Players Game 01 - Fraternize

by Rachel Van Dyken

  I needed to talk to him and stop being that girl who just ran off without letting the guy explain. Because everything Miller said was true, and I refused to let history replay itself. I wouldn’t just ignore what my heart was saying in order to protect it from getting hurt again.

  So after our night practice—where I made leaps and bounds with a few of the girls on the squad by offering to help with the new routine, I drove over to Sanchez’s place.

  And, like a total coward, I sat in the car for a good ten minutes before I finally walked to the elevator, pressed the penthouse button, and made my way to the top.

  Loud music sounded from his apartment.

  Yelling followed.

  I knocked then let myself in.

  Players were everywhere, none of them drinking, and a lot of the party girls I’d seen over the past few weekends were hanging on them, stars and dollar signs in their eyes.

  Jax was in the kitchen staring at everyone like he normally did, like someone had elected him Dad and security at the same time.

  “Hey, Jax.” I bit my bottom lip. “Is Sanchez around?”

  Jax looked guilty. “He’s in his room, sleeping. It was my idea to have a party so the guys could let loose after everything yesterday. I promised him nobody would break shit.”

  “Ah . . .” I pointed at his glass. “That explains the water.”

  “We rarely drink during the season, you know that.” He shrugged. “And for the record, Emerson, he’s a really good guy. I have a little sister. I’m too protective to let you walk those few feet to his bedroom if I thought otherwise.”

  I swallowed the dryness in my throat. “Thanks, Jax.”

  “Anytime.” He winked.

  I made my way down the hall, palms sweaty. By the time I reached for the door to Sanchez’s bedroom, I was ready to throw up from nerves. How could I ever have thought that he wasn’t already part of my heart?

  “Come on, Grant.” A woman’s voice sounded from his room. “Nobody has to know. We can just kiss, whatever.”

  “Go away.” He didn’t sound like himself. “Seriously.”

  “Aw, c’mon, you’re too drunk to say no.”

  “Lily . . .”

  I knocked then shoved the door open. Sanchez was lying in bed shirtless, and the one cheerleader that had turned him down before was smothering him with her boobs, sans shirt.

  “Am I interrupting?” My voice cracked, I was ready to break her in half and then smack him in the face with her body.

  Sanchez glanced up, but his vision looked off. He glanced between Lily and me and stumbled out of bed. At least he had pants on. “S-s not what this looks like.”

  “Or is it?” Lily laughed and wrapped her arms around his waist. “Come on, Grant, you can tell her all about us.”

  My waist. That was my waist she was hugging.

  Tears threatened to fall.

  “Aw, the fat girl’s going to cry.” Lily laughed. “Why would he ever want you when he could have this?”

  I snorted. “At least I don’t have to get him drunk to get him into bed, Lily.”

  She glared, her cheeks burned bright red.

  “Get off me!” Sanchez stumbled even further from her. “Em, I swear . . .” He pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head.

  “Swear all you want honey,” Lily stood on her feet, still topless. “You asked for it and I gave it.”

  I nodded as Sanchez lowered his head, like he was guilty, like he was ashamed. “You know what? Have at it.” I stumbled backward, colliding with the door, and then started to run.

  Sanchez called my name.

  I ran out of his apartment and plowed right into Miller in the middle of the hall.

  His door was open, so I made a quick decision and barged through the opening, slamming the door behind me.

  I could hear yelling in the hall.

  “Whoa!” Miller shouted. “What the hell, Sanchez? Are you drunk?”

  “Nothing happened!” It sounded like they were fighting. “I swear!”

  “Sleep it off, man.” Miller’s voice was harsh. “I was just on my way over. Get whatever skanks you have in that apartment the hell out and sleep it off. I’ll talk to her.”

  “I love her.”

  I gasped, covering my face with my hands as fresh tears fell. Now? He had to choose this time in our lives to say he loved me?

  “I know, man. I know.” Miller’s voice was closer.

  And then Jax’s voice joined in as the sound of footsteps neared.

  I waited for Miller’s door to open, and when it did, I started sobbing.

  He caught me before I hit the ground, then picked me up like I weighed nothing and set me on the couch. He rocked me back and forth until all of my tears were dry. Until I wasn’t sure I could cry anymore.

  “What happened?” Miller finally asked.

  I shuddered in his arms, the arms I would have killed to be in for the past six years—the ones that suddenly felt so wrong. So foreign.

  Not the arms I wanted.

  Not anymore.

  “Lily was in his room. I mean I know he was drunk. He said no, I heard him, but she had her top off and then—” I cringed as fresh tears found their way down my cheeks. “She said—she said—” My stomach plummeted as a heavy weight pressed down on my chest. “—She said, Is the fat girl gonna cry? Why would he be with you when he could be with me?”

  I sobbed harder, so angry at myself for letting some naked teammate I’d only known for a few months, who was notorious for trying to sleep with the players, get through my armor!

  “Aw, baby girl.” Miller hugged me and then gently pushed me away. “Do you really think a guy like Sanchez wants a skinny bitch with small tits who doesn’t even know how to bake cookies?”

  “Yes!” I sobbed. “No!” I was hurt, and not thinking clearly, and letting old insecurities attack. “Because it makes no sense. Just like we made no sense. It makes no sense! And at the same time, I know I should go kick her ass!”

  “Yeah, you said sense already, and it’s probably unfair to kick her ass if she’s drunk and you’re sober, plus I taught you how to fight,” he teased, wiping my cheeks with his thumbs. “Look, she’s just jealous because you’re the only girl he’s ever paid attention to, and everyone knows it. And . . .” He shifted uncomfortably. “I guess it’s really no secret—our past—Jax knows, Kinsey knows, Thomas even found out after that first party. News like that spreads fast. There’s a giant red target on your back, and that’s on us. Not you.”

  I sniffed. “But—”

  “Nope.” He stood. “I’m not listening. You’re beautiful. You’ve always been beautiful. Inside and out.” He licked his lips. “And I’m glad that I’m not the only guy smart enough to realize that the inside and outside are that perfect. Even if he’s an idiot at least half the time.”

  “Seventy-five percent.” I laughed through my tears. “At least that much.”

  “Well, we are talking about Grant Sanchez.”

  “Such an idiot,” I whispered. “I was going to talk with him, give him a chance to explain.”

  Miller swore. “Look, he’s drunk off his ass. In fact, I’ve never seen him that drunk before. The guy could barely stand up. He never drinks during the season, which tells me one thing.”

  I swallowed my tears and looked away. “Oh yeah, what?”

  “He’s sad.” Miller grabbed my chin and forced me to look at him. “Care to guess why?”

  “Because . . .” I tried to look down.

  Miller held my head firm. “Because?”

  “Of me?” I guessed.

  “Bingo.” He released my face. “God knows I’d be drunk too if I lost you—Oh wait.” His smile was warm, but sad. “I don’t wish that on anyone, Em. I really don’t.”

  “It was my fault too.” I sighed. “I was angry. You may have moved, but the minute you didn’t answer, the minute I believed your dad and the things he said, I accepted them because I was angry with you for
leaving. And because, I think—well, obviously, I know—I was too insecure to believe that I had anything to offer you, other than—”

  Miller froze. “What? Other than what?”

  “I didn’t want to be that girl,” I whispered, and finally looked him in the eyes. He stood and paced in front of me. “The girl who got knocked up by her high school boyfriend, the one meant for greatness. I didn’t want to be that girl, Miller.”

  Miller swayed on his feet and then grabbed the edge of the couch. “What are you saying, Em?”

  We were having a stare down, both of our chests heaving with the effort to breathe.

  I took a deep breath. “I was pregnant.”

  He closed his eyes. Then shook his head. Then collapsed onto the couch, hanging his head between his knees like he was going to pass out.

  I kept talking, afraid that if I didn’t blurt it all out, I never would.

  “I found out eight weeks after you left. I thought I was just stressed, and then . . . then my dad took me to a doctor. I was sick, so sick, and it wasn’t going away, you know? I took some tests. And I called you once I saw they were positive. I was in the parking lot. Your dad answered. You know the rest. The minute he hung up, I flung my phone out of the car, and it shattered. Just like my heart. I blamed you. I was so angry that my best friend was gone, that I was going to have to fight without you, but mainly upset that you broke your promise, Miller. You broke it.” I realized I wasn’t crying. And I wasn’t sure why.

  But Miller?

  He was.

  Silent tears ran down his face before he quickly rubbed them away and stalked toward me. “You should have done everything in your power to tell me, Em. My child? You were pregnant. You were—”

  “I lost our baby,” I whispered, “the next day.”

  He froze as more tears welled in his eyes.

  “Maybe it was stress. Maybe I was too young. Maybe the baby just wasn’t healthy. I don’t know. By then, I knew you had your life, and I wasn’t a part of it, not anymore.”

  “Em—” Miller’s voice cracked. “I would have moved mountains for you and our child. You understand that, right?” He wiped his face and turned around. “How can you miss a life you never knew?”

  “I wasn’t sure if it was a boy or a girl, but it felt like a girl, you know? So, after everything happened, I gave her a name, and my dad and I set balloons free with her name on them in her memory.”

  “What’s her name?” He didn’t turn around. I could tell he was crying again.

  “Adera.” Saying the name didn’t hurt as bad as it used to. But it still hurt.

  When Miller’s shoulders hunched, I wrapped my arms around him from behind and rested my head against his back as my tears slid onto his shirt.

  “My mom’s middle name.” He sniffed.

  “Yeah.”

  “She would have been beautiful.”

  “Like her dad.”

  “I’m so fucking sorry.” He turned around and pulled me against him. “I had no idea. You went through that and your dad’s illness all by yourself.”

  I froze. “Who told you?”

  “Sanchez. We are friends, you know.”

  I sighed against his chest. “Yeah, I know. And yeah, I did.”

  “You have every right to hate me.”

  “No, I don’t.” I shook my head. “Miller, we were young. So damn young. We’re still young.” God, we were both only twenty-four!

  “I know.” He pressed the hair away from my face, tilted my chin up with his finger, and softly kissed my mouth. Then he pulled away.

  “Good-bye,” I whispered. “That was the goodbye kiss you never gave me.”

  “I was too afraid to.” He nodded. “And maybe a bit of a selfish prick about taking everything from you and being too hurt not to look back.”

  “I’m sorry too.” I felt hot from crying. “About everything. Not telling you . . .” I sniffled. “Sanchez . . .”

  Miller smiled the first real smile since I’d launched myself into his apartment. “And yet, it feels right, doesn’t it?”

  “I want to lie. I want to cling to safety, Miller. You’re my safe place. You’ve always been my safe place.”

  “Baby girl . . .” Miller cupped my face again. “I don’t want to be your safe place. I want to be your adventure. I want to be your risk, not the fallback. I deserve that, and so do you.”

  My smile was watery. “He scares me.”

  “Love always should.” He kissed the top of my forehead and separated us. “Em?”

  “Yeah?” I looked up.

  “Best friends again?”

  Tears filled my eyes for a completely different reason as I launched myself into his arms and hugged him as tight as I could.

  I was home.

  “Yeah, Miller. Best friends.”

  “Love you.”

  “I love you too.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  SANCHEZ

  I woke up with a splitting headache. My mouth was dry as hell, and water was the only thing on my mind.

  When I stumbled out to the kitchen, I noticed the entire place had been cleaned up from the party. I remembered having had one drink, which led to two, and then I’d started thinking about Emerson, which meant I’d grabbed a third, fourth—Hell, when had it even stopped?

  I found a glass and filled it up with water to the brim, then chugged at least three glasses before I finally leaned against the countertop and tried to conjure up memories from the night before.

  I’d stumbled to bed.

  Jax had sent me there, the bastard.

  I’d held my phone like a freaking child, waiting for Emerson to call.

  Hating the weakness I had for her.

  Almost as much as hating how much I loved her, because it made me feel weak, helpless—two words I rarely associated myself with.

  I’d been in bed . . .

  Lily.

  I froze.

  Lily had been in my room.

  Lily wanted to have sex . . . I think. I’d denied her, pissed, and then . . .

  “Shit!” I grabbed a pair of sweats, threw them on, and jerked open my door only to see Emerson standing there, hand poised to knock.

  “You’re here,” I choked out.

  “I’m here.” Her eyes were red, cheeks puffy. And she was wearing a giant sweatshirt that sure as hell was not mine, if the name Miller stamped across it was any indication. “To be fair, I was next door.”

  Rage overtook me, but before I was able to do something else stupid and add to my stellar record for the last twenty-four hours, Miller opened his door, took one look at me, and said, “Don’t be a jackass,” before sending me a knowing smirk and hitting the elevator button. After he stepped in, he turned and nodded at Emerson and said, “You don’t walk away from the girl, remember? Don’t be that idiot. He sucks.”

  I was the guy who stayed.

  I nodded jerkily at him as the doors closed and then stole a glance at Em.

  She slowly wrapped her arms around me and then pulled back and held up a grocery bag.

  I breathed her in with a shaky breath, my hands pressed against her shoulders, holding her there for a few seconds so my brain was able to actually tell my heart that it wasn’t a figment of my imagination. She truly was standing in my doorway.

  “I’m making breakfast. Go shower. You smell like whiskey and bad choices.”

  “You’ll be here?” I found myself saying, like an insecure dick. “When I get out?”

  “Yeah.” She smiled. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  I backed up then stole another glance at her. Then like an idiot, did it again before finally walking into the restroom.

  I got as far as brushing my teeth and making sure that I didn’t look like shit, before I gripped the sink, huffed out a breath, then charged back into the kitchen.

  “Grant—”

  I devoured every word she was going to say.

  Any sentence that would come next.


  But I silenced her with my kiss.

  My hands dug into her ass as I lifted Emerson onto the table and deepened the kiss. I wrapped her legs around me so I could get closer, because with Em, I was never close enough—and sometimes I wondered if I ever would be.

  Tears collided with my lips.

  I’d made that happen.

  I’d hurt her.

  I broke off the kiss. “Never again.”

  “Never again?” she repeated in confusion.

  “I never want to make you cry again. But I know I will, because I’m a selfish jackass who has a fucking poster of his own face in his living room.”

  Her lips twitched.

  “And I know I’m going to mess up. I don’t want to, but narcissists tend to be fully aware of their own flaws.”

  “You aren’t a narcissist.”

  “In high school, I referred to myself in the third person.”

  Her eyebrows shot up. “Yeah, I would have kicked your ass in high school.”

  “I would have deserved it.” I cupped her face. “I deserve it now. I deserve a good ass kicking every day. It’s why I’m a wide receiver.” I grinned. “Em, I need you.”

  “I need you too.”

  “I won’t be that guy.” I kissed her again then pulled back. “The one that walks away, the one who gives you up to be the bigger person. I will never be the bigger person, I’m too selfish for that. I know . . .” My voice cracked. Damn, this speech wasn’t going how I wanted it to. “I know you guys have a past. But can you leave it there? So I can be your future?”

  “Grant Sanchez, did you just propose to me?”

  “You’re such a smartass,” I grumbled.

  She threw her head back and laughed through her tears. “Come here.” She hopped off the counter and grabbed my hand. I was afraid to speak as she continued tugging me toward my bedroom, and then, very slowly, stepped over the threshold. “You said I wasn’t allowed in your bed—not until he was gone, right?”

  “Right.” My voice cracked again, revealing my weakness—her.

  “Then . . .” She turned and faced me. “Here I am. What are you going to do?”

  I fell to my knees in front of her as she ran her hands through my buzzed hair. “I’m going to love you.”

  “I thought you didn’t make love? What’s all this bad-boy talk about sex? Hmm?”