by Mandy Baxter
“Are you speaking from experience?”
Carson chuckled. “You know it. There’s nothing better than spending as much time as possible with the woman you love.”
“It’s only been a few weeks. Way too early for words like love.”
“Jase, you’re so far gone in love with that girl there’s no comin’ back. And the sooner you come to realize it, the better. Let’s go get another beer before Gena cuts me off for the night. I ordered a new microbrew I want you to try.”
As he followed Carson to the kitchen, Jase chanced a quick glance at Avery on his way out. Damn, she was beautiful. Smart. Independent. Funny. Not to mention sexy as all get-out. But love? Was that what this bone-deep ache in his chest was? He’d never felt this way about anyone before. Could he love her? And more importantly, could she love him back?
Chapter Ten
“Avery, will you excuse me for a second? I think we’re just about ready to eat and I want to check in with the caterers.”
“Sure. No worries.”
Never in a million years would Avery have thought that she’d hit it off with Gena. Gorgeous, well-spoken, and built like a supermodel with long blond hair and bright blue eyes, she was the type of woman who couldn’t help but project an air of self-confidence. Shorter, quieter, and a hell of a lot more introverted, it wouldn’t have been tough for Avery to just melt into the scenery in the presence of the other woman. But Gena had coaxed her out of her shell, engaged her in the conversation, and seemed to be genuinely interested in what she had to say. She was welcoming, open, and friendly. The type of woman Avery could see herself becoming friends with. Why had she been so nervous about coming here tonight? So far, she was having a blast.
“So Blackwell finally let you out of your cage, huh?”
Avery recognized the guy speaking to her from some of the other team parties, though she didn’t know his name. A smarmy grin was plastered on his face and his words were slurred. Someone had clearly had too much to drink tonight. He leaned against the wall, eyeing Avery up and down and a nervous tremor ran the length of her spine.
“I don’t think we’ve ever met.” Her voice quavered as she tried to infuse confidence into the words. She held out her hand. “I’m Avery Lockhart.”
“I know who you are,” he said with a sneer. He didn’t bother to take her hand. “You’re Blackwell’s good-luck fuck.”
A wave of nausea crested over her and Avery fought for a deep breath. “Excuse me?”
The drunken jerk leaned in and she got a strong whiff of bourbon on his breath. “You’re the talk of the locker room, sweetheart. I’m surprised the team hasn’t erected a statue in your honor. You must have a magic pussy because Blackwell’s never played so well. Maybe when he’s done with you, you’ll consider passing some of that mojo my way.”
Oh god. She was going to be sick. Avery’s heart raced, her rib cage constricting to the point of pain. It took a conscious effort to draw a deep breath, and even then it was ragged and shuddered in her chest. His words tore through her like a well-honed butcher knife, eviscerating her heart into a hunk of bloodied meat. Good-luck fuck? The term was so crass, so … disgusting that it made Avery feel dirty from head to toe.
Dark spots swam in her vision and she pushed her way past her verbal assailant and toward the foyer. “Avery?” Gena’s voice called out from behind her but she didn’t dare stop. Tears spilled over her cheeks, running in rivulets that dripped from her chin. Jase had used her and everyone on his team knew about it. Had he brought her here tonight—his lucky charm and the supposed reason for his outstanding performance the past few games—for the sole purpose of parading her around for the benefit of his buddies? Avery had never been so humiliated, so hurt in all of her life.
She burst through the front door gasping for breath. Kicking off her heels, Avery started off at a slow jog down the driveway. It was a forty-minute drive to her apartment, but she’d walk all night to get home and suffer blisters from hell before she’d stay another minute in that house and endure the humiliation of knowing she was nothing more than a pawn in Jase’s stupid game. God, what a fool she’d been! Her heart ached from the betrayal. Her stomach twisted into a painful knot. To think that she’d fallen for his act; actually considered the possibility that she could fall in love with Jason Blackwell and that he could, in turn, love her. All the while he’d be bragging to his teammates about her, trivializing their time together as nothing more than something he used to get pumped up for his next game. What a joke!
She was finally starting to feel good about herself. Like her life was on track and things were going her way. School was better. Work was better. Everything was better because Jase had been in her life and knowing that it was all a lie made her feel like throwing up.
Avery had put about a half mile behind her when she heard the growl of an engine creep up behind her. She squared her shoulders and kept her eyes forward, unwilling to look back. The car accelerated with a roar and Jase pulled up beside her, leaning over the center console as the passenger-side window slid down.
“Avery, what happened? Gena said she saw you talking to Malcolm Willis and then you ran out of the house crying. What’s going on?”
“Go away, Jase.” The concern in his tone gutted her. The thought that he must’ve brought her here tonight to show off his lucky charm disgusted her. “I don’t want to talk to you.”
“What? Why? Avery, what in the hell is going on?”
His insistence on keeping up the pretense snapped Avery’s control over her temper. “Oh, come on, Jase! I don’t want or need your fake concern. You’re an asshole! Go back to your stupid party and find some other girl to give you a good-luck fuck before the championship game!”
Jase hit the brakes so hard that the tires screeched on the pavement. Avery picked up her pace, ignoring the bite of the asphalt on her bare feet as she continued her trek out of the swanky subdivision. The car door opened and slammed behind her but she paid it no mind. Damn it, she’d left her damned purse at the house. Which meant no cell phone to call a cab to get her the hell away from Jase Blackwell for good. And she wasn’t about to endure the shame of going back to get it.
“Avery, stop.”
She ignored his demanding tone. “Go to hell, Jase!”
“Avery!”
The sound of his shoes pounding on the pavement behind her sent a jolt of anxious adrenaline through Avery’s body. She refused to run from him, but a brisk speed-walk was totally acceptable. A hand gripped her elbow and Jase spun her around like a whip.
“Don’t.” Fresh tears pricked behind Avery’s eyes but she stemmed the flow. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of witnessing her pain. “I don’t want to hear your excuses, Jase.”
His brow furrowed, the depth of emotion shining in his light brown eyes enough to break Avery’s heart all over again. Among his other talents, Jase Blackwell was apparently a pretty damned good actor.
“Avery, listen to me.” Jase gripped her shoulders tightly as though afraid she’d try to bolt. “I don’t blame you for being pissed off—”
“Well, that’s big of you.”
“But you have to know that what that asshole Willis said couldn’t be further from the truth.”
“Do I?” Avery asked with a derisive snort. “It’s funny, Jase. Now that I think about it, we’ve been together at least one night before every single game of the playoffs. I guess I should be flattered. I mean, I must be a hell of a good lay if I single-handedly managed to secure your team’s spot in the championship. Maybe I should rent my services out. If I got the Cowboys this far, imagine what I could do for other teams?”
“Stop.” Jase’s fingers dug into her arms, not painfully, but enough to convey his urgency. “I can’t control what those assholes say in the locker room. Hell, up until a few weeks ago, everyone still thought I’d bought my way onto the team. So of course, the second I up my game, those same haters are going to come up with another excuse to justify how
I’m getting it done. Anything other than admit that I might actually be worth a damn on the field.”
She knew that his skills on the field were a sore subject and that Jase suffered from a lack of confidence in his abilities. Under any other circumstances, Avery would have been thrilled that he’d finally come into his own and was being recognized for the talent she knew he’d had all along. But not now, and certainly not at the expense of her dignity. “According to that jerk back at Gena’s, I’m the talk of the locker room. One more toss before the championship game? If that’s the case, maybe we should just get it out of the way right now. I mean, we’ve screwed in the front seat of your truck, your car couldn’t possibly be much less accommodating. I wouldn’t be doing my duty as a Cowboys fan if I didn’t do my part to ensure that you guys get a Super Bowl bid.”
Jase released his grip at her acidic tone. “I would never disrespect you, Avery.”
She leveled her gaze on him, the Maserati’s headlights illuminating his strong features. “Really? Then look me in the eye and tell me that Willis is lying. Tell me that you never, ever considered using me as some sort of sexual good-luck charm.”
Jase’s jaw clamped down tight and he averted his gaze. He raked his hands through his hair and let out a rushed breath. “God damn it, Avery, if you’d just let me explain.”
“That’s what I thought. Don’t blame yourself, Jase,” Avery said without an ounce of emotion. “This is my fault. I knew better than to hook up with you. All I wanted was a meaningless fling and ended up letting myself believe that you were different than any other guy I’d ever met. The mistake—and the humiliation—are mine. Good luck on Sunday.”
Avery turned and left Jase where he stood. With her back to him, she finally allowed the flow of tears to resume their path down her cheeks as a pained sob lodged itself in her chest. She might have left him behind to watch her leave, but she’d left her heart back there with him.
∗∗∗
Jase slammed the door of his Maserati hard enough to bust the damn hinges. Meaningless fling? All this time he’d thought his relationship with Avery was going somewhere and instead, she’d all but admitted that she’d used him for sex. She’d thought he was different? Who had played who, here? She was obviously just like every other jock-riding, football groupie out there. Fucking awesome. He put the car into gear and sped back to Carson’s house, all the while rubbing at his chest that ached as though someone had sliced him open between the ribs and scooped his heart out with a spoon.
No matter what she’d said in the heat of anger, Jase had seen the hurt in her eyes and it laid him low. Hell, if he hadn’t treated her like another conquest—a goal he had to achieve no matter the costs—in the first place, he wouldn’t be sitting in his car now, wishing he could rip his beating heart out of his chest. You really fucked up this time, buddy. Because of his own selfish stupidity, Jase had just lost the only thing in this world he gave a shit about.
He parked in front of Carson’s house and sat for a moment, gripping the steering wheel so tightly that it creaked in his palms. Anger mounted, the pressure building to a fever pitch, boiling and burning inside of him until Jase had no choice but to release the valve. Throwing himself from the car, he raced for the house, burst through the door, and beelined it for that rotten son of a bitch who’d ruined his life with nothing more than a string of malicious words.
“You’re a piece of shit, Willis.” Jase pulled back his fist and let it fly.
His fist connected with Willis’s jaw and the other man went sprawling backward. The idiot was shitfaced drunk and could barely stand, but that wasn’t going to stop Jase from beating the bastard to a pulp. He followed him down to the floor, throwing body shots and right hooks to the face. The ache in his chest intensified as the realization that he’d lost Avery—likely forever—burrowed itself into his core. He hit Willis again. And again. Jase’s knuckles grew bloody and his breath sawed in and out of his chest in desperate gasps, but he just kept hitting. Damn it, he needed something, anything, to take away the hurt that was eating him from the inside out.
“Jase!” Carson grabbed him by the arm and tried to haul him off of Willis but Jase shook him off and renewed his assault. “Goddamn it, Jason. Knock it off!”
Bodies closed in around him, his teammates joining in to pull him out of the fight. Jase snarled, his shouts of protest scouring his throat as he fought against the many hands restraining him. “Let me go!”
“You’ve stepped in it now, Blackwell.” Willis’s words were slurred and he swiped at his bloodied nose. “You’re done. Your career is fucking done! Let’s see your entitled rich ass take the field on Sunday after this. McNealy is going to suspend you so fast it’s gonna give you whiplash.”
Carson released his grip on Jase and took several steps forward, hauling Willis up off the floor. He kept his hand wrapped around the other man’s arm and said, “The fuck he is, Willis. Because you’re going to keep your goddamned mouth shut about what went down tonight. And if you don’t, there’s not a man here who won’t say that you started this.”
“He came at me!” Willis argued.
“And you provoked him. The second you took your smart-mouthed bullshit out of the locker room, you violated the trust of your team. Not a single one of us will take the field with a man we don’t trust.”
A murmur of assent echoed from behind him and Jase’s head cleared, albeit very little. He still wanted to pound the bastard to a pulp, but his violent streak was no longer mindless. His body relaxed by small degrees and the hands holding him in check slackened their grips as well.
“Stevens, take Willis’s drunk ass home,” Carson said to the monster linebacker still holding Jase. He steadied Willis on his feet before letting him go. “Cool off, sober up, and think about what the fuck you did here tonight and about what it means to be a part of a team. Do you understand me?”
Willis let out a grunt of acknowledgement and threw a caustic glare Jase’s way before he staggered through the press of people toward the foyer. Stevens gave Carson a nod before he headed out behind him and said as he passed Jase, “Take it easy, Blackwell. We’ve got your back.”
With the tension winding down, Gena stepped in like the good hostess she was and tried to restore some order to the night. Jase wasn’t having it, though. He’d never felt so utterly wrecked. Destroyed. He wanted to get in his car and chase Avery down. Throw her in the front seat and keep her there until she quit being so stubborn and listened to what he had to say. Despite her insistence that he’d just been a fling, he knew there was more to it. She cared about him. She had to. He refused to believe anything else.
“Let her cool off, too, Jase,” Carson said as though he’d read Jase’s mind. He led him away from the group, into the study, and Jase reluctantly followed. His entire body had gone numb. Despite his swollen and bloodied knuckles, his heart that was damned near pounding out of his chest, and the buzz in his brain that beat out a steady rhythm between his ears, Jase felt none of it. He was a shell: a void of nothingness. Avery had taken his very soul when she’d turned her back on him and walked away.
“I love her, Carson,” Jase said as his knees gave out. Thank god there’d been a chair to catch him. “I didn’t realize it until just now, but goddamn. I fucking love her.”
“It’s about time you caught up,” Carson said with a laugh. “I’ve been trying to tell you that for days.”
“What am I going to do?”
“You’ll figure it out.”
Jase didn’t appreciate the knowing smile on his friend’s face, as though Jase was about to be inducted into some secret club. He didn’t want to figure it out. He wanted answers. He wanted to turn back the clock. Fix everything between them. Keep himself from treating her like a fucking lucky charm in the first place. He wanted someone to bring Avery back to him, damn it. “What if I don’t? What if she just turns me away?”
“Come on,” Carson replied. “You’re the Jason Blackwell. You don’t
know how to quit.”
God, he hoped that was true. Because he knew without a doubt that Avery was the one thing in this world he couldn’t afford to lose.
Chapter Eleven
“Super Bowl, baby!” Carson shouted with enthusiasm Jase wished he felt. “Best game of your life, man. I can already feel the weight of that ring on my finger. There’s no way you won’t get MVP with the post-season you’ve had, Jase. Phenomenal.”
It was a dream come true. His life’s goal so close to being realized. But the AFC championship win, hell, even the prospect of going to the Super Bowl was hollow and empty without the one person he wanted to celebrate with. As the plane touched down, Jase’s stomach rocketed up into his throat. He’d never get used to flying. It was the flight that had him out of sorts and not the prospect of what he was about to do. A week had passed and Avery refused to answer his calls or texts. Tonight, though, she was going to hear him out whether she liked it or not. So yeah, it was the flight that had Jase tied into knots and not the prospect of Avery’s negative reaction to him showing up at her apartment without an invitation.
“You want to come over? It’s just Gena and me, but she’d love to have you over for dinner. We can wind down and veg in front of the television.”
“No thanks. I’ve got somewhere to be.”
“Ah. Gotcha.”
The plane taxied to a stop and the captain announced that they could move around the plane. Jase grabbed his bag and shouldered his way into the aisle, impatient to get the hell out of there. “Hey, Carson, can you grab my suitcase? I don’t want to wait around.”
“Got it!” he called. “And good luck!”
Jase didn’t need luck. He just needed Avery to listen.
For most of his adult life Jase had been surrounded by false friends and hangers-on. Gold diggers and fame seekers all wanting a piece of what he had for one reason or another. But Avery had only wanted him. Jase. Not the rich kid. Not the football star. She hadn’t cared about any of that other stuff. She was real and what they’d had was real, too. Jase refused to let her go without a fight.