by Kylie Walker
Men and their protein.
Seeing at least thirty party stragglers lingering gave me the courage to creep downstairs in search of Brett. I didn’t exactly expect him to fall at my feet, but if he’d enjoyed the previous night as much as I did, maybe we could schedule another overnight trip for me to Mission Hills.
At least, that’s what I thought until I reached the foot of the stairs.
There was a partition between the staircase and the living room, and I was still well-behind it when Brett’s voice caught my ear.
And he wasn’t alone.
“Honey, I’m sorry. I meant to get here earlier but the traffic was killer.” At the sound of a sultry feminine tone, I froze, every muscle in my body tense. Holding my breath, I leaned over to peek past the partition and take in the living room.
Brett was there, looking as glorious as the day before in just a pair of low-slung jeans. His hair was mussed from sleep and his bare-chest was mouthwatering. I might have been proud of the series of round red marks that I’d left there if it wasn’t for the fact that another girl had her arms slung around him. “If you’re a good boy, you can make it up to me.”
She was a slinky, skinny blonde with gigantic breasts and enough make-up to turn her face a shade completely contrasting from her ostentatious cleavage. Standing on her dainty, painted toes, she gazed sickeningly up at Brett with a saccharine sweet smile that boiled my blood. Yes, I was jealous. Despite having known Brett for less than twenty four hours, I hated that another bitch had her hands on him.
I was a little crazy at the time. Mind-blowing sex can do that to a girl.
As I watched, she lifted her mouth to Brett’s and kissed him with the hunger of a woman starved.
And my heart dropped into my stomach.
“Hey,” Brett took her forearms, pushing her away just enough so I could see the lipstick she’d smeared over his mouth. “Let’s take this somewhere else, ok?”
My eyes widened.
Was he serious? He’d just spent the night in bed with me and now he was about to take up with another woman? My fingers curled into the stairway railing so hard I swore the wood cracked. I watched, somewhere between disbelief and fury as Brett took the ditzy blonde’s hand and led her from the living room into the kitchen. When the door swung shut behind them, I stared at it for a good two minutes or so. If looks could kill, my eyes would have burnt a hole right through the three inches of well-polished oak.
I wanted to slap him. To scream at him. Most of all, I wanted to somehow assuage the feeling that I’d been used.
Horribly used.
What I actually did was make my way through the living room and back to the pool where I grabbed my things. Thankfully, no one had jacked me over night and I gratefully slipped back into my denim shorts before popping my sunglasses on. I was cool as a fucking cucumber. No one could touch me.
I retained that persona as re-entered the house and made my way to the foyer and the front door, texting my friends on the way. Adele got back to me almost immediately, confirming that she was on her way from her house – where she and Jenny had spent the night.
I left Brett’s grandiose, intimidating family manor without a backward glance, trying to keep a hold of the pride that he had so viciously ripped from my chest. When Adele pulled up, she inched her sunglasses down her nose, taking a single look at my pissed off expression before she spoke.
“Want to talk about it?”
I pursed my lips, seething, as I did my best to put Brett, and all we had shared, to the back of my mind.
“Not one fucking bit.”
Chapter 4
ERICA
Five years later
“Come on, Erica. Don’t toy with me. Get right up in there.”
Rolling my eyes, I resisted the urge to smirk at the six and a half foot tall basketball player stretched out on the massage table beneath me. Bernard Folkton was one of the best point guards in the country, and a notorious womanizer.
But I was immune to his charms.
Immune to all his rippling muscled flesh, his thousand kilowatt smile, and his insistence that once you went black you could never go back.
“Bernie, lie still, or I’ll do more damage than good,” I snickered, curling my fingers into the back of his right thigh with firm pressure. The muscle there had seized up during a drill a few hours ago, and it was my job to get it back in shape for their game in a few days. Without feeling Bernie up of course.
But my sessions with Bernie weren’t new. I was beginning to think he got injured on purpose trying to get into my pants. “Damage me, girl.” I swallowed a laugh as I continued to work on the tense, rock-hard muscle with a firm hand. It took about five or six minutes, but gradually, I felt it start to release.
Bit by bit, the strained tendons grew loose in my hand and Bernie sagged against the table with a sigh, his momentary quest for ass forgotten in the face of my prowess. “Damn, Erica. You got the magic touch, as always.”
I grinned, patting his thigh gently before drawing away to grab his chart. “Glad to hear I’ve exceeded your expectations – again.”
One would think that after two years of working around testosterone-laden, over excited men, a girl would be pulling her hair out. Running at top speed in the other direction. Bemoaning the woeful single-mindedness of the idiots that made up the male species.
I thrived in my environment – but then again, I’d always known what I wanted to do, and I stuck to my guns.
“I’m still waiting to be introduced to your man so I can challenge him for you.” Bernard rose into a sitting position, stretching his thigh carefully before bending his leg back and forth at the knee. “He’ll have no idea what hit him.”
“I’m sure he won’t, because he doesn’t exist, Bernie.” I shot him an amused smirk. “S’not my fault you won’t believe the only reason a woman would refuse you would be prior engagements.
The handsome dark-skinned man arched a brow. “Oh, now you’re engaged?”
“Erica, you got a minute?”
Luckily enough, I was saved from further parlay by Marlena, the assistant coach’s secretary. She looked winded, her dyed-blonde curls in disarray as she gazed from Bernard to me and then back again. I couldn’t count myself very surprised. The Vegas Vortex was a team full of both popular and talented players. The coaches and assistant coaches were always busy – which meant Marlena was busy too.
“I might even have two.” With a wink at Bernard’s sullen expression, I pressed his release slip into his hand before following Marlena from one of the arena’s many massage rooms. I practically lived in the River Arena just outside the city – it was where most of my clients practiced. Thankfully enough for me, it was also only about twenty minutes from my modest one-bedroom in the burbs.
When an event was on the horizon the arena filled with thousands of screaming fans and trying to get around was an absolute nightmare. Between the media, the coaches and the people trying to catch a glimpse of either of them, the events in and of themselves were a pandemonium I didn’t exactly prefer to the calm before the storm.
Like now.
There wasn’t a game for two days, and the last one had been three prior. A five day gap was almost unheard of, but here I was, getting lucky. As Marlene led me from the honeycombing of therapy niches, locker rooms and offices beneath the arena proper, I relished the quiet. When it came to sports, I’d rather be a fan or working behind the scenes – getting caught in between was a headache. But I wouldn’t have time to watch a basketball game from above the arena for the next few weeks. Thanks to the Vortex headed into the playoffs season, I was booked solid.
I thanked God and my overly generous brother for the bonuses coming my way, and grinned as I kept on a panting Marena’s heels up the stairs to the private boxes on the top level of the arena. Far below, I could see no less than ten members of the Vortex running drills, shooting basket after basket seamlessly before running
the length of the court.
They were some of the finest male specimens Vegas had to offer – tall, muscular, and at the top of their game professionally and athletically.
But they didn’t really interest me.
Not that a handful of them, like Bernie, hadn’t tried. I’d been asked out for dinner and drinks more times than I could count, and I firmly declined every single time. I was sure half the guys thought I was snooty as hell, but the truth of the matter was that I was just busy. Since my brother had landed me my internship with Tremont Therapy, I found that I barely had time to take a breather.
At first, I’d been so preoccupied with whether or not the internship would turn into an actual job that between the nail-biting and finishing my coursework, I’d been wound tighter than a bowstring. My last year of curriculum and medical certification was one of the hardest things I’ve ever gone through, but I managed to hold it down, graduate in the top ten percent of my class, and still find time to satisfy Adele’s demands to come to Cali for girl’s weekends.
But it had all been worth it.
I still remembered the day Jordan called me to tell me he had line me up an internship at a company that provided therapists to some of the best talent in sports. I had all but jumped up and down in excitement – much to the exasperation of my roommates at the time. Jordan and I had always been close, but for this favor I knew I owed him big. He’d probably want dinner at his favorite steak house and to gloat for a half hour or so, and that I could probably manage – even with my busy schedule.
Marlena finally brought me to box six, and inside, I saw Eli Spur – one of my bosses – hobnobbing with the head coach of the Vegas Vortex, Martin Lerner. It still blew my mind that I got to shake the hands of some of the most important people in the sporting world, and I was still grinning widely when Lerner left the box, nodding at me as he passed on the way back to his team. “Eli asked for you.” Marlena provided promptly, before racing after Lerner as if fire licked at her heels. I pitied the woman, but, to her merit, she was damned good at her job. It took a lot to work with several important men at once and stay professional.
Of course, if Marlena worked for Eli, she’d probably be shocked by how very unprofessional he was.
If I had gotten lucky landing a job with Tremont Therapy, I hit the goddamn jackpot when they assigned me Eli Spur for a supervisor. He was literally one of the most laid-back individuals I had ever met, on top of being an amazing therapist. Athletes liked him because he knew all their stats and didn’t take himself too seriously. Therapists who worked under him liked him because he was easy-going and humble, unlike the company chair, who was known to be a hard ass. I ducked into the box to find Eli lounging on one of multiple leather couches. Despite being close to fifty, his tall form was as well maintained as his graying beard. While he wasn’t really my type, I had more than one coworker plotting to take him home – and poor Eli was completely oblivious.
“Erica, how’s it going?” He waved me over and I smiled. Inside of a minute I took a seat on the couch across from him, waiting patiently as he worked his way through a number of forms on a clipboard.
“Great, Eli. Just straightened out Bernie’s leg. What’s up?”
Eli finished the page he was working on before setting the clipboard aside. When he fixed me with his blue gaze, his eyes gleamed with barely contained excitement. “I wanted to talk to you about an opportunity that’s come up. The moment Dale approached me, I thought of you.” Immediately, I sat up a little straighter. Dale was Eli’s boss – the big boss – and the fact that they had discussed me was no small matter.
“What kind of opportunity?” Honestly, I didn’t know whether to be terrified or elated. With Dale Tremont, you never knew, I’d heard.
“The kind that means big things for you.” Eli folded his fingers together, appearing to consider a moment before he spoke again. “Erica, we recently had a position open up in our west coast team. We’re looking for someone professional, efficient and knowledgeable to fill the void. Someone who can represent us well with some of the biggest teams in California – San Diego specifically.”
My heart almost leapt out of my chest.
Was he talking about me?
He couldn’t be talking about me. I only had two years’ experience with the company.
In the sports medicine field, everyone was dying to go to California – tons of sports teams, great facilities, amazing weather and mind-blowing bonuses for jobs well done. The idea that my company was offering me such an opportunity was both humbling and exciting as hell. “Anyway, Erica, I think you’d be a great fit.”
I could have died. Right then and there – would have proved just how green I really was. Instead, I just stared at Eli in disbelief, barely daring to believe what I was hearing. “It would just be a six month trial to start. You’d have to move to San Diego – that’s the only hardship.” He chuckled at his little joke. “Of course there would be a moving stipend and a huge bonus. If the job ends up being agreeable with you, the company’s prepared to offer you a position there permanently.”
I don’t consider myself too great with words, but I only had one for this particular situation: flummoxed.
I was fucking flummoxed.
That much must have been pretty apparent to Eli because he just chuckled and pulled a sheaf of papers from beneath his forms on the clipboard, sliding them across the low table that separated us. “Just take a few days to think about it. We’d certainly miss you here, but you’re a hard-worker, Erica. I’ve always seen you as destined for bigger and better things.”
I was floating.
Floating on air.
The sensation carried me out of the box and all the way out of the arena into the early afternoon sunlight. I didn’t even realize how tightly I was clutching the paper’s Eli gave me in my hand until I was sitting behind the steering wheel of my car. I took a deep breath, setting the papers on the passenger’s seat beside me –
And unabashedly whooped.
Within ten minutes I had been granted the rest of the day off by Eli and was headed home where I intended to celebrate with an overpriced six back of import German beer and an emergency call to Adele.
I couldn’t wait to hear her reaction.
“You’re staying with me, right?”
Predictable as ever, Adele was still issuing commands. As I sipped at my Helles – which had rightly cost me a fortune- and let her have her way. Unlike myself, Adele hadn’t spent her early twenties chasing a career – instead, she chased men. All the wrong types of men. The last guy had put a ring on her finger two weeks before she caught him in bed with someone else, and since then, she’d been trying to find herself – which meant a lot of three am phone calls.
“Unless you want me sleeping in your bed, I dunno about that.” I returned with a small smile. “I love you, ‘Dele, but I don’t think either of us are that desperate yet.”
“Fucking hilarious,” she shot back good naturedly. I could hear her shifting around on the other end of the line. “Really though. Lin’s moving out in the next two weeks. If you’re really serious about this, you can have her room – save all that juicy moving money.”
It was tempting.
Living with my cousin cum best friend and Jenny, who had moved away from Vegas three years prior to go to law school. Though I loved my job, I often found myself jealous of their easy going west-coast lifestyle. If Lin – their overly studious med-student second roommate- was indeed calling it quits, it was a good opportunity.
One I’d be a little crazy to overlook.
But that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to tease Adele a little. “You know I never said I was taking the position.”
All I got was a resounding snort of disbelief. “You’re taking it. It’s everything you’ve ever wanted, plus you’ll get to live with me. Done deal.” I couldn’t help but laugh at the mock authority in her tone. The blonde didn’t mince words, that was fo
r sure – but she was right. Cali was everything I hoped I’d accomplish in my profession – way before I thought I’d accomplish it. “But honestly, Erica, congrats. You deserve this. You’ve worked your ass off for it.”
I beamed – it was instinctive. I was going to California, I was going to be with Adele, and things couldn’t get any better.
As if in answer to my hype, the high chime of my doorbell suddenly echoed through the apartment. “Hold on Adele, there’s someone here, lemme call you back.” I hung up, tossing on a t-shirt over my sports bra to hurry to the front door. When it swung open, I was immediately enveloped in a bearlike hug.
“Just heard the news. Someone’s moving up in the world!”
Unlike most people I knew, a visit from my one and only sibling didn’t bother me. Quite the opposite. Jordan and I led such busy lives that we barely got a spare second to spend time together. That he’d come to visit me was a treat.
As he lifted me from my feet, I groaned, squirming. “Ok, Ok, I get it you’re big and strong. Put me down.”
“Big and strong and good-looking.” As per my request, he set me back on my feet with a winning smile.
Jordan was attractive- even if I’d teased him mercilessly through adolescence. He was a good ten years older than me, but time had soothed his inflamed acne scars and seen him through years of braces so he cut quite the impressive visage – or so any woman within earshot liked to tell me. People insisted that we looked alike, but the last time I checked, I didn’t have massive pecks and a jaw like an ion block. “Are you going to invite me in to congratulate you, or leave me out in the cold?”
“Yeah, the one hundred and two degree cold,” I chirruped smartly before making way to admit him to my apartment. Of course, my digs would seem modest to him. He was, after all the star quarter back of the Las Vegas Lights. He had three or four houses, including a penthouse with a gorgeous view of the Bellagio on the strip. No matter how much he wheedled, however, I wouldn’t let him buy me a place like he had our parents. I loved Jordan to death but I was intent on making my own way.