Sidelined (6 page)

“Look,” she sighs, walking from the kitchen to the living room. “Macey’s business is Macey’s business, okay? She’s one of my best friends, and I’m not gonna tell you what she hasn’t. She has her reasons for the way she is, and you know what? They’re justifiable. Totally. If I were her, I can’t say I’d be any different.”

My eyes narrow, because fuck. Why do girls gotta be so damn cryptic? And that secret shit. Man, it pisses me off. You got a problem, you say it. You don’t sit all pretty, biting your lip, avoiding the question.

Guys don’t do that crap. If we have a problem, we’ll tell you. If you piss us off, we’ll tell you. If we think you’re being a fucking idiot, we’ll tell you.

At least, I don’t do it. Fairies and ballerinas flounce around the truth with a barrage of denial weighing their butts down, and I’m neither a fairy nor a ballerina. I’m a football player, and if I have a problem, I’m gonna ram it into you the way I ram into the other team’s defense when they think they can block my run.

The doorbell rings and Leah gets up to answer it.

“Well, next time, tell her not to be such a damn bitch about her business and that, if she doesn’t want a guy, she should answer the phone her damn phone herself and say so,” I call after her.

Corey tilts his juice glass in my direction and nods. “True that.”

I hold my hands out as if to say, “I know.”

Seriously, when Ryann answered the phone, I assumed Macey was agreeing to everything I was saying. Apparently, though, girls are just as immature as guys when you throw a bunch of them together.

“Or you could understand a girl’s statement when she tells you not to call in the first place.” Macey appears in the doorway, her jaw clenched, her light-brown eyes blazing.

Ah, shit.

“Did you explicitly say that?” I counter, my lips tugging up.

She freezes because she knows as well as I do that she didn’t say any such shit. “I believe I was about to,” she replies, her voice weaker than it was a second ago. “But you decided to cross the line and kiss me.”

“Which you responded to.” My smirk fully forms. “You know what, M? Guys don’t take hints. We don’t get snarky little comments meant to convince us into doing somethin’. Don’t respond to, ‘I’ll call you,’ with a, ‘You don’t have my number,’ because that ain’t a, ‘Don’t call.’”

Macey takes a deep breath in and pins me with her steely gaze. “Don’t. Call,” she says firmly. “That clear enough?”

I tilt my head to the side and study her for a second, fully aware of Corey’s amused eyes and Leah’s hesitant ones on us. “Nah, baby. Nowhere near clear enough.”

“What kind of asshole are you?”

My lips threaten to grin, and I get up and approach her. She steps back, but I curve my hand around the back of her neck and hold her still as I move against her.

“Baby,” I whisper, ducking my head so my mouth brushes her earlobe. “I’m the asshole who makes you come five times in one night. That’s who. So you want me to fuck off? Fine. But you’re sure as shit gonna give me a fuckin’ good reason why.”

She touches my hand with hers and turns her face away. “I don’t owe you a fucking thing,” she breathes. “So there’s your goddamn reason.”

I release her, but I meet her eyes as I do. “Sounds like an excuse opposed to a reason.”

Her chest heaves with a second deep breath, and she briefly looks away before her gaze slams into mine with a ferocity that flares up every intrigued instinct in my body.

“Well, excuse me,” she snaps breathlessly, “if I’m not the girl who’ll conform to your shorthanded demands, Jack Carr. Excuse me if I’m not the chick who’ll pant and fall at your feet if you tell me I’m good enough to be a regular fuck for you. And
ex-fucking-cuse
me if I
am
the girl whose boyfriend knocked up her cousin and has absolutely zero desire to be dragged into a situation where her surprisingly gentle heart may be wrangled into trusting yet another asshole.”

Her voice wavers on the last few words, and almost as soon as she’s done talking, she turns on her heel and stalks back to the front door.

“Mace!” Leah calls. “Fuck me, Jack!” she growls, smacking my arm as she walks past.

I shoot my arm across her body and stop her dead. “Back off.”

“What?”

“Back off,” I say slower, meeting Leah’s blue eyes.

“What?” she repeats. “Corey.”

“Ain’t gonna help,” I reply. “Somethin’ you gotta learn about us Vipers boys, sweetheart. We fuck up, we fix it. Regardless of who you are.”

“I’ve known her ten years. You’ve known her ten minutes. And if you have any sense, Jack Carr, you’ll move your damn arm to let me past before I bite it.”

“Corey.”

He sighs heavily and stands. His arms go around Leah and he pulls her back from me and my steady one-armed hold. “Babe, he’s right. Us Vipers are a football team, sure, but we stand for more than that. We stand for America, baby. We stand for family and friendship and trust. We stand for righteousness because that’s who the Vipers are. And whether you like it or not, Jack’s gotta sort this shit.”

Leah’s eyes spit unsaid profanities at me.

“Call your girl in the morning,” I tell her, backing up. “Until then, her ass is mine to kick.”

Because there’s no fucking way Macey Kelly can walk into my best friend’s house, tell me that her boyfriend knocked up her cousin, and then disappear on me.

Fuck. She’s cuter than I thought.

“Fuck you!”

“Macey.”

“Fuck you!”

“Macey!”

“Fuck. You. Jack!”

“Baby, you want me to break down this door? I’ve steamrolled three-hundred-pound guys before, so you think I won’t snap this damn door off its hinges?”

The door swings open, and she glares at me, her eyes blazing with a fiery mix of vulnerability and anger. My little vixen.

“Here’s a hint,” she tells me, her whole body taut. “There’s an elevator behind you and a staircase to your left. I don’t give a fuck how you leave. Hell, throw yourself out of the damn window. I just care that you leave.”

“So fuckin’ cute,” I say and jam my foot and shoulder between her door and the frame.

“Two seconds and this slams in your pretty little face,” she grinds out.

“Hundred pounds on you, baby. Remember?” I smirk. “I’ll stop that door with my baby finger.”

She pulls the door back, and in line with my just-spoken statement, I hold my fingers out and stop the wood before it gets anywhere near me. Macey pushes forward, her eyes still focused fully on mine, and I push back. It’s like an arm wrestle—whoever falters first falls first. Or a staring match. Blink and you’re out.

Either could be true. Both our hands and our eyes are battling it out, and we know that the first to submit will be the loser. We also know that the first will be her because her strength has nothing on mine.

My lips tug up a little more. Her cheeks are flaming red, her eyes shimmering with determination. Her perfectly pink lips are pursed tightly, and every goddamn muscle of hers is tense.

“Give in to me.”

“Never,” she retorts. “Get out.”

“You talk, I leave.”

Her eyes narrow. “Right after?”

“Sure, baby. Right after.”

Slowly, Macey relinquishes her grip on the door and allows me to enter her apartment. As soon as I do, she walks into her kitchen, opens a bottle of tequila, pours a shot, and throws it to the back of her throat.

Wordlessly, she pulls a bottle of Jack from a cupboard and a Bud from the fridge. “Take your pick.” She waves at them both before grabbing the bottle of Jack and turning back to her front room.

“Damn. You left me with a real good choice there, baby.”

“Whatever,” she answers. Her words are clipped and tight, and her posture says the same:
Don’t touch me. Don’t come anywhere the fuck near me.

Pity for her that I don’t take hints.

For someone who learned that in the last thirty minutes, she should have understood it. You’d think.

I uncap the beer with the opener sitting on the counter. I lean against said counter, my eyes on Macey, and swig from the bottle. Her body is tight. Her elbows are tucked into her sides, her legs crossed at the knees, and her face is aimed firmly out her window at the Los Angeles city lights as she sits on her sofa.

Her apartment has big-ass windows, and as I look at her now in the late night, it looks like she’s illuminated by the brightness of the city beyond her. It crosses my mind why she’s so in the center of the city when she’s still in college—no one in college can afford an apartment in the center of L.A. But, honestly, that shit doesn’t matter much when I see that she’s closing off from me.

I tip the bottle again for a couple of gulps, knowing Coach would kill me if he found out I was drinking on a weeknight. But right now, I don’t care.

Slowly, I move forward.

Macey only moves when she tips her own bottle upward. I’ve never seen anyone sit as deathly still as she is right now. There could be a fucking earthquake and I swear she wouldn’t move an inch.

“Why are you here?”

My lips twitch. “Oh, I dunno, M. Maybe it’s because you spat out the single reason you seem to hate me then ran away.”

“I don’t…” Her shoulders lift slightly with her sigh. “I don’t hate you, Jack. I don’t trust you, but I don’t hate you.”

I put my bottle down and walk to her. “I get that. But, baby? I’m not your ex.”

“If you were my ex, you’d be minus your dick by now.”

I smile and sit behind her. Her body is still as tight as it was a few minutes ago, but when I slide my hand along her thigh and curl my fingers to brush the inside of it, she glances down.

“I’m not asking you to marry me, Macey. I’m not even asking you for a relationship. I’m offering you something you should be comfortable with. Casual sex on a regular basis. We’re going to be pushed together by the seriousness of our friends’ relationship, so like it or loathe it, baby, we may as well make the most of having to suffer through each other’s company.”

“That sounds good until you consider that having sex isn’t actually sufferable with you.”

“That’s probably the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

Macey laughs quietly and turns. Slowly, she pulls her eyes up to mine, and her laugh dies. “I wish it were that easy, Jack. It isn’t. I trust two men in my life—my father and my brother. Now, asking me for my body on a regular basis to scratch the crazy-ass itch your dick gets when I walk into the room isn’t anything remotely close to making you trustworthy.”

Shit. Women never listen.

“I’m not telling you to trust me. I’m telling you to let me fuck you and be done with it.”

“Oh, so simple.” She tilts the bottle again then screws up her face when she swallows the harsh liquor.

“Well, yeah.”

She rubs her hand over her face and slams the bottle down onto the coffee table. Removing my hand from her leg, she gets up and moves toward the door. Quicker than she reaches it, I get to her, and I push her back against it.

Macey gasps and reaches up to push at my chest. Again, I’m quicker. My fingers thread between hers, and I hold her hands against the door at her sides.

“Walking to your door and askin’ me to leave isn’t ending this conversation, babe,” I murmur, dropping my face to hers. “It’s nowhere fuckin’ close to ending it. All it’s gonna do is prolong it, so sit your sexy little ass back down and talk to me before I fuck you into talking, because I’ve tried to be nice, but my patience is waning.”

“Threatening me with sex is not the way to get what you want,” she retorts smartly.

“Sure it is. I want you to talk, but I also want to fuck your sweet pussy, so by all means, keep your mouth shut.”

She swallows. “There’s nothing more to it, Jack. My boyfriend of three years knocked up my cousin, obliterated any trust I had in the male sex, and taught me that I don’t actually need a guy because I’m happier without one.”

“Orgasms.”

“What?”

“You need a guy for orgasms.”

“Vibrator,” she replies with a sigh. “And you know the great thing about my vibrator? It gives me a shit-hot orgasm without arguing and it doesn’t demand bacon and coffee the next morning.”