Hooked: A Stepbrother Romance (8 page)

It was bullshit, that’s what it was.

With one last furtive glance at Simon, I grabbed the bag of muffins and left the room.
 

“Let’s go sort the gear we need for the match,” I said, faking merriness and trying to forget the image I’d just seen. He’d been running his hand through his dark hair, looking at once like a competent professional and an excited kid. A youthful, happy expression I’d never seen him with when he actually
was
a kid.

Oh, man, was I in deep shit.

Who does she think she is?

Who the fuck does she think she is?

Like she can just be nice to me.

Like she can forgive me.

Oh, fuck her.

She’s going to learn I’m unforgivable.

I’ll make her pay.

The players began trickling in a little before one, just in time for me to lead them through a set of warm up exercises while Simon generated a little pre-game excitement and bloodlust. Once everyone was sufficiently limber — and rabid — Simon sent them off to West Field.

Everyone cheered, rushing out of the rec center with all the enthusiasm of a monsoon.

It was an inspiring sight. So inspiring, in fact, that it took me a second to remember the game wasn’t
at
West Field.

“Why did you do that?” I asked, staring at Simon in confusion.

“You look fucking adorable right now, you know,” he laughed.

“It’s in the wrong direction, you know,” I said testily. This was more like the Simon I remembered from before. “It’s hot, and they’re running. By the time they get there, realize the mistake, come back, and hurry to the right place, they’re going to be exhausted.”

“Sorry, sorry,” he said, noting my tone. “I thought you knew. You didn’t go to Johnnie’s this morning?”

I shook my head.

“Well, come on then!” he said with a grin, jogging towards the exit and gesturing for me to follow.

By the time we made it to the field, everything clicked.

A bus.

He’d rented a bus.

A
nice
bus, I realized, as we stepped inside. The seats were upholstered in soft leather, and the air conditioning was a frigid relief from the summer heat. There was even a bathroom in the back, fully functional with running water.

“This is insane,” I whispered to him over the din of our teams. “The game is practically just down the street. It’ll probably take us longer to drive than to walk. How much did you
spend
on this?”

“Not too much,” Simon reassured me. “It’s pretty cheap if you rent for the whole season,” he added as an afterthought.

The words sank in slowly, and a thousand criticisms popped into my head. The money could’ve kept the rec center open even longer, and what if we lost and couldn’t advance? Yesterday’s surprise of custom team uniforms had felt excessive, but a
bus
? It was crazy, it was…

Looking around, I cut my inner critic off mid-rant. Everyone was hooting and hollering, grinning from ear to ear. They looked
good
. So proud and professional, each player wearing a shirt emblazoned with his or her name. They were grinning from ear to ear, looking happier than I’d ever seen.

They were all part of something bigger than themselves, now. The pressure had been building for weeks, team spirit growing along with the anticipation of testing themselves against others. They were full of adrenaline, and not a single trace of the apathetic boredom of last month could be found on any of their faces.

Today, we all wanted to win. Today, we all loved rugby.

And Simon.

As much as I wanted to criticize him, the man had been nothing short of a great coach. I’d been sure that sticking him with the girls would sabotage him irrevocably, but he’d managed to form a real bond with them in record time. Even Shauna, who resented male authority thanks to the string of assholes her mother dated, seemed to sincerely like Simon.

The bus ride lasted all of ten minutes, most of it in traffic, and the enthusiastic teens surged out without missing a beat. The other team was already there, and soon the referee began calling the players to the field.

Simon and I waited together on the bleachers, side by side. His strong thighs pressed into me, and the skin of my arms erupted into goose bumps. It took all my willpower to avoid the shiver that was threatening to run up my spine. This man, with his quiet masculinity, was beginning to drive me crazy in more ways than one.

In sore need of a distraction, I fixed my attention onto the field. My team was up first, and I started motioning to them, reminding them that they needed to listen to the referee and his instructions. But out of the corner of my eye, I could see Simon waving at someone far up in the bleachers.

She was in the fourth row, standing straight across from us and waving frantically back in our direction. Sliding my sunglasses down from my forehead to hide my eyes, I stared shamelessly at her distant figure. Of course, I had no business doing it, but part of me needed to know who Simon was seeing.

I felt a sick lurch in my stomach as I looked her over, noting the flamboyant bright red hair and the pink floral dress. He had very much found someone here, someone he was already declaring his love to, I realized as I recalled the phone conversation I’d overheard.

Did that surprise me? After all, I was probably the last person on the planet who still disliked Simon. He was everybody’s hero, a great catch. Hell, even
I
was starting to warm up to him.

Still waving, he turned his smiling face to me and a nervous-sounding laugh escaped his shapely lips.

“Mom,” he said cryptically.

“Sister,” I corrected without thought. What was he on about? Mom was in California with Dad….

“You’ve never met her, right?”

Suddenly, it clicked.

“You have a mother?” I asked, apparently trying to impress him with my ability to ask profoundly stupid questions. “I mean, of course you do. But what’s she doing here?” I corrected.

“She came to watch the game.”

“She came
all the way here
? For a recreational summer amateur league game? Doesn’t she get enough rugby watching you perform with the English national team?”

“England’s not down the block from her place. This is.”

“This is down the block from your mom’s?” I echoed.

“My mother lives here, Emilia. Always has. I grew up here. Hell, I attended the rec center as a kid,” he explained, his sparkling smile slowly turning apologetic.

Simon and I had spent two ill-fated summers together, but it suddenly occurred to me that I didn’t really
know
much about him. The rest of the year, he lived in a boarding school in England, but I never stopped to think about his mom. He didn’t seem fit for the love of a mother. He’d been feral, out for blood and little more.

Shut your fucking mouth, or I’ll make you regret it
.

I chased the memories away. It was hard to reconcile the two men, the polite and even-tempered coach who’d made himself a hero to everyone at the rec center, and the insufferable bully I’d known as a teenager. Even more difficult was the thought that he’d grown up here, attending the same inner-city rec center I’d been working in for years.

“Is that why you’re donating? Why you got us a bus?”

“One reason, yeah.”

“What are the other reasons?”

“It’s an investment,” he shrugged, running his hand through his hair and down to his neck.

“An
investment
? Oh sweetie, you’re never seeing that money again. You knew that, right? You had to know that,” I said, hairs rising on the back of my neck from worry-panic. Was he delusional?

“Not that kind. This is more…personal.”

“What, you made a promise to your old coach? Want to relive some childhood memories?”

“No, I just
really
wanted an excuse to stare at your ass all day,” he quipped, looking me straight in the eye without so much as a blink. My heart started racing in my chest, and the only thing that stopped me from bolting was the sudden touch of his hand on my leg.

“Sit. Stay. The game’s about to begin, and your team needs you.” Looking around, I saw the referee and his assistants walking into the field. The shiver that had been threatening earlier overwhelmed me, the force of it shaking me to the core.

“How could you even have known I worked there? Or that the center was closing?” I asked.

“Oh, you know. I like to stay informed,” Simon said with a shrug, looking more than a little sheepish.

My eyes narrowed. “Stay informed about
what
? The center?”

“Not what.
Who
.” It was quite the shock when I learned you’d been hired here, believe me. The youth center doesn’t hold many good memories for me.”
 

“What the hell, Simon? How long have you been keeping tabs on me?”

“Long enough to wonder what happened after you bought a date with a fireman at a charity auction. How
did
that go, by the way?”

“That’s fucking creepy, Simon.”

“Yeah, well, the image of you beneath a sweaty behemoth like that still kept me up more than a few nights. And that was
before
I knew how fucking hot you were now.” He paused for a second while I desperately tried to process his words.

“Were you expecting something different from me?” he asked softly, and when I looked in his eyes I saw a mix of lust and pain, longing and hurt. Unable to face me, he turned forward with a sigh.

We sat in awkward silence for a few seconds before he again turned to me, whispering in my ear. “The game’s about to start,” he said, his lips so close that I could feel the warmth of his breath blowing across the tender skin below my earlobe. Shivering again, I looked down at the referee just in time to see him blowing his whistle.

Closing my eyes, I prayed I’d be able to regain my composure by the end of the match.