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Thanks, Dad.
He was definitely in here, and even though Kurt and I had wrapped up, he still entertained all the probing questions I had about the Times and his own work. He let his assistant outside the room know we were done, but he still stayed to chat with me. I really appreciated it as I was excited to hear about the Times and my dad’s old stomping grounds. This was certainly the dream for me, and it was seeming closer and closer to being fulfilled. Kurt was actually telling me about some work he’d done in Australia recently when the door opened and his assistant came inside the room.
“He said he’s all wrapped up if you want to head in,” she said, followed by someone who had to dip their head to enter the room. The conference room had a wide door, a long door, but even still, the guy with curly dark hair had to lower his head to make his way inside.
He took up most of the width too, shoulder to shoulder nearly touching wood, and I just about dropped my portfolio.
But that had nothing to do with his size.
Those eyes, dark and dusky like a buck’s fur, I’d captured behind the lens of my camera once. They’d been rage-filled and extremely violent, and his fist was covered in blood in the end.
He’d been beating a man near to death.
That had been what the byline said. Though, I had nothing to do with that. I couldn’t do anything about what the papers said once they got one of my photos. I was just there to tell a story visually, and that was what the reporters had said about him. This guy. This…
“Ares,” Kurt exclaimed, calling him by a different name. He waltzed over to the guy, shaking his hand and his basically disappeared in this guy’s. Lengthy digits completely covered Kurt’s, but it wasn’t the guy’s hands that captured my attention.
Well, much.
He had a strong jaw, a tight jaw that was well defined. His thick curls waved just below it, and he had a gold hoop looped around his left nostril. He had two actually, close together and pressed tight to his flesh. I rocked a silver one myself but mine looked more like a piece of metal in my nose where his was an accessory. It caused him to look even edgier in the all-black ensemble he wore. A black hoodie hugged his broad shoulders, his dark jeans low on his hips. He rocked solid-black high-tops below them, expensive-looking like the rest of him, and that said something considering he was wearingjeans and a hoodie.
And he was looking at me, his eyes on me while he shook Kurt’s hand, and my entire body sweated, pits and under-boobs first. The double-Ds were definitely catching perspiration, and I had good reason. I’d captured photos of this guy who’d taken a fan toward the brink of death, and though that should have been the worst part, it wasn’t. The worst was what had come after, and something I’d definitely noticed since I had provided the photos for all those news stories about this guy my sophomore year. He’d been one of the best players in the state at the time.
And I had cost him his junior season.
* * *
CHAPTERTWO
Ares
Well, that was the reaction I was hoping for.
Yeah, I remember you, Red.
I shook Kurt Ackerman’s hand, a family friend. Meanwhile, Red stood behind him, shell-shocked in a poorly fitted suit, her hair up and out of her face.
Her face flushed…
Blasted in color, her freckled cheeks matched her hair. I obviously remembered that well, the red, and she was different from that girl on the field. The suit was way too big for her, hiding her. This girl had curves, and she hadn’t been afraid to show them in the pair of cutoff shorts and crop top she’d worn that day.
Trying to impress today, Red?
I supposed she was. She did have this interview with Kurt today. Kurt’s assistant had explained all about it before I came in.
Smirking, I let go of Kurt’s hand, the man all grins before me. He cuffed my arm. “Good to see you, my man.”
“Good to see you,” I returned, though it was better to see Red. She still hadn’t said anything, her hands working together. She shifted in a pair of heels and a flash of a tattoo on the front of her foot captured my attention. That and the fact that she’d taken the nose ring she had out, her attempt at an obvious professionalism. She was trying to stack the deck here with old Kurt and attempting to play off who she really was.
And what she was capable of.
Red, Red, Red…
This girl was as cutthroat as she was ruthless, and when Kurt let go of my arm, he gestured to her. “Ms. Greenfield and I were just finishing up,” he said, and though Red jolted, she came over.
I fought my smirk again, pulling my hands out of my hoodie. I could imagine she hadn’t expected to see me today, and that had been the point.
Let the games begin, Red.
