Down by Contact (The Barons 2)

But unloading all that on Gavin and Marcus while the wind whipped at me and raindrops started coming down heavier wasn’t going to happen. Especially . . . especially when they were both going to read me on my level of thirst outweighing my dignity and self-preservation. And fuck it—maybe they were right. Maybe I was ridiculous for even entertaining the idea of taking a chance on this fool boy downstairs, but I knew I was gonna do it. I could feel it in the growing impatience at how long this phone call was taking when I really wanted go back downstairs and see what he was doing.

“Let me let y’all go.”

“What?”

“Simeon, come on,” Marcus protested. “We’re just worried.”

“There’s nothing to worry about. I get to enjoy a dude who can lay that good pipe for a few more weeks without worrying about him taking blackmail video. He can’t screw me over without outing himself, right?”

Gavin exhaled slowly. It was sad that I could identify him by his disgusted sighs.

“Right,” Marcus said grudgingly. “Just be careful.”

“I’ll try my best.”

I hung up and went downstairs just as the pitter-patter turned into a downpour. The storm wasn’t set to hit the shore until after eight in the evening, but the wind was already causing tree limbs to swing wildly. It gave me a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach. This sense of foreboding that was likely overblown and based on my own paranoia about weather like this.

I paused in the stairway to make one last call to my mother, reassuring her I was somewhere safe, before reentering Adrián’s apartment. It was quiet inside except for the low drone of the news. The locks clicking into place were deafening. In fact, wandering through the apartment to look for him was a weird experience without his presence by my side or at least his big mouth booming through the space.

It was the first time I’d gotten a chance to take a real look around. Fancier than suited him with the chrome appliances, sleek furniture, and gray, black, and white décor. Adrián would fit more somewhere homey—a two-story house with a deck, colorful walls and soft furniture, and plenty of decorations pushed on him from his mother. He struck me as a mama’s boy, which was sort of adorable.

“Bravo?”

“Yeah.”

His voice floated from the upper level, which I’d never seen. The staircase was spindly, and I felt like a dinosaur stomping up it. The steps felt hollow beneath my tennis shoes, like I’d fall through, and wow, I was getting morbid in my anxiety. Shaking it off, I gave the upstairs a cursory once-over and found him in what I assumed was his bedroom. One entire wall was a window facing the waterfront, and the rest was in cool gray and blue tones with an enormous mattress on a low platform bed. He was sprawled on top of it, still wearing his hoodie and jeans but minus his Timbs.

“This apartment really isn’t you, Bravo.”

He didn’t come back at me with a smart comment. The change was made more obvious by his still expression and the hard set of his mouth. O-kay. This was going to be fun.

“It’s dreary. You strike me as a guy who loves bright colors and loud music.”

“I do.”

“So how come your apartment looks like my agent’s office?”

He finally cracked a tiny smile. “Truth? This was a model apartment. I told them I wanted it so I didn’t have to think too hard while traveling, and I was tired of sharing an apartment with Rocky.”

Ah, Rocky Swoops. The only other guy in the NFL who had a reputation as bad as Gavin’s. Although in his case, he deserved it. He wasn’t just aggressive by nature; he appeared to genuinely enjoy hurting people, if I went by his low-key bragging on social media. How he didn’t get tapped for his behavior was beyond me.

“Why didn’t you like living with Rocky?” I asked, throwing myself on the bed beside him. “You know I fucking hate that guy, but I’m curious about an objective comment on him.”

“Well . . .”

Adrián folded his hands behind his head, gazing up at the ceiling while I stared at his profile. It was an odd thing to be hung up on, but I loved his nose. Between it and his dimples, it was hard not to find him absolutely adorable. The lips and intense eyes upped the ante to fuckable. His body upped it further to cause-for-dehydration.

I stopped checking him out and realized he’d zoned out.

“Answer.”

“I’m trying to figure out how to answer without throwing my boy under the bus.”

Here we go. I rolled onto my side, face braced with my hand. “It’s just you and me here. I’m not about to publicize the fact that we were gabby about your teammate while we lay in bed.”