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When our athletic abilities had started to make themselves known, we’d been fortunate enough that our school coaches had cared enough to do something about it. Yeah, they had probably cared more about winning championships than our pathetic lives, but we had ended up reaping the rewards for their ambition. Killing ourselves during our junior and senior years of high school, we’d all gotten recruited for college sports, changing the entire trajectory of our lives.
As for where our lives were today, Raven King played football and was a wide receiver for the Bratton Spartans, and he was starting this season with a hope for three Super Bowl rings in a row. Orion Knight played basketball and was a point guard for the West Corral Devils, and he’d just won back-to-back championships. Sebastian Havoc played baseball and was a catcher for the Torrent Eagles. Atlas played hockey and was a goalie for the Seaside Acers. As for me, I played soccer and was a forward for the Highland Wolves.
Now, if I had to describe our little brand of brotherhood, Raven was the serious one, having always played the father figure. His parents had been serious gamblers, so Raven had learned early on how to raise himself with nothing. Sebastian was the funny one, his sense of humor having been born out of neglect. With his parents never around, he’d had to entertain himself a lot. Orion was the calm one, but that came from having to raise Nova by himself. Their parents had been extremely poor, never doing anything apart from blaming Orion and Nova for their abject poverty. Out of all of us, Atlas was the most volatile, though he came by it honestly. His parents had been into drugs and extremely abusive. High, drunk, or sober, Atlas’ parents would abuse him for simply existing.
As for me, I was considered the player because I really loved women. No matter how awful my own mother had been, I had still managed to find the amazement in how wonderous women were, and I blamed Nova for that. Nova was a year younger than Orion, and she had always followed us around, one of us always with her. I had watched that girl grow from a precious ragamuffin into an incredibly smart, giving, and beautiful woman. Nova was the perfect example of overcoming her troubled childhood to become one of the best people that walked the planet. So, yeah, it was Nova’s fault that I hadn’t grown up resenting women.
Like the others, my parents hadn’t been anything to brag about. My father, Curt Miller, had been a bartender, and my mother, Mindy Miller had worked as a secretary for a car lot. Luckily, I hadn’t had any siblings, or else I probably never would have made it out of Hammond. My father had been a fan of drinking and hitting me when things hadn’t been going his way, and my mother had also liked to slap me around, though her hand hadn’t been as heavy as my father’s.
When we’d all gone off to college, none of our parents had cared. In fact, they had viewed it as one less mouth to feed, so good riddance. However, after we’d all made it to the pros, we’d been quickly reminded of our ‘family’. Raven had been the first to buy his parents a house before wiping his hands of them completely, and since we had always followed Raven’s lead, the rest of us had done the same. Well, except for Atlas, which none of us blamed him for.
Ten years later, we were all still living the dream, our commitment and loyalty to one another just as strong as it’d been during our childhoods. When Nova had graduated college, we’d all taken a picture with her, and the goddamn thing had gone viral. We’d been dubbed The Loyal Five, and the entire nation knew that we were all best friends. We kept in touch a lot, considering how hectic our schedules were, but that was also thanks to Nova. The woman kept a calendar of all our games, birthdays, charity events, and whatever else we had going on in our lives. Nova was also one hell of a momma bear, and despite how loyal we all were to each other, Nova was the glue that kept our family together.
She was also married to Sebastian, something that we were all super grateful for. Sebastian had admitted his feelings to us back when we’d been kids, and for damn near fifteen years, he had loved her from afar, though no more. Last year, he’d finally gotten his head out of his ass and had asked her out. They’d gotten married in December, and she was already pregnant with their first child. They had purposely planned it so that she’d give birth during Sebastian’s off-season, and the rest of us couldn’t be more excited for them if we tried.
Raven was also married, having married his wife, Esme, this past February. Though he had proposed to her last summer, he’d been waiting for Sebastian to finally make his move because it’d only been right for Sebastian and Nova to get married first. However, as soon as the Spartans had won the Super Bowl, Raven had married Esme three weeks later.
Orion was also married, though he’d only gotten married last month. His wife, Sinclair, had made him wait six months after he had proposed, torturing him for being stupid. Sinclair also hated basketball, which we loved to give Orion shit about. Sinclair was a football fanatic, and Raven loved it. Granted, she was loyal to her team, but it was still enough to annoy Orion.
As for Atlas and me, we were still single, but in no hurry. Atlas had a lot of demons to work through, and I just loved women too much to settle for one right now. I was only twenty-nine and still breaking records on the soccer field, so there was no need to settle down just yet. I was too busy still living the dream, and I wanted my dream to last a few more years. I wanted to go down in history as one of the greats, despite how my ego might suffer for it. I was a cocky bastard, and I made no apologies for it. Especially, when you consider how I could have turned out worse.
There were also my sexual proclivities to contend with. After that scare with Trisha, I had gone to extremes to make sure that something like that would never happen again. Trisha Rimes was the last pussy that I had ever fucked, and while I missed the incredible sensation, those traumatizing words of her still rang in my ears like it’d been yesterday and not ten years ago. Even if I tried, I could never forget the way my entire soul had shattered with those two little words, ‘I’m pregnant’. I had just gotten my college acceptance letter, and Trisha’s words had come with an incredible weight of despair. No matter how careful I’d been, the entire world knew that condoms weren’t foolproof.
When it had come out that she’d been lying the entire time, I’d never felt so livid. Had it not been for Nova, I would have ended up hating women. It hadn’t hurt that Nova had kicked her ass something fierce for that shit. At any rate, I had put an end to steady pussy, indulging in one-night stands only. I also only had two kinds of sex: oral or anal. I was upfront with the women that went back to my hotel rooms, and if they tried to play me, I kicked them out, refusing to deal with another Trisha Rimes.
Nevertheless, I wasn’t a complete asshole about it. My fingers and tongue worked overtime to make sure the women that I hooked up with left satisfied, and on a surprising note, you’d be surprised at how many women gave up the ass to professional athletes if that was the only option on the table. If there was a woman out there that didn’t like anal or having her throat rammed closed, I hadn’t met her yet.
As the clock ticked down, the roars of the stadium got louder. We were ahead by two goals, and there was no way that the other team would catch up with only two minutes left on the clock. Yeah, two minutes was an eternity in sports, but we crushed on defense as much as we excelled on offense. Plus, our goaltender was one of the best in the league.
The energy that rocked the stadium was what I lived for. There wasn’t a better high out there as far as I was concerned, second only to my family’s happiness. If I had to give all this up for any of the guys, I’d do it in a heartbeat. While I loved my fans and appreciated their commitment to me and the team, my family was second to nobody.
The deafening roar announced the zeroes on the clock, and celebrations erupted all over the stands, my teammates all slapping each other on the back, congratulations all around. There were only two months left in the season, and we were playing them like we were already in the World Cup. Athletes were a different breed of humans, and though victory stayed with a man, failure could actually do some damage. Lots of athletes never got back up after being knocked down, and that was a shame. Luckily for me, thanks to my parents, I was used to someone trying to knock me down and keep me there.
“Time to fucking celebrate!” Miguel Coronado yelled across the field.
I couldn’t help but grin. Soccer was no fucking joke, so you’d think that we’d be exhausted after running back and forth across the field for what felt like eons, but we were never tired after a win.
Curtis Manzano clapped my shoulder. “Let’s go get fucking laid.”
I smirked, then remembered my stupid deal with Sebastian.
Chapter 2
Lux~
My father, Jerry Leland, was a real estate broker, and my mother, Patricia Leland, owned her own beauty salon. Both of my parents were fiscally responsible, down-to-earth, sensible, and went to church every Sunday, usually to pray for my soul. So, with those admirable attributes going for them, you’d think that they would have raised me to be just like them.
Poor Mom and Dad, they sure had tried.
Instead of choosing a simple and drama-free profession, I had chosen to go into public relations, and not just your average public relations.
No.
My stupid ass had chosen to go into the field of sports, and who did that? What sort of glutton signed up for that shit? Having lived the first six years of my life in the foster care system, you’d think that I’d avoid drama like the plague, but I guess not. Of course, I blamed my parents for raising me in a home full of love, warmth, respect, and safety, making me forget that I hadn’t been wanted for the first six years of my life. My parents had effortlessly provided the one thing that every child deserved, and that was a safe environment to grow into the person that they’d been meant to be.
Well, apparently, I’d been meant to be stupid.
I mean, why else would I have chosen a career in sports PR when there’d been a million other opportunities out there for me? Not for nothing, I had a high IQ and the drive to match. After those first six years, I’d had an idyllic childhood, and I was lucky to be able to say that. I knew how lucky I was for my parents, even if I did blame them for raising me to make stupid choices.
