Hot for Sports: A Bad Boy Sports Romance Box Set: The Sports Romance Complete Series (Books 1-5)

by Erica Hobbs

  “I wasn’t going to let you go home in the state you were in last night,” Amanda said, smiling. It was a good thing, too, because we’d only gotten home at four in the morning and I would have woken my parents up stumbling around at that time. At least, I’d told them where I would be and with whom before I’d gone out last night. Otherwise, my absence would have given them a heart attack.

  “I’ll be out of your hair soon,” I said.

  Amanda waved her hand. “Nonsense, stay as long as you like. I don’t have anything to do today.”

  I nodded. It was a relief. I didn’t want to go home. Going out with Amanda and being at her place hadn’t eliminated what I was feeling, but it all felt at a distance, and I could deal with it. I was in a bubble. If I went home, real life would catch up with me, and I didn’t want it to hit me in the face. I didn’t want to have to explain to my parents that the mystery man would never be introduced to them. I didn’t want to have to explain why.

  The only good thing that had come of it was that I had never introduced Jake to my parents. I had been afraid to do it, and now that the unthinkable had happened, it was a blessing in disguise they didn’t have to be dragged into the whole James thing again.

  We spent the rest of the afternoon watching television. Amanda flipped through the channels, trying to find something to watch. One of the channels broadcasted a live football game. I recognized the orange and blue colors before Amanda move to another channel and my stomach clenched into a fist. I hadn’t loved football before, but I hated it now. Jake was on that field. A part of me hoped he would be pummeled by one of the big guys. It was wrong to wish violence on the guy, but I was so angry.

  We settled on ‘The O.C.’ reruns and let the afternoon creep away. Every minute that ticked and I didn’t think about Jake was a little gift. This was how I was going to get through it – one step at a time. Before I knew it, it would be another year down the line as it had been with James, and this would be something in the past. If I read about him in the tabloids or saw him on television, I would think of him as the guy I once knew.

  It was getting dark again by the time Amanda got up.

  “I’m going to take a shower. I should have done it ages ago, but I was lazy. You can carry on watching.”

  She handed me the remote and walked out of the room. I changed channels, watching entertainment news. It would be safe because it was about celebrity gossip, but they stayed away from sports. And aside from the tabloids that had ruined my life, I loved celebrity gossip.

  Amanda’s phone rang on the coffee table. She’d left it behind. I glanced at it and looked back at the television. The number that popped up on the screen was a familiar one, though, and I looked back at the phone.

  Could this be? I picked up the phone. The number wasn’t saved, so no name flashed on the screen. But I knew this number. My body ran cold.

  Jake was calling. He was calling Amanda’s phone.

  My fingers trembled. What was I going to do? I didn’t want to be rude and answer her phone, but nothing made sense. I slid to answer the phone just before it rolled over to voicemail and held the phone against my ear.

  “Amanda,” Jakes unmistakable voice came over the phone. “We need to talk.”

  “Damn right, we do.” I was suddenly so angry I saw red. My whole body trembled with rage, and I felt like doing physical damage to Jake’s pretty face.

  “Hello? Who is this?” Jake sounded confused. He was quiet for a while. “Hello?”

  “It’s Alyssa,” I said. My voice was brittle. I could feel him take a breath. The shock was palpable. It was mutual. “Do you want to explain to me why you’re calling this number? How do you know Amanda at all?”

  Jake stammered, looking for words.

  “I didn’t know you knew her,” he finally managed to say. “This doesn’t make any sense.”

  “No, what doesn’t make any sense is why you’re calling her the day after we broke up. Or should I assume she’s another one of your flings?”

  The image I’d seen on the internet flashed before my eyes, and my body ran cold. The dark hair, the thin body…

  “Jake,” I said, barely able to breathe. “It’s her, isn’t it?”

  “Alyssa, I can explain. This is a just a big mistake.”

  I got up. “You’re absolutely right. It’s the biggest mistake of your life. What will you do? Will you bang her until you’re happy and then move on again? Do me a favor, let her know you’re not interested anymore before you find someone else. It will hurt less.”

  “You’ve got it all wrong.”

  “I don’t want to hear it.” I hung up the phone. My hands shook so hard I nearly dropped the phone. I clutched it to my chest and marched to Amanda’s bedroom. She was still in the shower, so I sat down on the bed, waiting for her.

  When she stepped out of the shower, she only wore a towel.

  “You got a call,” I said.

  “Oh, thank you.” She held her hand out for the phone. I didn’t give it to her.

  “How do you know Jake?” I asked. She froze, her hand still outstretched, blinking at me.

  “Who?”

  “I’m pretty sure you know who I’m talking about,” I said.

  She dropped her hand to her side and shrugged.

  “We’ve known each other for a while.”

  I didn’t know what I’d expected, but that comment made my stomach drop.

  “Really.”

  My voice didn’t sound as confident as I wanted it to. I was starting to lose it. I wanted to run away. I wanted to hide. I wanted to forget.

  “Why?” I asked.

  Amanda walked to her bed and sat down. Her long, slim legs stretched out from underneath the towel, and I was suddenly sick with jealousy and envy. This was the woman Jake had chosen over me. This was the woman I couldn’t add up to. And look at her, there was no way I would ever be able to compete.

  Amanda didn’t even pretend not to know what I was talking about.

  “He belongs with me,” she said. “He always did. He just got a little distracted.”

  “By me?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “He gets distracted by a lot of girls. But it’s okay. We both know how it should be.”

  There was nothing, not one hint that she might feel like she did something wrong. She’d known from the start who I was and where I fit in the picture, and she’d offered me to stay over and go out with her knowing she’d ripped my life apart.

  And she didn’t even blink when she admitted to it.

  I walked to the bathroom and changed into the clothes I’d worn to the design launch the day before. I left her clothes on the floor in a pile and walked out the door with only my handbag. Without announcing my departure, without saying goodbye.

  Chapter 32

  Jake

  Alcohol is a liar, a two-face. It tells you that everything will be alright. It tells you it doesn’t matter. That whatever is going on in your life, whatever you hate doesn’t exist.

  And then it hits you on the head and tells you you’re an idiot for believing it.

  Which was how I realized I had to stop myself before anything got out of control. I had drunk myself into a stupor the night before a big game, and I’d lost my shit all over the field, taking out my fury and my failures on a player who didn’t deserve it. Sure, he’d been saying things that really set me off, but that was what we did in football – we got into each other’s head. I used to be stronger than this.

  I was letting alcohol and my heartbreak control me. And I was going to stop it right now before it became something that could be labeled as a problem. I was already in the public eye without the fight that took place on the field. I didn’t need more rumors about me doing the round. I didn’t need any of them to be true, either.

  I was lucky Coach Clay had left it at that. I was lucky he hadn’t done anything more to mess up the career I was already jeopardizing. I had worked hard and kept my slate relatively clean, and that was
the only reason my coach and my team forgave me. Whether I forgave myself was a different story.

  Still, I could get through this. Somehow, I had to. Even though everything had blown up in my face and there was no way I was going to get Alyssa back. Not if she was hanging out with Amanda. There was no telling what kind of poison Amanda could put in Alyssa’s head. When I’d phoned Amanda to talk to her about what she’d done, Alyssa had answered the phone.

  I had never been more shocked in my life. What had scared me was the level of anger that crackled through the phone. Alyssa had always been calm and controlled. Hearing her lose her cool the way she had with me made me feel every inch like the asshole I was. I should have done more to get rid of Amanda. I should have done something to get rid of her once and for all. I had been too nice for too long, and this was where it had gotten me. The rest of the weekend had been nothing but hell and more alcohol.

  The only thing I could do now was salvage what was left of my career. It was the one thing I had always been able to turn to, and I would do the same now.

  The drive to the training center took too long, leaving me alone with my thoughts no matter how loud I blared the music. I just needed to get out there and train. Training always helped me get rid of the emotions I couldn’t deal with, and today Damien and I were training together again, just the two of us. I was looking forward to that. Lately, he’d become someone I felt I could count on. If not as a confidant, at least as a friend.

  His car was already in the parking lot when I pulled in. I grabbed my duffel from the trunk and walked into the cool building. Damien was on the treadmill, doing a warm up.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “What’s up?” He kept his focus on the wall ahead of him.

  “You did well on Saturday,” I said.

  “Thanks.”

  The atmosphere was strained. Maybe he didn’t know what to say.

  “Unlike me. You really stepped up and took responsibility. Your hard work is paying off.”

  Damien glanced at me, his face unreadable, and nodded.

  “Do you want to get started?” I asked.

  Damien glanced down at the treadmill control pad and shook his head.

  “Let me finish up here, first.”

  I nodded, walking to the back wall and grabbing a jump rope. I found an open space in the gym area and started skipping, warming up my own muscles. The consistent snapping of the rope on the floor and the clench and release of my muscles as I jumped were familiar. That calmed me.

  When I’d done five minutes of skipping, I stretched. I started with my legs. Damien jogged on the treadmill at a steady pace.

  “This has been the worst weekend of my life,” I said.

  Damien glanced at me again. “I can imagine. You don’t really act out on the field.”

  I nodded. I felt ashamed for what I’d done.

  “I was angry,” I said. “Sometimes, I get really upset about what the tabloids are saying about me, you know? Especially when it’s true.”

  Damien didn’t answer me. I carried on, filling the silence with more talking. If I felt comfortable talking to anyone, it was Damien. We had slowly gotten close the past while during our private training sessions.

  “I just don’t know what to do about her.”

  Damien looked down at the treadmill again and pressed a button, upping his speed. He ran faster, his legs tearing up the treadmill.

  “Maybe you should just move on,” he said, gasping between every word. I shook my head even though he wasn’t looking at me.

  “I can’t. Not with this one.”

  We were silent for a while; Damien sprinting like his life depended on it and me stretching out every muscle in my body. Then Damien finally slowed down and stopped, hopping off the treadmill.

  “She was just another girl,” he said.

  “Alyssa wasn’t just another girl. She was the one girl I wanted more with. I’ve never felt like that with anybody else.”

  “Then why did you do it?”

  I frowned and sat up, abandoning my stretches. “That’s just it. I didn’t do it. It’s all a big misunderstanding, but she doesn’t want to hear that from me.”

  Damien stood with his hands on his hips, legs apart, trying to catch his breath.

  “Well, it’s not hard for you to get girls so I would just find another one if I were you.”

  He walked away from me, and I watched him go. What was his problem? Sometimes Damien was really an asshole. It happened more often, though. Maybe he was just in one of his moods.

  I got up and followed him to the field where we trained. He’d already gotten a ball.

  “I want to run through a couple of plays,” he said. “You know, try and get to a point where what happened on Saturday will happen again.”

  I nodded. Damien had impressed everyone on Saturday. I’d known he had it in him. Someone just needed to believe in him.

  “How about you go long,” I said. I threw the ball and Damien ran. He caught up to the ball and grabbed it out of the air, throwing it back straight away. The ball came to me, and I caught it. We threw the ball back and forth a couple of times before I called Damien to the middle.

  “I want to work on passing,” I said. “Lately, I’ve been feeling like the ball isn’t as solid in my grip as it should be.”

  “You don’t think that’s from the alcohol?” Damien asked.

  The quip stung, but I shrugged it off. After my behavior on Saturday, I deserved that.

  “It started before that,” I said

  “I’m sure it’s fine,” Damien said. He had the same nonchalant attitude as before. I frowned.

  “Come on, let’s just do a couple.”

  Damien looked at me, his eyes hard. “You’re the star player, right? This shouldn’t be a problem for you.”

  I blinked at him. “Are you being sarcastic with me?”

  Damien shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “What’s your problem?”

  Damien turned to the side, showing me his shoulder. His body language was obvious – I wasn’t important in this conversation.

  “Maybe now you know what it’s like not to be the best all the time. You know, I worked really hard to get where you got without much effort at all.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. This was going in an entirely different direction.

  “Are you suggesting I didn’t work hard to get where I am now?”

  Damien looked at me without saying anything. That was his answer.

  “I don’t believe this.” I walked a small circle, trying to sift through the emotions. Anger was just under my skin, but there was disbelief, too. “What have I been doing for you? I’ve been training with you so that you could get where you wanted to be. I didn’t have to put in that extra time. God knows I didn’t need it.”

  Damien looked at me with that same blank mask he’d been wearing since I’d arrived. I was the only one getting upset. He didn’t lose his cool at all. He was even more distant than he usually was and that was saying something.

  “I thought this was what we did – help each other out.”

  Damien took a deep breath and blew it out again.

  “I don’t know, Jake. Is that what we do? Or was I just your charity case?”

  “That’s not fair. You know it’s not how it is. I helped you when no one else would, but you won’t do the same for me.”

  “I thought you didn’t need it.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment before opening them again.

  “Now you’re just being childish.”

  Damien shrugged. “You can’t tell me anything the rest of the team hasn’t told me already. Yeah, so I was the runt of the team. So, you felt like you had to stand up for me because no one else would. But I did what I did on Saturday all by myself, and you did what happened on Saturday to yourself, too. Why should I be the one to pick up the pieces? This is what it feels like to be an underdog, Jake.”

  He turned around and walked away. I ga
ped, watching him go. Where the hell had all of that come from? When he disappeared through the doors, I looked at the ball in my hands. I threw it down on the ground as hard as I could. It flew to the side, hitting a wall and bouncing away.

  Damien was wrong. Yes, I had done everything on Saturday myself. And yes, he’d worked hard. But I wasn’t the underdog. This was not my fall from grace. This was just being backstabbed by someone I’d thought was my friend.