More than Friends: (A Friends to Lovers Standalone Romance)

by Jillian Quinn

  When I get out of the car and walk up to the building, Liam and Shane are already waiting for me at the door off to the side, with their hands stuffed inside their winter jackets. Of all my teammates, only Liam and Shane have welcomed me to the team. Parker, Kane, and Donovan have all been dicks. In fact, Tyler Kane even went as far as asking our coach to bench me. He thinks I play dirty and that I am not a team player.

  Kane can think whatever he wants. I didn’t lead my college team to three championships because I used tricks and shady tactics to get us there. The first few weeks with the Flyers was rough. At least I have Liam and Shane. They help to lessen the tension in the locker room and on the ice.

  “About time,” Liam says. “We thought you were going to bail on us again.”

  “Nope, not this time. You’re stuck with me tonight.”

  “Let’s get this party started,” Shane says, pressing a buzzer next to the door.

  A few seconds later, a beautiful brunette in a tight mini skirt opens the door with a smile. “Welcome back,” she says, hooking her arm around Shane’s back.

  “Hey, Drea.” He smacks a kiss on her cheek that she wipes off with a goofy smirk.

  “Hey, yourself, Shane.” She leans into him, showing off an impressive rack, mostly covered by silky, dark waves.

  “We have a new teammate we need you to break in,” Liam says to Drea. “Show him the VIP treatment.”

  Drea holds her palm out to me with a smile. “What’s your name, handsome?”

  “Dean.”

  Drea leads me into the dim club, flanked by Liam and Shane. “Oh, I’ve heard a lot about you. Dean Crawford, right?”

  I nod. “That’s me.”

  “You’re even better looking in person.”

  “Thanks, I guess.”

  Inside, the place looks like your typical strip club—neon lights, mirrored walls, leather benches, tables with chairs, three stages toward the front, and a mass of guys who crowd around the girls. But it smells good. The scent of herbs and spices lingers in the air instead of the usual smell of cigarettes, desperation, and sex.

  Drea steers me into a private room with the same colored lights and leather couches as the rest of the establishment. The dark marble floors have a shine to them. A small chandelier suspends from the center of the mirrored ceiling. Everywhere I look, I can see my reflection staring back at me.

  Behind a small bar to my right, a blonde woman waits for us, topless. She flashes a sexy smile and welcomes us. Her tits jiggle as she raises a bottle of vodka, looking like the girl next door. The worst part is that she reminds me of Kat. I should call her again. Maybe that would make me feel less guilty about coming here.

  Drea holds out her hand and points at the couches. “Gentlemen, make yourselves comfortable. I will get the girls. Dean, do you have a preference?”

  “Nope,” I mutter.

  “You already know what we like,” Liam says.

  “Yeah, she does,” Shane says, staring at the girl serving drinks. He licks his lips at her and stalks toward the bar, ignoring us.

  Drea nods and walks out of the room.

  Shane comes back with the bartender. She has three shot glasses in her hands. I take the glass from her, knocking it back in one gulp. The vodka burns on the way down. It has been months since my last drink. My last time was when I got hammered with Kat and the twins by the pool. What I wouldn’t give to go back to college, even for only a few days.

  Liam shakes the bartender from his arm and moves toward me. “You might not believe me, but this place has the best Italian food in the city.”

  I roll my eyes at him. “You’re fucking with me, right? We’re in a strip club.”

  “No shit,” he says. “I’m serious. You have to try the food.”

  The thought of eating in a strip club makes me want to vomit. After another intense workout with our trainer, my stomach hurts too much for me to ignore the hunger pains. What will Kat say about me eating in a strip club? She would probably laugh, and then, tell me I am disgusting.

  I follow Liam and Shane to the buffet set up at the back of the room. A young girl in a black tank top stands behind the table, a plate in her hand and ready to serve us.

  Liam shoves his hand through his shaggy brown hair and gives her one of his boyish smiles. “I’ll have a little of everything.” He glances over his shoulder at me. “What do you want?”

  I look at the girl behind the table. “Whatever he’s having.”

  I could care less what we eat as long as the food is good. Still, the idea of eating in a strip club has me laughing on the inside. This is ridiculous. Shane and Liam had insisted that coming here was a right of passage for new players. I guess this is my initiation. Given the situation, Kat has to give me a pass. I would not come here on my own.

  After the server hands us our plates, we sit on the couches and eat our food. I shovel lasagna, chicken, and who knows what else in my mouth and wipe the plate clean. By the time Drea reappears with a handful of girls, we’ve already had seconds.

  Per Shane’s request, one of the girls sits a tray of shot glasses on the table in front of us. I have no intention to drink my share of them. We have to get up early for practice. Plus, I have to drive back to my apartment and be at least somewhat coherent.

  Leaning back against the leather, I pound a few shots before a blonde hops onto my lap, completely nude, as if I didn’t already feel guilty enough. Out of fear I will look like a pussy in front of my teammates, I embrace the lap dance.

  Liam has his arm wrapped around a brunette with pasties on her nipples, while Shane has two girls, one on each of his thighs, and his face shoved between their breasts.

  Shane reaches around the girl to his right and nudges me with his elbow. “You can smile when the other guys on the team aren’t around. It won’t kill you, Crawford.”

  I glance over at Shane and laugh. “Easy for you to say.”

  “We’ve all been there,” Liam says. “Don’t let Kane get under your skin. He’s like a child. If you keep feeding into his bullshit, he will keep fucking with you.”

  “Does he do that with every rookie?”

  Shane shrugs. “Just about. Don’t take it personally. It’s his way of breaking you in.”

  I drink the amber liquid in my glass and lean forward to set it on the table. “He has a funny way of showing it.”

  “Most of the guys go along with whatever Kane says. Ignore them. Play hard, continue showing up to practice on time, and keep your head down. If you do that for a few months and throw in a few points in the process, they’ll stop giving you a hard time.”

  Liam nods in acknowledgment and downs a shot of whiskey.

  The conversation with my teammates was a nice distraction from the girl on my lap. I pretend to be interested. Under different circumstances, I would have been in worse shape than Shane and Liam. Leaning my head back on the cushion, I close my eyes, thinking of Kat. All day, she consumes my thoughts.

  Five more songs, I tell myself. Then, I need to get out of here and call Kat again before she goes to sleep.

  A few songs quickly turned into three more hours. Somehow, Shane and Liam managed to convince me to stay. It wasn’t for my lack of trying. After I stagger out to my car and slip inside, I check the time on the dashboard and call Kat once more.

  “Hello.” Her voice sounds distant, as if she’s half asleep. The sound of her voice puts me at ease.

  “Did I wake you, Kitten?”

  “Yeah, but it’s okay. I crashed after dinner. I’m up now. How was your day?”

  “Busy. Weird. How about you?”

  She laughs. “Mine was okay, nothing special. I worked on a press report for one of our big clients. That was about all the excitement I had today. Your day was weird. How so?”

  “Full disclosure: I thought I was meeting Liam and Shane for a drink at a sports bar, and they took me to a strip club. Please don’t be mad at me.”

  She sighs into the phone. “I’m not, D
ean. At least you told me instead of hiding it.”

  “I miss you,” I say, clutching the steering wheel.

  “I miss you, too, Dean. More than you know.”

  “This is getting hard with us living in different cities. I wish you would consider my offer to come live with me. You would love my new condo. It has a view of the city and is close to all the restaurants you like.”

  “I wish I could move there, but I have my internship and my whole life in Chicago.”

  “You could do the same thing in Philly. I’m sure your dad knows someone in sports broadcasting or communications in the city.”

  “We’ve had this conversation dozens of times, Dean. I want to finish my internship and see if they offer me a full-time position before I make any decisions about us. Okay?”

  “Okay,” I say, frustrated. “I need to see you. Just hearing your voice is making me hard. Fly out here for the weekend, or I can come to Chicago.”

  “Are you hard?” She purrs the words into the phone.

  I grab myself over my jeans. “Yeah, I wish you were here to take care of me.”

  “Are you still at the strip club?”

  “In the parking lot.”

  “Gross.” The way she says it makes me laugh. “Call me when you get home, and I will talk you through your problem.”

  “Phone sex, now we’re talking, Kitten. You should FaceTime me so that I can jerk off to your tits. I swear they’re getting bigger.”

  “Hello, Dirty Dean,” she says, laughing.

  “What? I’m a man, and I love your tits. They’re fucking perfect.”

  “In some strange way, this conversation is making me miss you even more,” she says.

  “I know what you mean. I miss us and the way things were when we were in college. Life was so much simpler back then. We should have done this a long time ago instead of waiting. Not telling you how I feel sooner will always be my biggest regret.”

  “Mine, too,” she admits. “If only we had more time together. Being an adult sucks ass.”

  “Tell me about it. Try playing for a team that hates your guts.”

  “They don’t hate you. Stop being so dramatic.”

  “I’m serious. It’s not like playing for the Senators.”

  “Back then, you were a big fish in a little pond. Now, you’re a little fish in an ocean. You have to earn the respect of the older players. They will not hand it to you. Give it time. Even Duke, if you can believe it, had issues with his teammates his rookie year. Hang in there, and things will work out. Once they see how amazingly talented you are, they won’t hassle you as much.”

  “Thanks, Kitten. Now, how about that phone sex?”

  “Oh, Dean,” she hisses. “Call me when you get home, and you can get me off, too.”

  “Good thing I only live ten minutes away from here.”

  “Be careful, please. I know you were drinking. Drive safe.”

  “Yes, Mom,” I deadpan.

  She chuckles. “Call me when you’re in bed and ready for me.”

  “I will. Make sure you stay awake.”

  “I promise.”

  A few seconds later, we hang up. All I can think about is getting home as fast as possible so that I can have some much needed alone time with Kat. I will take what I can get.

  Chapter 19

  Five months after the NHL Draft

  Kat

  Anxious, I remove my cell phone from my bag and flip through the notifications. I frown when it sinks in that none of them are from Dean. Again. If I didn’t want this internship to turn into a full-time position, I would have packed up my shit and went home for the day. But I am not a quitter, no matter how much I want to throw in the towel.

  My moods shift from happy to sad in an instant. Even I am sick of being around myself, let alone my brothers, who were happy to leave for college and hockey. I was a raging bitch for most of the summer, especially after Dean left.

  Becca, my former roommate and now co-worker, taps me on the shoulder, forcing me to look up from my cell phone. “Did you hear from your boyfriend?”

  I shake my head and set the phone on the table next to me. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

  She shrugs. “You know what I mean.”

  “Nope, I haven’t heard from him.”

  Even though it has been four months since I last saw Dean, we either talk or text every day. Except for the last three days. What is he doing? I should text him, but I don’t want to interrupt him. Not like Dean would answer anyway since he’s supposed to be at practice.

  Having been through this with my family, I tried to tell Dean that a relationship would be hard on both of us. If you can even call what we have a relationship anymore. Despite my better judgment, I told Dean I would give this a shot. But the pain of being alone all the time is killing me, ripping me to shreds from the inside out.

  With my hormones out of whack, it’s even harder on me to go for long periods of time without hearing from Dean. I still haven’t told him about the baby because I thought we would have more time together. He should hear the news in person. But that seems less likely by the day. Most days, I’m lucky if I get to talk to him for ten minutes before he has to hang up.

  “How are you feeling?” Becca tips her head toward my stomach. “Have you told your dad yet?”

  “No, I’m not sure how to tell him.”

  “Call him on the phone and say, I’m pregnant, and then hang up.” She laughs. “I’m joking, but in all seriousness, that might be easier than what you’ve been doing.”

  “I see my dad so little that I haven’t found the right time, you know. I’m his only daughter. I feel like a massive disappointment.”

  She leans back in her chair and glances around the lunchroom. “I still can’t believe it took until you started showing to tell me. I thought we were homies.”

  I laugh. “You’re the first and only person I told. Consider yourself part of my inner circle.”

  “What about your baby daddy?”

  I shake my head from side to side. “No, I think it will be better this way.”

  I have become the kind of person I hate—a liar. Anymore, all I do is lie to the people I care about, all because I don’t want to tell anyone about the baby. He’s coming whether I plan or not, yet I keep pushing off telling everyone.

  “Your son should have a father.”

  “Easier said than done, Bec. I tried to tell him a million times, and I can’t do it. Nothing comes out. I freeze up.”

  “You should tell Dean.”

  I clear my throat, choking on my soda. “No.”

  “You used to tell him everything. What happened to you guys?”

  Everything. Too much. A baby.

  “We’re growing apart,” I confess, saddened by the shift in our relationship. “Dean has hockey. I have this baby and an internship.”

  “I always thought you two would end up together, especially after you guys hooked up.”

  “We had bad timing and too much distance between us.”

  “You two would have made a cute couple.”

  I smile to hide the pain on the inside.

  For most of my life, I’ve held everything in, out of fear of bothering someone with my problems. With my older brothers having to raise the twins and me, they had enough to deal with when we were kids. My dad could hardly function, other than to play hockey after my mom died. We are finally moving on with our lives. The last thing I want to do is throw another curveball their way. But I have to come clean.

  “Thanksgiving is next month. You should tell everyone before you’re sitting down for dinner, ready to pop out a baby.”

  “I still have some time after Thanksgiving.”

  “Not much.” She tugs on my arm. “Stop being so stubborn and tell someone other than me. All this stress cannot be good for the baby.”

  “You’re right. The doctor said my heart rate was a little high when I went for my last checkup.”

  “You are depriving
your child of a father. He should have the chance to see his son. You should send him the other copy of the sonogram.”

  “His birthday is next week,” I joke, even though it’s the truth. Dean will be twenty-three next Tuesday. “I don’t think Dean would be too thrilled about my surprise.”

  “Isn’t Dean’s birthday around Halloween?”

  “It’s on Halloween. Don’t you remember all the parties he threw at his house to celebrate?”

  She chuckles. “That was how Dirty Dean was born. I miss those parties already. Real life sucks.”

  “Tell me about it. What I wouldn’t give to turn back the clock and go back to college for another month.”

  “I can’t believe Dean is the father.” She leans forward and puts her elbows on the table, holding me with her gaze.

  I look away from her, ashamed.

  She lowers her voice to a whisper. “Cheer up, Kat. Dean Crawford is your baby daddy. You sure know how to pick them.”

  I hold my finger up to my mouth, turning in her direction. “Shh…”

  “What? It’s not like I would tell anyone.”

  “We work for a sports magazine. No one can know about this, okay?”

  “So, that’s why you’ve been so tight-lipped about the situation.”

  “Yes. I don’t want my personal life to interfere with this internship.”

  “Someone will find out eventually, don’t you think? A baby is not an easy secret to keep. Once he’s born, people will start asking more questions.”

  “Well, that’s the benefit of not having a massive belly and living in a city that’s cold. I can get away with a lot of bulky sweaters and oversized clothes.”

  “I still can’t believe your dad hasn’t noticed. You live in the same house.”

  “He’s only home once a week, and when we hang out, he’s not staring at my stomach. Even if he noticed my weight gain, he would never say a word.”

  “But you are on his insurance plan. Doesn’t he see the bills from the doctor?”

  “No, they go to his accountant for him to pay.”