The Endgame (Atlanta Lightning 1)

“What else do you like?” I asked when the movie was over. I wanted to know everything about him, all the big and little things.

“As in television? I’m a huge fan of documentaries. I love learning new things. I like true-crime as well.”

“What else?” I fingered a lock of his hair. “Anything, not just TV stuff.”

“Hmm…well, you know a lot already. I went to law school and also have a poli-sci degree. I like motorcycles, sex, sexy football players, having sex with sexy football players.”

“Oh Jesus.”

“Stop pretending to be scandalized. I can feel your dick getting hard against my leg.”

“You have that effect on me, but…tell me more. I want to know everything.”

The edges of his eyes crinkled slightly, and I knew he could tell what I was asking. I wanted to know the things about him no one else did. I wanted to prove to myself that this could be real. “You know me, Ans. You know me better than anyone. It doesn’t matter how many months it’s been or how little we see each other. The things I’ve told you, I don’t say them easily.”

I felt silly then, for doubting, for needing to prove something to myself. “I know. Sorry.”

“Don’t be. I like that you’re obsessed with me.”

“Hey, fuck off. You’re the stalker and the one who’s obsessed with me.”

He shrugged. “If the shoe fits.” Then he paused a beat, two, three. “I want to make the world a better place. That might sound naive or childish, to think that way, to feel like I have that much power or like I’m that important, but it’s how I feel. I know I’ve said that to you before, but really, it’s all I’ve ever cared about. I want to make people’s lives better, and I thought I was doing that, but most of the time all I’m doing is running in circles and not getting shit done.”

“You make my life better.”

“My cheesy little football player.” He rolled over, and I moved with him until he lay on top of me.

“Little?” I thrust against him.

“Definitely not little. You’re big everywhere, but you’re still cheesy.”

“What would you do? If you weren’t a senator, I mean. Be a lawyer?”

“I don’t know…maybe. Or teach. I like when I have speaking engagements. Something that makes an impact.”

“Elias would love you. He’s always been into politics.”

West nodded. “So he told me.”

Oh, yeah. I’d forgotten they’d met, that they’d spoken. Yet my brother, the most important person in my world, didn’t know who West was to me.

“You want to know a secret?” he asked, quieting my thoughts.

“Obviously.”

“I don’t know if I want to run for reelection. I’d always told myself I would, that I’d be a lifer like my father. As I said earlier, I clearly have daddy issues. I’m still trying to make him proud when I know I’ll never be able to, but if I’m honest with myself, the thought of running again, of another six, twelve, eighteen years of this… I don’t know if I can do it.”

“You deserve to be happy, West. You should do what you love. How much longer do you have?”

“Not this January but the next.”

Basically another two years. That felt like a lifetime. How would we ever make this work? “Ouch!” I said when he swatted me.

“Stop thinking.”

“Stop being bossy,” I countered, then surprised myself by adding, “Don’t run again.”

West didn’t respond with a yes or a no, just, “What will you do? After football? You said you’d considered physical therapy. Would you go back to school? Work in sports? Live off what you made while playing?”

“I have no idea.” It was a shitty answer, but the only one I had. “I wasn’t exaggerating when I said I don’t know who I am without football. I’m not like you. I didn’t have more than one dream. I don’t have multiple degrees. I don’t know what I want or who I am.”

“Mine,” West answered. “That’s who and what you are, Hawkins. You’re mine.”

My damn heart felt like it expanded, hearing him say that.

“Okay…I’m liking this—calling you by your last name. Role-play fantasy? We can act out a locker-room scene. I can be your coach and be all, get down and give me twenty, Hawkins. And you could tell me to make you before we wrestle and have hot sex on the floor.”

I laughed, feeling it vibrate through my chest and up and into him. “God, I love you.”

West answered with his mouth on mine.

Chapter Thirty

Weston

Outside of my first couple of years in college, I hadn’t lived with anyone since I left my parents’ home at eighteen. Anson had spent time at my house in November, and now he was here again, and it was…fuck, it was nice, and that wasn’t just because of all the sex. I liked going to sleep with him at night and waking up to him in the morning. I liked that he got up with me when I left for work, even though he could sleep in if he wanted, but he was also a football player who was obsessed with his body, so he used that time to exercise.