time."

I lower my voice. "You think they heard?"

He knits his brows. "About your kid sister? Nah. They're too into themselves for that."

"Let's hope so." I fist bump him and we walk out together to our cars.

I check my texts and see one from Riley asking me to take her to a ballet class, a few from Coach about my form, one from my masseuse, and then…one from Avery. Well, a formal email, actually, not a cozy little "how are ya" type of text.

I take the time to read it while my car idles outside the stadium in the players' parking garage, the engine's purr a counterpoint to my racing heart.

Jaxon,

Thank you for an enlightening trip to California. I learned so much about you and the team. In fact, my magazine manager and editor were both so pleased with the information I gleaned from everyone and the wonderful b-roll I took that my script for the pilot episode has been approved.

As such, I will now be focusing in refining it. I'll be back to shadow you and the Phantoms in a couple of weeks when you play your biggest rival team. In the meantime, one of our junior reporters will be in the press room covering your games.

Best of luck,

Avery

A pang of something very close to sadness hits my heart. A few weeks? I'm sure she's just being assigned to do something different; she didn't ask to stop shadowing me. Did she? Uncertainty floods me like icy water.

I feel a sense of loss that I can't explain—or maybe I can, but don't want to admit.

She's gotten under my skin in a way no woman has before.

Not because she's beautiful, though she is.

Not because she's smart, though that's part of it.

But because when I'm with her, I feel like I can be myself—both parts of me, the star receiver and the guardian brother—without having to choose.

I guess I deserve this. I was ice cold to her…but that was because Coach had a magnifying glass on me! I whack the steering wheel. I just assumed I'd see Avery around and would be able to explain. I guess not.

Now, I have to wait two weeks and who knows how far and fast she'd have moved on by then. I'm starting to think I can't walk this line anymore. And I guess, neither can she.

I start the drive home, my mind torn between the sister who needs me and the woman I can't stop thinking about. For the first time, I wonder if there's a way to have both—to protect Riley while also letting someone else into our carefully guarded world.