Rumor Has It (Jock Star Book 1)

by Caterina Campbell

  I hug him. “Do you want my wristband?” I’m dead serious. I want nothing more than to bag it now that I know what the hell Red Hooligans is. Toolbag would enjoy it more. The last thing I want to do is spend my birthday avoiding Vance at a club he frequents. Toolbag is too good to take my bait and declines, leaving me with plans I never asked for in an environment probably better suited for models with size F boobs.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  At nine p.m., a black stretch limo and its well-groomed driver arrive at the hotel to take us to Red Hooligans. It’s a fairly short ride, all things considered for San Jose, and we pull up in front of the club, where a long line of hopefuls has formed just like Toolbag described.

  The driver says something to one of four thick bouncers, and another one lifts a section of the velvet rope for us to pass through. I look briefly for Toolbag and his friends but don’t have long before I’m pushed through like branded cattle.

  The bouncer, dark-skinned and bald, guides us to a concierge-type booth and tells us to enjoy our night. It’s at this booth that I get to show my I.D. for the first time since turning twenty-one. The attendant, a girl in a skin-tight black micro-mini, tells us the team should be arriving soon and to feel free to dance before heading up the staircase with our VIP passes.

  In the club, loud music and lights assault the majority of my senses, leaving only my sense of smell, which is currently being consumed by my mom’s perfume, sprayed way too heavily for a woman with a day job.

  Dressed in a mid-thigh, two-toned, olive green and black mini-dress with long bell sleeves and peek-a-boo shoulders, I feel pretty, even as my nerves scream to run and my inner thighs wince at further abrasion. Next to Bristol, I usually feel like a pet rock, but tonight, I feel like I stand out on my own, and I don’t know if it gives me confidence or the early rumblings of diarrhea.

  Security is thick throughout the club but more so, it appears, on the upper deck where boobs the size of Kansas won’t get you past the guard at the bottom step unless you have a VIP pass like the ones Uncle Rodney carries in his pocket.

  I do my best to put on a happy face for Bristol and the celebration of our twenty-first birthday, but smiling is difficult, and I pray that every step I take is toward an exit. At the bar, the four of us toast Bristol’s and my milestone birthday with a shot of Jameson that only serves to heat my skin and float my thoughts. After, Uncle Rodney and my mom head towards a corner table littered with glasses but unoccupied, and Bristol and I take to the dance floor, neither of us in a hurry to join Vance.

  Someone comes up behind me and grinds up against my backside. I scoot forward and he follows like I’m wearing Velcro, his junk smashed against my ass. I turn to face the guy. “I think that’s close enough.” I raise my voice so he doesn’t mistake my communication for acceptance. “Any closer and you’ll need a condom.”

  He twirls his index finger at me to get me to turn around. “Too much talking,” he yells over the sounds of Maroon Five. Before I can respond, I’m plucked from the dance floor, and Mr. “Too Much Talking” is saved from a junk-punch when he is shoved backward and away from me by the strong arm of someone much taller than me.

  I look up into beautiful blue eyes, serious and intently plastered to my face. “Let’s go.” He gestures with his chin to the outside of the dance floor or an exit to his right, but I remain fixed, undeterred by his bossiness.

  My heart sinks, remembering his deception, and I jerk my arm out of his grasp. One hour of civility at the meet and greet does not make up for his lies. “I’m here for Uncle Rodney.”

  He sets his jaw, looks up into the pulsing lights, and then lands a hard stare I want to shrink beneath. “I get that. Can we talk for two minutes?”

  I shake my head and turn to find Bristol or a comfortable space I can submerge myself in, but he grabs my hand and pulls me toward a back door lit above with an “Exit” sign. Seeing no choice, I follow, hoping my ankles don’t give out in my heels and my stomach rumbles don’t forewarn of an impending blowout.

  Vance walks past more security who nod at him as he pushes through the exit door, dragging me behind him. Out in the warm air of a late San Jose evening, he stops short of a parking lot filled with expensive cars bathed in the amber glow of streetlights. He drops his hand and pivots to look at me.

  He pitchforks his fingers through his hair. “What do I have to do to make this up to you?”

  I hold eye contact with him, noticing the distress in his expression. “You can’t.”

  “It got away from me. I kind of hoped the VIP treatment would take care of some of my blunders. I didn’t know how else to make it up to you after I left.” His expression looks pained, like one I’d have after admitting something stupid to my mother.

  “You thought better seats would make up for lying?”

  He releases a heavy breath and drops his head back on his shoulders. “I know that sounds bad. Fuck. Let me start over.” He squares a look right on me. In any other circumstance, I’d probably melt. Not tonight, though he continues without realizing that. “I didn’t know the girl I introduced myself to. Not like I know her now, anyway. I bought a house in Milagro Beach six months ago to disengage from the spotlight. I was there to lay low and disconnect for a bit. The last thing I planned was finding you.” He looks down, fixing his black tie with two fingers he runs down its length. “I should have told you or stayed away altogether. I know that now. I couldn’t get the words out once they needed to be said.”

  “I looked like an ass the entire time.”

  “Not at all. I loved your confidence. Why do you think I came up with excuse after excuse to have a beer? In normal life, I have a beer like, once a week, if that.”

  That explains why he needed a damn nipple and a napkin, but I don’t buy the rest. Why would a guy like him find anything about the Brenna I introduced him to remotely worth binge drinking for?

  “So, you got entertainment, a chance to see how the other half lives, a few unwanted beers, and I got . . . lied to.”

  His body stiffens.

  “I feel stupid.”

  “Dammit, Brenna, the fact you don’t read Candid magazine or have TMZ notifications on your phone is fucking rare. I ate it up. And that’s the truth. Don’t feel stupid. I promise you, I don’t see you that way.”

  The knot in my throat becomes an unbearable swallow. I believe him, but I’m not ready to make him my weakness. “I don’t know, Vance. It’s going to take time.”

  He sighs, relief seeming to relax his features. “I can work with that. Give me another shot to do this right, and if I can’t, then walk.”

  I look away, gathering my thoughts, which center around wanting to get to know Van Hatfield, and I nod once. “Okay.”

  Inside, with Vance behind me, I look for Bristol, Uncle Rodney, and my mom but can’t find them in the crowd or at the table where they were last. Vance touches my wrist and shouts above the music, “I’ll have someone get them. We need to get upstairs.”

  I shake my head, yelling back at him, “I can’t leave them. They only stayed down here because I wasn’t ready to go up yet.”

  “Look!” A girl screams. “It’s Van Hatfield!” She shrieks even louder, and as she bounces up and down, her boobs lob heavily. She slams against Vance, pressing her entire body to the front of his, and he tries to push her away with one hand while his other hand grapples for mine.

  More and more hands rake over him, taking privileges they should be slapped for. “Van!” A chorus of girls shrieks in orchestral unity. “Van!” They scream in one final unified chant before he’s ripped away and I’m left alone in a floundering crowd that’s crawling over me and each other to get to him.

  I am absorbed into the raucous crowd as they gather around us. Girls shriek, scream, and try to get a piece of Vance in any way they can. I’m lost, and not just within the crowd, but mentally. As I’m looking for an exit, I’m suddenly met in all directions with chests, broad shoulders, and forearm clotheslines tha
t nearly behead me, and it’s still less offensive than the airbags from girl number one.

  By the dozen, security arrives using their massive bodies to thin the crowd and surround Vance. “Get to her!” he shouts at one of them. They both look in my direction. “Get to her!” he shouts again.

  Chants for Van are intermixed with the occasional squeal when one manages to get a chunk of him, and obscene offers I’m not altogether certain aren’t coming from Bristol. I realize the music has stopped, which explains why I can hear Vance and the sound of my erratic heartbeat. An arm encircles my waist and hitches me to a muscular body that carries me out of the crowd with the ease of an elephant clomping through a horde of chipmunks.

  Away from the fray, the security guard sets me on my feet, making sure I’m balanced before letting me go. “Hang here for a minute, okay?” He looks into my eyes for understanding. “Just until we get the crowd under control,” he adds upon seeing my expression.

  Swallowing hard, I nod, my eyes not on him but on Vance, who has a security detail to rival the president’s. Vance, tall by anyone’s standards, is barely tall enough to look over their heads, and I can see him trying to talk his way out of their protection. One of the big guys plants a firm hand on his shoulder, keeping him in place. I can see arms and lips moving but hear nothing of their words.

  “Okay, ma’am, I can escort you to Mr. Hatfield now if you’d like?” Anticipating my cooperation, he rests a light hand on the small of my back.

  I shake my head. “I’m good. Thank you.”

  “Ma’am?”

  “I’m leaving. I won’t be a problem, I swear.” He looks surprised, and I’m sure he is. I mean, what girl in her right mind wouldn’t go to Van Hatfield? Based upon the screaming girls clawing and offering up things their mothers would be shocked over, I’m betting it’s only me.

  He pushes a finger into his right ear, presumably listening to Vance’s security team, and questions me again. “Are you sure?”

  I nod.

  No longer needing my bravado, tears line my lashes. The fight to hold them off has been lost, and they run hot and heavy down my cheeks. I swipe at them with my fingertips, but more replace the smeared wreckage of the previous ones. How am I supposed to do this?

  Before I can find the exit, Vance finds me, security all around him, pissing and moaning about his actions. “Brenna!”

  I look at him, unsure.

  “Please go upstairs?”

  I shake my head. “I’m not ready for this.”

  “This is why you’re rare. This is why I wasn’t in a hurry to be Van with you. Do you get that now?”

  I nod, realizing how wrong I’ve been, realizing I’m in no position to judge him. This is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced, just like being with me is unlike anything he’s used to. I’ve stewed for days on end over Colette judging me and Bristol for our dad’s mistakes and for believing her mom’s opinion that any Sloan is a bad Sloan. I’m not what people say any more than Vance is.

  Slipping my hand into the one Vance is offering, I look up at him. “I’ll try.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  At the top of the staircase to the VIP level of Red Hooligan’s, black steps lit with red lights meet sleek black tiles and an expansive space that is upscale but inviting. I pause to take it in. At first, it’s surreal and a bit intimidating to be in a room full of people you don’t know intimately but have seen in magazines and television. As my surroundings sink in, I zero in on my family who were brought up here just before me. Uncle Rodney can hardly contain his glee, and if I were beside him, I’d tell him to close his mouth while he looks around. Mom, in a slightly different manner, scans the room like she’s going to rob it later, and Bristol, pissed I ditched her again for Vance, heads right for us.

  Hoping to avoid the conflict her expression suggests is coming, I leave Vance with the excuse of going to find a table for all of us while he tends to a man in a suit waving him over.

  “Let’s find a seat.” Like the born peacekeeper I am, I grab Bristol before she can get within breathing distance of Vance. We sit at one of several tables fronting an empty bar. Along with us, there are other family members and friends joining the players and staff, and the room teems with reunions we’re not a part of.

  Corky Alvarez, Tracy’s crush, stands feet away from us. He is quite the social butterfly and appears to have the personality of someone who would be voted Prom King. His gorgeous Latin looks have probably snared him a few pairs of panties without the girls even knowing he was taking them off.

  “Hello, ladies.” A guy, cute but not stand-out, sets a chair he’s carried over between us.

  “Hello.” Bristol answers for the two of us and shifts her body to look at him.

  “Twins?” he asks, looking at us one at a time.

  “Our identical looks give us away every time,” I tease, laughing as I deliver my irritation delicately.

  He laughs. “You’re a smartass—I like it. I was just trying to make conversation. I saw you from across the room.” Bristol beams. There is nothing she likes more than being noticed.

  “Hey.” Another guy weasels his way between me and the first guy, making himself comfortable inside my bubble while Bristol and the other guy take off for the bar.

  “Are you someone’s sister? I can’t say as I’ve ever seen you before. I’d definitely remember you if I had.” He’s a close talker, the kind that has no space issues of his own and doesn’t give a shit about yours. His breath is nice, minty, and hasn’t been tainted with alcohol yet.

  “No. I’m a friend.”

  “Oh, whose?”

  “Mine!” Vance, standing tall behind the second guy’s chair, glares openly. Neither of us saw him coming, and the guy practically rockets backward to get out of the way.

  I look up, my heart hammering with Vance’s proximity and the still-fresh emotions of all that’s transpired in the last weeks and hours.

  Close Talker’s departure is swift, and Vance takes his vacated seat.

  “He wasn’t bothering me,” I say, looking straight into Vance’s blue eyes.

  “He was bothering me,” he states, leaning forward in his chair. “Sorry, I hope you weren’t uncomfortable.”

  Vance’s lightly applied cologne temporarily distracts me from my nerves. I could inhale him for days. I don’t know what it is about him and his scent, but God help me, I may be addicted.

  “No more so than at any other time today.”

  “I’m sorry for what happened downstairs.” His eyes grin, and his teeth are white between his parted lips.

  “You couldn’t help it.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I feel bad.” He nods up at someone who passes by our table and then returns his attention back to me.

  I haven’t had the wherewithal to find a smile. With so many conflicting emotions to process, I can’t keep anything but my heartbeat in check.

  “You look beautiful.” His eyes roam over the leg crossed over my knee, and then up to my chest, where they dally but do not stop. My dress is short, coming only to mid-thigh, and since I’m sitting, it rises a little higher. His gaze doesn’t rattle me like it probably should, and I handle it like it’s routine.

  He offers me a drink, which I decline, and he asks for a bottle of water from the busty waitress he hasn’t even glanced at, though she feels the need to linger.

  “Great game, by the way,” I say, and a smile appears on my face of its own accord, and not with the forced sincerity I feared I’d have to muster.

  “Thank you.” His appreciation is spoken with a humbleness I didn’t think someone like him possessed. “Shit!” Vance blasts, replying to some thought in his head, I’m guessing. He leans toward me putting his mouth close to my ear. “I need to make some introductions. Are you okay with that?”

  I smile, waving him away with my hand. “Go,” I say with indifference. “I won’t be alone long.”

  His expression stiffens, but I wave him away and smile again. “I
’m kidding. Take your time.”

  After about ten minutes pass and Vance still hasn’t returned from his introductions, I get up and nudge my way through small groups of people. I stand next to the balcony railing and look out over the dance floor below. There are a lot of people down there seemingly oblivious to the party above them.

  From up here, you can see the meat market for what it is. You can pick out the desperate women hoping to be noticed and the guys that notice them. There are no wallflowers here.

  I feel a body press against me from behind and see hands grip the railing in front of me before I hear the voice that takes my breath. “Are you looking for an exit?”

  I smile despite myself. “Maybe.”

  “Stop.” His breath brushes against my cheek. I feel his jaw tick on the side of my head, right behind my ear.

  “How did you know it was me and not Bristol you were grabbing down there?” I nod to the dance floor.

  “Trust me. I can tell.” His voice is hot and deep.

  I spin within the cave of his arms and lean against the railing, putting an additional inch between us. He doesn’t move, leaving his hands on the railing and his elbows straight.

  I look him square in the eyes, faltering only a second when his eyes drop and flicker between my lips and my eyes. Parts of me want him like I’ve never wanted another human being, while others still revolt at the thought of letting my guard down. “You’re not going to give up, are you?”

  His eyes stop wandering, and his parted lips come together as he bites the lower one, shaking his head with a resounding, unspoken, No.

  “Even if I tell you I’m not interested?”

  Again, he shakes his head, his brows lifting a fraction to give him that devilish look that has probably sparked a lot of panties into a raging inferno. “Your body says something different.”

  “It does?”

  “I bet if I checked, foreplay wouldn’t be needed. Of course, I’d still insist upon it, but it would be strictly for my pleasure and not your necessity.”