Page 13 of Trick Play (Playing the Field #4)

CHAPTER

TWELVE

Zeke

Now

“I feel like he has something on his mind.”

“Hmph.”

“Something is definitely bothering him.”

“Mm.”

“We could probably tell him we’re getting married and adopting three kids, and he wouldn’t even react.”

“. . . Hm.”

“Ugh, fine. Two.”

“Hmph.”

“I love you, too, Rix. Now, duck .”

Something soft but weighted slams into my chest, a small zipper nicking my chin. It’s enough to have me blinking from my stupor.

Tahegin stares at me with wide, inquiring eyes while Hendrix slowly sits upright again. They’re sharing my couch like they’re both trying to fit on a singular door floating in the ocean, and I’ve placed myself on the oversized lone seater to get away from their happy couple gooeyness. We aren’t leaving for Long Beach for another hour yet, but these two appeared on my doorstep at the ass crack of dawn for who knows why.

My best friend, Tahegin, has always been a morning person. He’s the happiest, most easygoing guy I know and a hell of a football player. Combine that with his charming good looks, dark skin, and gorgeous blue eyes, it’s no wonder he’s a fan favorite.

His boyfriend, on the other hand . . .

Hendrix is great on the field, too, but you’d have no idea he actually enjoys the sport because he is always frowning. Seriously. The team nicknamed him Sour because he’s one grumpy motherfucker. Like his attitude, his clothing is all grey and depress-y as well. Even his eyes are grey, his hair a dull blond, like any color that touches him just gets sapped out.

Yeah. I don’t understand how their relationship works, either, but hey. Love is love. I’m just glad my best friend is happy and Hendrix is . . . also happy. I think.

“Don’t look at me in that tone of ‘hmph,’” Tahegin tells Hendrix before throwing another pillow, this time at his boyfriend.

Rix knocks the pillow away with a huff, but I swear his mouth twitches upward at the corner just a bit.

Aw, true love.

That thought has my one-track mind returning to Micah. I haven’t seen him since we ran into each other in the mall last week, and while he looked stunning in a pair of short white shorts with a cute floral button-up half tucked into the waistband—and, God, his freshly dyed hair in some shade of light bluish-purple—I couldn’t look away from the man beside him.

Frankie.

The dancer I recognized in the club.

I’ve met Frankie on several occasions, even before Micah and I tried out the boyfriend thing, when the pair had joined my teammates and me at a local nightclub. The two petite men bring out the most fun parts of each other. When we’d go to Gemini as a group, I always preferred to sit with a feel-good drink and watch Micah make rounds on the dance floor. He and Frankie liked to double up and dance together, and I’d sit back and observe all the guys staring at Micah with blatant desire. Something about seeing him teasing other guys when we both knew who would be taking him home really did it for me. I liked seeing the look on every guy’s face when Micah came and sat on my lap, letting me place a possessive hand on his waist and a claiming kiss on his lips.

Honestly, Frankie and I haven’t talked much. I think I did a body shot off him one time, but drinking and dancing has been the extent of our interactions. I’ll attribute my slow recognition of him at Mischief on that fact—and also because I hadn’t expected to see him there. I’d almost convinced myself the dancer was a Frankie look-alike until I ran into him with Micah at the mall.

Which, by the way, I’m ninety percent sure Tahegin and Hendrix planned. Well, Tahegin was most likely the mastermind behind the attempted meet-cute and Hendrix an unaware, unwilling accomplice.

“We’re getting married on the boat, and we’re sneaking a surrogate on board in Cabo. Then we’re—Rix, I swear to God! Do you have something to say, or are you just going to look at me like a day-old slice of pizza you aren’t sure if you’re going to throw away or eat?”

“I could be asleep right now” is all Hendrix says in response.

Tahegin huffs and gestures emphatically at me. “Kiss needs us!”

“He probably needs sleep,” Rix deadpans. “Like me.”

“Aleks, tell him something is bothering you,” Gin implores me like he desperately needs to prove he’s right.

“Yeah,” I sigh. “Something is bothering me.”

He shoots a triumphant look at Hendrix, who rolls his eyes—playfully, I think.

“But this isn’t something I can share with you guys,” I continue, wiping the winning smirk off Gin’s lips. He frowns, so I add, “It’s not my secret to tell—hell, I don’t even know if it is a secret. It’s just . . . I don’t know. Something I have to get over, I guess.”

For the first time since bursting into my home at an ungodly hour, my best friend actually turns serious, all humor draining from his usual happy-go-lucky persona. His brows pinch, his lips pursing thoughtfully. “You can tell me anything, you know that, right?”

“I know. But like I said, this has nothing to do with me. It’s something I accidentally found out about someone else. It’s not dangerous for them, I don’t think, and I wouldn’t think they’d be in trouble . . . but maybe they’re out of other options? I don’t know. I’m still trying to decide if I even need to tell them that I know. It’s—it’s complicated.” After my cryptic spiel, Tahegin looks utterly bewildered, but it’s Hendrix who draws my eye. He’s peering at me from his place on the couch, head tipped against the back cushion as if to catch a nap before we leave, and the look in his grey eyes is different than usual. More calculative.

Hendrix is Micah’s best friend, and Micah is friends with Frankie. Maybe Micah knows about Frankie and told Hendrix? No, how would Hendrix know who I’m talking about right now? I haven’t said any names or mentioned the strip club.

I’m being paranoid. There’s no way he knows what I’m talking about.

“Okay, I won’t push,” Tahegin relents. “ But you have to promise to leave your worries on the dock when we get to the boat. Leave it here and pick it up when we get back, but we’re having fun on this cruise, even if I have to make you have fun. Do you hear me, Ezekiel Lee Aleks?”

“All right. Deal.”

? ? ?

Turns out, the whole Frankie thing is the least of my issues aboard the giant cruise ship. Like, seriously. I leave that shit at the check-in counter when Micah and I notice the first problem. We react at the same time.

“Gin, what the fuck?—”

“Rix, this says it?—”

“—is a couples cruise?”

“—is a couples cruise!”

Tahegin shoots us a sheepish grin. “Oh, didn’t we tell you guys?”

Beside me, Micah gives his best friend a menacing glare before poking Hendrix’s firm chest with one pointy, sparkly, indigo-colored fingernail. “I’m not angry at you because Tahegin was the one to officially invite me on this cruise, but this is your one warning. If you had anything to do with this, I will stick my finger through every piece of fruit and vegetable in your fridge, and you will be forced to buy all new groceries. Do you understand me, Hendrix Rosetta Avery?”

“That’s not my middle name,” he scowls from beneath his sunglasses and plucks Micah’s finger from his chest. “And I didn’t know this was a couples thing either. I thought I’d get to stay in the room all day and relax or work out in the gym. With this activity list”—he holds up the brochure Tahegin made at home—“that doesn’t seem likely.”

“It’s going to be so fun!” Tahegin exclaims with more energy than should be legal. “I booked this when I thought you two were dating last year, but you guys never officially said you were. I didn’t want to pressure y’all, so I didn’t mention the couples part of the cruise. You don’t mind, do you? I mean, y’all get along great, even if you aren’t dating. I think you’ll still have fun. There’s so much to do, and we can do most of it as a group.”

We reach the check-in desk and hand over our documents. The conversation is tabled for later when we aren’t surrounded by people who are, if the glances and whispers are any indication, clearly beginning to notice the three professional football players standing in their midst.

I follow Micah down the enclosed tunnel leading onto the ship, and try as I might, I can’t help but take the opportunity to look him up and down. He’d arrived separate from us, only catching up a few minutes before we reached the line to enter the boat. Today, he’s wearing a light blue jumpsuit that complements his tan skin, indigo nails, and violet hair. The sleeves are short on his biceps, the waist cinched, and he’s only zipped it to mid-chest, exposing a smooth expanse of skin. A cute, sensible pair of sandals adorn his feet and show off his matching painted toenails.

God, his waist is so perfectly narrow. I know from plenty of experience that my thumbs can trace his raised hip bones at the same time my fingers can splay across the entirety of his lower back, dipping into the divot of his spine.

And his ass . . .

Fuck, this cruise is going to be the death of me. Here we are—the ex-boyfriend I’m still hopelessly in love with and me—about to share a room for six days while double not-dating with our best friends and doing couple-themed activities the entire time.

Great.

As if it can’t get any worse, the mandatory safety meeting is held on the side of the ship by the life rafts and in clear view of the terrifyingly long drop to the ocean. Since Tahegin and Hendrix showed up at my house so early today, I didn’t get to properly enact my pre-height ritual of drinking until I no longer care. Thankfully, Micah notices my face—and the most likely green color on it—and switches us so I’m closest to the ship wall instead of the railing. Even so, my knees are still quivering by the time we make it inside.

Tahegin chats with—more like at —the three of us as we head down a long corridor for our neighboring rooms. He and Hendrix reach theirs, and Gin tries to make plans for all of us to meet up later. I’m still feeling nauseous from seeing the empty space between us and the abyss outside, and Micah is deep in thought. It’s Hendrix who saves us by announcing he will be sleeping until tomorrow. When Tahegin tries to complain, Rix grumbles something about keeping his running mouth busy if he doesn’t stop, which isn’t necessarily a threat if you think about it, but Rix gets the point across. They, all too eagerly, disappear into their room.

With it just the two of us, Micah’s steps slow as we approach our door. I follow his lead, knowing him well enough by now to tell when he has something he wants to say. The constant picking at his nails and dragging his heels are a dead giveaway. I also know he can never hold his tongue for long.

“I think we should sleep in separate beds,” he eventually blurts.

I pause with my hand extended toward the door, brows furrowing. “Are there going to be two beds in our room?” I wonder.

Micah’s nose crinkles adorably as he frowns. “I don’t know.”

“Guess we’ll have to see.” Waving the room key over the reader, I make to finally open the door, but Micah quickly grabs the handle and spins to face me.

He puts his free hand on my chest and applies enough pressure to keep me from moving forward. “Wait! I, um—” He nibbles on one gloss-coated lip. “Can I just go in first? I’ll only be a minute.”

I blink at the odd request, taking a step back when his sweet strawberry scent invades my nose and sends my primal brain spiraling in the one direction it doesn’t need to go. “All right. I’ll wait out here, then.”

He slips inside the room without opening the door wider than his width. It shuts behind him with an ominous thud that echoes through the abandoned hallway, and I can’t help but wonder if it’s an omen—a sign that the rest of this cruise will be nothing but loneliness and closed doors.

Knowing Micah, he’s going to try and insist we don’t hook up during this trip. He’s been trying hard to keep the line between friends, benefits, and something more completely unblurred, and while I, of course, respect it, I think we’re both mature enough to be friendly, fuck, and have fun. If he tells me he doesn’t want to hook up, I’ll listen. But if he tells me it isn’t a “good idea” for us to hook up? Well, maybe he can be persuaded otherwise.

“Okay,” Micah huffs breathlessly as he yanks the door open, smiling, wisps of indigo hair whipping around his head from where it’s fallen from his bun. “You can come in now.”

“Thanks?” I ask with a teasing lilt, but when I get a look at the room, all the humor dissipates. In its place, disbelief. “You . . . you did this?”

He shuffles nervously as I enter, taking it all in. The opulence, of course. Tahegin hasn’t spared an expense, and I’ll definitely be charging everything I can to his card on file for the room. “I know the windows bother you . . .” Micah murmurs as he closes the door behind us.

I stare at the large living area, complete with a couch, coffee table, TV, and a fucking grand piano—because that’s exactly what we need on a cruise ship—and then the wall behind all that. Surely, no other room on this ship looks quite like ours because Micah must have stripped the bed of all the sheets in order to cover the bottom half of the floor-to-ceiling windows, effectively hiding the distance to the water below but not the beautiful horizon far in the distance.

“I called and asked for more sheets, enough to split between the bed and the couch,” he tells me, still pick-pick-picking his nails. “I can take the couch so you don’t have to see the windows any more than just walking past—oh!” he gasps as I sweep him into a giant hug.

“Thank you,” I whisper, tucking his head to my chest and letting him fall naturally into my arms. He’s the only person I’ve entrusted my secret fear of heights to. The fact he’s gone so far out of his way today to make me comfortable . . .

Damn it. Why won’t he just let me love him?

“Thank you for doing this for me, bunny. You have no idea what this means to me.” My words are muffled in his strawberry-scented hair, but he hears me all the same, wrapping his arms around my neck to hug me back.

I hadn’t considered there might be windows in the room that could reveal the death drop right outside. If he hadn’t stopped me, I’d have walked in completely unawares and probably had a heart attack. Or vomited. Or both.

“Of course, Zeke. I never want you to be uncomfortable, especially not if I can do something to help.”

The nickname he gave me makes my heart sing, and I tell it to shut the fuck up right now. This isn’t a goddamn princess movie.

“You take the bed,” I insist. “You deserve it after doing all this for me.”

“Or we can take turns,” he counters.

“Or—” I lower my voice to a suggestive purr and slide my hands down to his hips. “—we can share the bed.”