AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He gives me the side-eye. “That’s not the truth.”
“We got into an argument at the game. I took things a step too far, in his opinion. I called him a player.” We’ve only spoken a few times, so he hasn’t done anything to me.
He laughs. “I’ve been called worse.”
“I’m sure you have, big guy.”
He turns the television to Sportscenter, I’m assuming to see what the national analysts are saying about him and the Stallions.
“Logan, why don’t you settle down?”
He pats my leg. “Because no one has ever given me that feeling. The one where your stomach is all tied up in knots. Well, I take that back, Natalie Ostensky. She took my breath away in fifth grade. After three weeks of hanging out on the swings at recess, I got bored and went back to playing football.”
I laugh because it would be tough to outrank football in Logan Warren’s eyes.
Logan holds the last piece of pizza above his head and makes an airplane noise as he stuffs it in his mouth. “Why do you think Hagan’s a player?”
“I have it, on excellent authority, a list of girls he’s been with. Plus, he’s just all charming and knows the right thing to say and do.”
He half-chokes on his slice. “Huh, I never knew pinning a girl against a fridge was considered charming,” he says while doing air quotes with his fingers.
Touché.
ChapterTen
Hagan
Adalee should listento the old saying “to assume is to make an ass out of you and me.” She assumes to know who I am. I don’t flaunt that my dad owns a major league baseball team. Other than my roommates, my teammates are the only ones that I’ve told.
Most guys figure it out and recognize my name because of baseball. All of us have been memorizing baseball cards and stats since we were six or seven years old. We eat, sleep, and breathe baseball on repeat. The Kodiaks won the championship two years in a row so my dad, George Chatham, is well known.
But I don’t brag about it, and it doesn’t mean I don’t work hard. Every day, I spend time watching games of opposing pitchers we’ll face this season. This is in addition to the weight room, training sessions, position practice, and team practices. Fall camp isn’t as hard as it is during the season, but it’s still busy.
My brother, Archer, drilled it into my head that you become the best by studying the best. You beat your opponents by learning more about them than they learn about you. I can assure Adalee; she hasn’t studied me and yet assumes she understands me.
Until I went to college, I dated, but nothing serious. Then Julia came along. The men in my family never prepared me for her. She grew on me until I didn’t know where I ended and she began. But it all came to a screeching halt when she cheated on me. I didn’t say it was over—hell, I was willing to work on our relationship. Now I see how unhealthy I was when we were a couple.
Julia was the one to cut me in half, when she said, “I’m not happy with you, anymore.” Fuck, it still hurts.
The few times I’d been around Adalee, I thought she was different. She always smiles when she was speaks to everyone but me. She never shamelessly flirts with anyone. I also noticed she never drinks. So, on Thursday when Joe asked if I wanted to go to the football game with him, Ginger and possibly Adalee, I said yes, almost too fast. He can feel the underlying current between Adalee and me.
So now, I’m walking around on a Saturday night trying to shake off the aftershocks of Hurricane Adalee. It’s the same type of feelings that I had with Julia, only different. With Julia it grew slowly.
My stomach churns thinking about Adalee and the memory of my fingers sampling the skin of her neck and the taste of her delicate wrists on my lips. That’s what is different about her—she hit me like a line drive in the chest. I’m in deep without the first kiss being exchanged, much less a relationship. Sometimes I tell myself over and over again to quit thinking about her.
When I backed her up against the cold stainless steel, the heat radiating from her skin urged me on. Our breaths were short and shallow. But her eyes, God, those eyes were globes of desire. She wants me, even if she doesn’t like me. If I could figure out why she hates me so much, I could explain.
If Logan didn’t walk in, our lips would have met, and our tongues would have danced. My fingers would have skimmed the skin on the small of her back while pulling her tightly into my body. It would have been a moment she couldn’t forget.
When I look up, I’m at the baseball house. I told Erika I would meet her here because I need to lick my wounds. Erika isn’t who I want or the type of girl I want but I agreed to meeting her anyway. I decide it isn’t right to make her think there’s chance for us, but as I turn around to head back home, she flies off the porch, slinging her drunk arms around my neck.
“Hey,” is all I can say as she spills her drink down my back. The beer soaks through the shirt and trickles down from my shoulders to the waist band of my pants.
Erika slurs her words into my neck, “What took you so long? You’ve made me wait weeks.”
“I was talking to my sister. She’s having a hard ti—”
Erika cuts me off by attacking me with her lips. Her beer breath is awful, like she’s eaten hot wings mixed with a lager. I pull my head back, separating us. There’s no denying that she’s beautiful, but I’m not feeling it.
