“Sure…but wait…are we okay?”
I closed my eyes, pissed at myself for letting this happen. I was recently divorced because I wanted love, wanted more than my very gay ex-husband, who was one of my best friends, could give me, so I’d let myself start to have feelings for a straight guy?
Because I had. Maybe I’d been able to deny it before, but I couldn’t now. “We’re fine. I’m just covered in jizz and need to clean up.”
Darren sucked in a sharp breath. Too much reality for him, I assumed. “I…yeah, me too.”
“Great. Good luck at the game tomorrow.”
“Thanks. When are you coming out here again? I’m sure West would love to see you.”
“I don’t know. Depends on how things are going here. I gotta go, though, okay?”
“Of course. Night, Angel.”
“Bye.” I hung up.
I liked Darren.
I had feelings for my professional-football-player best friend, who was straight.
I was so goddamned fucked.
Chapter Ten
Darren
A week had passed, and I still couldn’t stop thinking about jacking off with Jeremy over the phone. It was on my mind all the fucking time, taking up space and running laps there. When I’d get a reprieve, it would suddenly pop up again at the most random times—at practice, when seeing West and Anson together, in the shower…Maybe those weren’t as off-chance as they felt, but I tried to work through what it could mean.
We hadn’t spoken on the phone since. We texted daily, but it wasn’t the same, and…I missed him. Missed teasing him and laughing with him and just talking with him. It was doing a number on my fucking brain.
I just couldn’t make sense of it all. I liked orgasms. I’d had a lot of them in my life, but I’d never had one with a man before. It didn’t matter that it was over the phone and it was just jerking off. It was Jeremy’s voice that got me there, and picturing Jeremy on his knees, doing all the shit he described in that deep, sex-laced voice. It was his face I saw and his blond curls that my fingers had carded through.
It was tripping me the fuck out because I’d never ever thought of a man that way before. Sure, Jeremy and I had become good friends, but I didn’t think about shoving my dick down any other dude’s throat, so why his?
I didn’t know what the fuck any of it meant, and I was ashamed of myself because part of me wanted to forget it happened, to ignore it and move on with my life. As if that wasn’t enough, I felt guilty because I was keeping my distance from him because of it. I’d started that shit, and now I couldn’t bring myself to pick up the phone to call him?
But then, Jeremy wasn’t ringing my phone off the hook either.
I picked my cell up off the nightstand, closed my eyes, my thoughts immediately going back to Jeremy’s voice in my head, my hand wrapped around my dick.
“I love the smell—sex, musk, man. Jesus, I practically get drunk off it. I love playing with his balls, sucking and lapping at them before swallowing his cock again. All those little noises a man makes for me, it goes straight to my head.”
“Keep going…” I’d begged. God, I’d fucking needed it.
My cock twitched against my abs…annnnd, yep, time to get out of bed.
I ate breakfast, showered, got dressed, and headed for the Lightning practice facility. We were killing it, still undefeated. I was feeling football this season in a way I hadn’t in a while. I couldn’t put my finger on what had changed, but this season was special, electrifying.
I took out my pent-up energy on the field. My eyes were sharper, my feet faster, my throws perfect and on target. I might not understand what was going on with me when it came to Jeremy, but this I got; this I would always get. Football made sense even when life didn’t.
Shit. Now I was thinking about Jeremy again.
Me: Mornin’. Sorry I didn’t message last night. Long day.
Then I shoved my phone into my locker and tried to tell myself I wasn’t a fucking liar.
After my second shower of the day, I came out wrapped in a towel. Anson was already wearing his underwear, sitting on the bench and looking at his phone. “Messaging your husband?”
“Yeah.”
It had been a little rough when Anson first came out. Most of the guys on our team had been cool, but there were a few assholes. Other stadiums, and even our own fans to some degree, had been different. Shit was said sometimes, some of his endorsements trickled away, his merch sales slowed, but then other deals came in, and we shut them up by winning the fucking Super Bowl. Things got better after that. It still wasn’t perfect—there were too many hateful people in the world for that—but it could have been worse. Anson didn’t let the haters get to him.