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“Fun ruiner.”
“Daddy! Daddy! Look! It’s Jordan Emery and Theo Lewin!”
Everyone turned at the high, excited voice. A small blond boy of around six or seven was tugging a man by his sleeve, pointing at us and bouncing up and down.
“Look, Daddy! Jordan Emery has a goat!”
I glanced over at Jordan, who still had that smile on his face, but this time, it was directed at the child. “Wanna hold him?” His gaze slid to the tour guide. “Is that okay?”
The tour guide nodded, ushering the boy and his dad into the enclosure. The boy made a beeline straight for Jordan, hopping up onto the straw bale next to him, his legs swinging.
“Okay. Stay very still and hold out your arms.” Carefully, Jordan transferred the goat to the little boy, supporting his arm where the goat’s head rested. “He’s cute, isn’t he?”
Nodding, the boy stared down at the goat with wide eyes. “Look, Daddy. He likes me,” he whispered. His dad smiled, holding up his phone to snap a picture of his son, and then turned to Jordan.
“Is it alright if I get a photo with you in it?”
“’Course.”
My chest hurt.
Fucking stress. I needed to take a sleeping pill and get some rest, and I would as soon as this farce of a photo op was over.
Thankfully, we wrapped up the goat portion of our visit quickly. As we were leaving the shed, the dad stopped me with a hand to my arm.
“Uh, Theo. Sorry. I know you probably don’t want to be disturbed, but I just wanted to say that we’re big fans of yours. You’re doing a good job on the left.”
“Yeah. I have your shirt! Number eleven!” the boy piped up.
A lump came into my throat, and I swallowed hard. Bloody hell, a stranger telling me I was doing a good job shouldn’t affect me this way.
“He’s great on the left, isn’t he?” An arm was slung around my waist, and I immediately stiffened. The dad stared between Jordan and me, lowering his voice so he couldn’t be heard by his son.
“You two are friends, then?”
“Yeah. The papers got it wrong. So wrong,” my liar of a teammate said. “Me and Theo are besties. We just had a little disagreement. But he loves having me on the team, don’t ya, bro?”
“Love it,” I said through gritted teeth, still managing to keep the smile on my face. Jordan leaned his head on my shoulder, and I immediately jerked my arm upwards, knocking his cap off his head. “Oops.”
“Accidents happen.” Swiping his cap from the floor, he brushed off the bits of straw and then shoved it back on his head. His smile had turned into his professional, fake one, and I felt a sense of satisfaction that I’d managed to irritate him. “I think we need to move on to the next place now. Do you guys want an autograph before we go?”
As soon as we were alone, our minders and photographer sidetracked by a rare breed of sheep, I yanked Jordan around the back of a barn. “What the fuck was that? You just lied to a parent and his child.”
“You don’t wanna be besties?” His eyes sparked with amusement, and there was a challenge in them that I was powerless to resist.
Shoving him back against the barn door, I growled, “No. I do not, nor will I ever, want to be anything to you. You’re nothing to me, I’m nothing to you, so let’s keep it that way, okay?”
“But we could be the best of friends.”
“That will never happen. I fucking loathe you, Jordan Emery.” One more hard push, and suddenly, he was no longer there as the door gave way behind us, flying open with a loud creak, and I found myself falling forwards.
I landed on a hard body, and he reacted immediately, jerking up and then twisting, rolling us across the barn floor.
“Get…off…me….” Jordan panted, aiming blows at me as we rolled. I hit him back, gripping him with my legs and pinning him underneath me. He stilled, his eyes meeting mine. His cap had come off somewhere in the barn, and his hair was covered in straw, and there were smudges of dirt on his face.
“You’re such a fucking brat,” I whispered hoarsely, staring down at him. “Why can’t you leave me alone?”
“I’m a brat? You’re a fucking knobhead.” His eyes never left mine. “Why can’t you leavemealone? Why the fuck is it my fault?”
