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“And if I wasn’t?” She gives me a devious grin that lets me know she’s just playing along.
“I’m going to have to punch him before we leave tomorrow. Going to make the apology and new friendship pact a little harder when he has a black eye, but he’ll understand I’m sure—if I’d done the same with Harper. He did say I wouldn’t be walking if it was up to him.”
She rolls her eyes. “No one is punching anyone.”
“Because he didn’t touch you?”
“He let me cry on his shoulder a bit about things before Tobias took me home the next day. It’s not like I told him all the details. But Xander and all his chivalry? He would have never touched his friend’s girl. Even if she was ill-gotten gains.” She smirks at me, and I ghost my hands up her sides.
“Listen… I just did what I had to win you.”
“Like seduce me in my bedroom with my brother sleeping in the next room?”
“I maintain you seduced me. I tried to stay away. Literally laid there at night counting sheep and thinking unsexy thoughts, but then you were asking me questions about how to get guys off and walking around in that thin white T-shirt with no bra. What was I supposed to do?”
“Exercise self-control?”
“I tried.”
“Like you tried when you edged A.J. out of his spot here?”
“Fuck…” I groan. “You’re going to make us go over that again?”
“This is the first time I’m hearing about it. That it wasn’t a coincidence.”
“It was in a way. My uncle ending up as coach was just a fluke. Or fate. He was available and had a good season last year, you know this.”
“But you ending up on the team?”
“A.J. can’t run the kind of offense he wants to run with the Chaos. He plays your dad’s sort of ball. Meanwhile, he raised me. Spent all those nights and weekends in my teen years coaching me how to play. I can run a lot of his plays with my eyes closed. So yeah… he wanted me there. Call it nepotism if you want. I guess it is in a way. I’m sure I’ll be hearing that in the locker room for a while.”
“But you didn’t want to play for him?”
“I did and I didn’t. It’s complicated. I love him, but he’s harder on me than he would be on any other player because he taught me. Because he expects more out of me. It means I don’t get to have down days or off days. His sons don’t play. So I’m his legacy in the same way your brothers are your dad’s.”
“I see.”
“This isn’t getting us in the shower with all that perfect water pressure.” I press my lips to the side of her neck, but I feel her brace her hand against my chest even as she melts into me.
“Don’t distract me, Undergrove. You said I was bait.”
I grumble, kissing her one last time under her ear before I pull away.
“Like I said, he saw you on the staff and used it to his advantage.”
“How did that happen?”
“He called me up and said, ‘How’d you like your PR person to be a Westfield?’ I asked him what the fuck he was talkingabout. He said they’d just hired you on contract, and he thought he could make it work to my advantage.”
“So he thought I’d just fall in line?”
“No. He said he thought if anyone could make me fit in at Cincinnati, it’d be you. That I’d have to win you over but you’d be the key to your brother and to the city. That I’d probably get my ass kicked repeatedly first.” I laugh at how true that turned out to be. She put me through the fucking wringer.
“I thought he was trying to get rid of Easton.”
“He would if he thought it would help. He’d get rid of me if he thought it would help. He’s ruthless with those kinds of decisions. No emotion. No special treatment. Just business for business’s sake. But I don’t think he wants Easton gone. He just wants to remind him that he’s the coach, and East has to play ball his way.”
“So you had to win me over to make your job work?”
