Pick Six

by Max Monroe

  I really liked Cassie, even when she was texting me incessantly about her brother’s knee. She was hilarious and sweet and often said the craziest shit that had me laughing my ass off.

  Hell, I even adored her husband, Thatch.

  Getting close with Sean’s family had never been my intention, but somehow, it just kind of happened.

  His sister and brother-in-law aren’t the only ones you’re getting close with…

  Refusing to give that train of thought any more fuel, I pushed my focus back to the field.

  But when I caught sight of Sean standing on the fifty-yard line with a giggly, smiley Dallas cheerleader clinging to his side, it was pretty fucking hard to stop my mind from racing with thoughts. And doubts.

  She touched his bicep and tossed her head back in laughter, her long blond locks creating a lush arc of silky strands.

  And he smiled down at her.

  My heart felt like an off-kilter elevator cart, whooshing from my chest to my goddamn toes in a matter of seconds.

  I kind of hated how much it bothered me, seeing him chatting up another woman.

  I mean, for all I knew, maybe he knew her? Maybe they were good friends?

  Maybe they’re fuck buddies?

  I cringed at my own thoughts, and the biggest question on my mind played on a loop.

  Am I getting too close to Sean Phillips?

  Cheers rang out in the locker room as everyone hollered and offered slaps and hits to the shoulder. Those might not seem like the signs of a good time, but I can assure you—to a bunch of overgrown boy-men, they were.

  We’d been gnashing our teeth and shit-talking for hours on the field, and it was only natural some of that would transfer to a euphoric version in the locker room after a seemingly impossible win.

  “Fuck yeah, Phillips!” Teeny congratulated, pounding me on the ass and then picking me up on his shoulder for a spin. “That fucker they put as your cover couldn’t touch you with a ten-foot pole!”

  I laughed and high-fived Quinn as Cam pulled me down, but inside, I was dying to be rid of these fuckers. I spent more hours than I could count in their company, and tonight, I could only think of one person I wanted to be around.

  Under.

  On top of.

  I’d take any fucking position I could get.

  “Get your ass in the shower,” I advised, shoving Teeny away with a laugh. “Go stroke yourself or something.”

  “Oh! Kinky, Sean-y.”

  I laughed as Quinn shook his head.

  “A bunch of two-year-olds, really.”

  “Oh, sorry,” I cooed. “We can’t all be as dignified as you, Southern boy.”

  Quinn laughed at that. “Yeah, well, you, I can forgive. Your sister is worse than you are, so I have a feeling your homelife didn’t give you much of a choice.”

  “She’s straightforward,” I defended out of familial obligation.

  Quinn didn’t buy into it for a second. “Cassie is straight crazy, son. You know it, I know it, that big fucking husband of hers knows it.”

  “Yeah, but she’s hot,” Cam butted in.

  I shoved him away and went back to putting my T-shirt on over my freshly showered skin and slipping my boxer briefs underneath my towel. When I pulled it off, I had them in place, so I reached for my jeans, eager to get the hell out of here.

  “You going out with us?” Cam asked, and I shook my head.

  “I don’t know. Feeling like laying low tonight.”

  “Boringgggg!” Teeny shouted from the shower, having overheard me.

  I looked to Quinn as he laughed at me. “What? You’re not going out with them either.”

  Quinn shrugged. “Yeah, I am. Cat’s coming with.”

  “Wow. That’s surprising.”

  Quinn flipped me off. “Dallas is a big win. We gotta celebrate.” He looked across the room to Cam doing his best rendition of a scene from Dirty Dancing and shook his head. “Plus, someone has to keep these assholes out of trouble.”

  I raised my eyebrows in a nod and flicked out a hand in goodbye. Quinn called out as I was leaving, but I didn’t turn back. “What are you doing?”

  “Nothing,” I lied. “Absolutely nothing.”

  A crowd of family and friends waited in the receiving area, and I scanned the faces for one I found familiar.

  None stood out as the one I was after.

  Too big. Too pointy. Not nearly delicate enough. They were all a smeared depiction of everything Six wasn’t.

  Disappointment settled in the pit of my stomach as I considered the possibility that she hadn’t waited for me.

  Disinterested in interacting with any of the guys again and explaining my change of heart, I headed for the side of the building where our bus would be waiting. We’d have to take it back to the hotel before going anywhere else anyway, and at this point, I wasn’t even sure I’d do anything but go to my room.

  Darkness faded as I walked out of the back tunnel, and little lights shone at the top of the wall next to the ceiling. This was Dallas’s loading and unloading hub for visiting teams, and I’d been here for more than my fair share of games. It was kind of surreal, but the more times I did it, the more it seemed to become commonplace. I never wanted that for myself—to take the gifts I’d been given for granted—so I forced myself to study the magnitude of it all.

  The halls were enormous and the space busy with employees. A stadium of incomparable size sat above us, and just an hour ago, it’d been filled to the brim with people who paid their hard-earned money to watch my teammates and me play a game against the players of Dallas.

  I swore to myself then, no matter how hard I had to work to keep myself grounded, I’d never forget the details.

  The bus in front of me, I focused my step and lengthened my stride. The smack of my feet on the concrete floor was mesmerizing, and I’d nearly lulled myself into a state of subconsciousness when the voice came at me from my side and startled me.

  “Hey, stranger.”

  With wild hair and brown, beautiful eyes, Six was decked out in a criminally well-fitting pair of jeans and a leather jacket, and the boots on her feet were a girlie version of combat. Her tank top was the color of mustard and low-cut, and the look of it against her caramel skin made my cock jerk without permission.

  “I thought you’d left,” I said by way of greeting.

  She shook her head tauntingly, a slow reminder of the feel of her hair as it danced against my chest. I wanted to spend an hour taking her in while we ate dinner, and then I wanted to spend the rest of the night watching her take me.

  “Come to dinner with me,” I offered, going after what I wanted without preamble. But a flash of her eyes made me reconsider the state of my politeness. “Please.”

  She looked down the hall behind me, almost as if she could summon more of the guys with her eyes. “We should go out with the team.”

  Out with the team? God, that sounded awful.

  “Why? They smell. Awful. Honestly, I was just in the locker room with them, and I almost didn’t survive.”

  Six laughed. “I’ve been the locker room with all of you before, remember? The smell was potent, but the penises were a powerful counteraction.”

  My smile was mischievous. “I could counteract your desire to go out with them with my penis.”

  “That kind of power really only happens with multiple penises.”

  The image of her having a threesome—or God, a foursome—popped into my mind unbidden. I swallowed thickly. “You have experience with multiple penises a lot? Like, is that a thing for you?”

  Six winked, and my heartbeat shredded in an unexpected rhythm.

  “Wow. I don’t know how to feel right now,” I admitted. “All I know is that it’s a mix of arousal and fear.”

  “Scared of me, huh?” she taunted.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. The more it settles, the more I dig it.”

  “Well, then,” she said with a teasing lilt. “Use tonight to practice
sharing me.”

  On cue and without my invitation, the guys came pouring out from the hall, headed for the bus.

  They were just as rowdy as ever, but thankfully, now clothed.

  Teeny barreled toward us at a run and scooped Six off her feet, dropping her into a groom’s carry and swaying her back and forth. Just the sight of his hands on her made my temples pulse, but I tamped it down.

  She wasn’t mine to feel protective over.

  “Thank God I found you, Sixy,” Teeny sang. “Leaving women alone with Sean almost always leads to defilement.”

  “You’re too late,” Six teased, touching the tip of his nose and throwing her head back with abandon. “I’m completely besmirched.”

  Teeny laughed uproariously.

  “Shoot, girl, you’re funny. Can you imagine?”

  I frowned hard, the lines of my mouth making my skin pull in ways I wasn’t used to.

  Why the hell was the idea of us together so fucking funny?

  “Golfing? Whose idea was it to go fucking golfing?” Sean asked as we barreled down the highway in Cat’s rental car. None of the guys had anything to drive here in Dallas, but apparently, Quinn was a real forward-thinker when Cat attended. If the hotel bar wasn’t an option, or they came up with something to do, he knew they would be needing wheels.

  And he’d rented her a Suburban.

  He drove cautiously and calmly, the radio thumping quietly with nineties rap in the background, but the rest of the guys acted like lunatics. It was really no wonder they put Quinn in charge in group situations.

  Sean glanced to Quinn and narrowed his eyes. “No doubt, this is all your doing.”

  “What? Why?” Quinn asked innocently as he steered us off an exit and reached out to capture Cat’s hand. I watched with rapt attention, completely unable to look away while he planted his lips on the skin there and lingered.

  God, they are so sweet.

  “Southern money,” Sean offered vaguely, and we all turned to look at him. It wasn’t like him to be so vague, so obviously, he expected Quinn to know what he was talking about.

  Turns out, Quinn was just as clueless as the rest of us.

  “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

  Cat spun her upper body, her hand still in Quinn’s grasp but now relegated to the top of his thigh. She made no moves to pull away, but she did roll her eyes at me—and never even hesitated as she ratted her boyfriend right out. “It was him.”

  I admired her ruthlessness.

  “He’s been wanting to go the Topgolf back home but had been struggling to find a captive audience, what with you all having your own lives,” she explained further.

  I thought back to the beginning of my time with the Mavericks, to my unplanned trip to the locker room and thoughts of a particular golf handicap—ten inches, to be exact—and blushed. Thank God my thoughts were private.

  “Oh!” Cam yelled from his seat on the other side of Sean. “She sold you down the river, QB.”

  We were a threesome in the middle row, cramped with the size of their shoulders, even with the lack of mine. I’d offered magnanimously, as the smallest person in the car, to take the dreaded middle seat, but Sean had cut that off immediately and taken it himself. It was almost like he didn’t want me to be that close to Cam.

  Weird.

  “What if I’ve never golfed?” I asked, eager to do my sisterly duty and take some of the heat off Cat. Not that she seemed all that concerned.

  Quinn laughed, more than willing to focus on me rather than the ragging of his girlfriend, even if the person she’d sold out had been him. “That’s actually more fun. I’ll be sure to stand as far away as possible when you’re up, though.”

  I pushed an elbow into Sean’s ribs and lowered my voice to a whisper.

  “What about you? Have you golfed?”

  “Once,” he admitted, a hard swallow making his throat bob. His eyes were manic as he glanced at me and then forward again. The eye contact was there but fleeting, and nowhere near consistent with the level of Sean’s normal confidence.

  My eyes narrowed as I asked, “Why was that word so filled with trauma?”

  Sam Sheffield leaned forward from the seat behind us and surprised me. “He went with his brother-in-law and his friends, and he was awful. Thatch still hasn’t let him live it down to this day.”

  The name Thatch stuck in my throat. I’d had firsthand experience with the guy now, and he was seriously irresistible. I wasn’t about to tell Sam that, though.

  I could only imagine the ragging he gave Sean on a daily basis. From what I’d witnessed of the guy, he didn’t exactly seem like the quitting type. No, he seemed like he’d make you live in a hell of your own making until the day you died, just for his enjoyment.

  I pulled my lips in on themselves and tried to say something positive. “Practice is good, then, right?”

  Sam laughed. “It would be if he weren’t banned from the course.”

  My eyes widened, and I coughed a startled laugh before I could stop it. “Banned?”

  “It’s a long story,” Sean mumbled.

  He couldn’t be thinking this was the kind of thing he could leave at that, could he? I mean, I lived for these kinds of stories. Hell, I’d built most of my career as a YouCam blogger with similar ones of my own. “One you’re going to tell me, right?”

  “If he doesn’t, I will,” Cam offered, obviously listening in as well. I laughed at how cutthroat they were for being teammates and mused about doing a segment about it at some point. There had to be something to it.

  Teammates on the field. Enemies at the after party.

  Pretty sure that would land me a pretty healthy lawsuit from Wes Lancaster.

  “I told you. We should have gone out ourselves,” Sean insisted quietly. Not quietly enough. The quarters were close, and my, oh my, Grandma, the ears were large in this car.

  Sam laughed. “Oh, come on, Sean. Six is smarter than that.”

  Sean’s smile faded immediately, and a twinge of disquiet turned in my chest.

  Sam’s words were among the scariest I’d ever heard.

  Because all I could do from that point on was study the planes of Sean’s disappointed face. The heavy line of his brow. The sharp downturn of his eyes. The ragged misshape of his mouth.

  A sadness clung to him and made me want to reach inside to find the root. Would it be deep and endlessly seated, or was it new growth?

  And was there a way I could fix it?

  Realizing how quickly my thoughts had fallen victim to the death nail in every woman’s coffin—the fantasy of a man who needed her—I frowned.

  I feared the truth with acute terror—I wasn’t smart. When it came to Sean Phillips, I’d proven I wasn’t smart at all.

  “Control your club!” Sam cheered, two beers making him louder and much more direct. He went out a lot, but typically drank very little. But the victory against Dallas was a big occasion—apparently, big enough to imbibe fully—and it was funny to see such a big guy get drunk so quickly. “Line it up with your balls. That’s very important for follow-through.”

  We’d been at Topgolf in Dallas, an establishment where droves of people flocked to hit golf balls on a high-tech driving range, drink, and eat for entertainment. Fuck if I could understand the appeal, but I didn’t mind being out with Six.

  She had been acting weird since we’d gotten out of the car, though.

  Taking a seat at the back of our personal driving bay, I’d done my best to stay out of the action, instead laughing and talking as the other people in our party made fools of themselves.

  Six had spent most of her time laughing and joking with Teeny, and she’d only recently ventured back to the end of the table I occupied.

  I was just about to strike up a conversation with her when Quinn stole my mojo.

  “Come on, Six,” Quinn called. “I’ve been watching you up here, around the side, back there—everywhere to avoid taking a turn. Don’t think I’m goin
g to let you get away with it.”

  She widened her eyes innocently and shook her head, but Quinn wasn’t born yesterday. As the most mature of the group, he had a general eye for bullshit and didn’t usually tolerate it. I, on the other hand, swam in it. If nothing else, my sister’s crazy ways had trained me to ride the wave. Whether she was tight-lipped or, to my utter dismay and personal disturbance, going free tit, Cassie could always find a way to take it further. She’d punched men in the balls on several occasions and danced with numerous strangers. She’d requested STD results in the DJ booth of a bar, danced with old men, done a Jell-O shot and thrown it up in the same breath, and I’d been a witness to it all. Anything I could say or do would be used against me, and as a result, I’d kind of adapted that approach with all women.

  I wasn’t sure it was right, but it was what I knew.

  I smiled slightly at Six’s uncomfortable laughter as she got to her feet, and unfortunately, Quinn noticed. With an active point and a face of steel, he swore me to my fate.

  “You too, Sean. You’re next.”

  I flipped him off, but he just laughed. It would take a hell of a lot more than a flying finger to effectively threaten Quinn Bailey into submission. I pondered briefly turning my torment to his girlfriend Cat, but it didn’t take more than a moment to reconsider.

  Quinn was a gentle soul, but if I riled the wrong side of his personality by taunting the one person he loved most, I could kiss my balls goodbye.

  And they wouldn’t be mutilated in a quick fashion either. No way, QB was too precise and calculated to do anything hurried.

  Well, unless, he was in the pocket and had a linebacker driving toward him with the intention of taking his fucking head off.

  “Which club should I use?” Six asked, rounding the table and surveying the tub of Topgolf-provided clubs.

  “Mine’s free,” Cam volunteered, and I reached forward and slapped him on the back of the head.

  Six’s smile was gleefully thankful. The knot in my stomach eased just minutely.

  “Any one you want,” Quinn explained, glancing chidingly at us hoodlums. “Any with the blue on them are sized for women.”