The Player Hater (Accidentally in Love 1)

“So?”

“If you say so one more time, I swear to God…”

“So what if you have to go to the bathroom? Go.” Pause. “Wait—are you worried I’m going to bust in on you? That bathroom is dinky, I know two of us are never going to fit. You are totally safe, I will not be busting in.” I glance up from my task and look at her face. “Are you blushing?”

She blushes harder.

What’s her deal? Why is she being weir—

Ohhh.

I get it now, she has to take a shit and doesn’t want me to hear or smell it. Ha!

The good news is, those toilets aren’t filled with water, and they’re not porcelain. The chances of me hearing her do the deed are slim, but that doesn’t seem to matter.

Take a hint, Davis.

She wants me gone—out of the cabin, out of hearing distance.

“Okay. Right. I need to take a piss so maybe I’ll go…find, a…um, tree or something somewhere. Plenty of them, eh?”

Stop talking, Davis.

I make a show of closing the drawer I’m digging in and zipping up my duffle, tossing it to the kitchen bench and dusting off my palms on the leg of my jeans.

Make for the trail outside and meander down it, greeting the few people I meet along the way.

“Hey there, good morning,” I tell a good-looking older couple as I get closer to the shoreline where the piers are. Thinking I might park my ass in one of the Adirondack chairs arranged at the end of one of the piers to kill time while I wait for Thad, Mia, and Juliet to finish whatever they’re doing so we can hang out as a group. Well, I know what Juliet is doing, but don’t want to think about what Thad and Mia are up to.

“Hi!” The woman sizes me up and down. “Headed to the water? We were just down there—it’s breathtaking.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I nod, eyes already taking in the scenery and loving it.

The woman has her partner—husband, boyfriend?—by the arm and squeezes his bicep. “Did you hear that Erik, he called me ma’am.”

I was raised in the south; I like to think I have passable manners and great etiquette. I say please, thank you, and hold doors when people are entering a building at the same time I am. I carry groceries and say ‘bless you’ if someone sneezes. So yeah—I’m going to call this woman ma’am.

It’s respectful.

Her eyes are lit up like Christmas trees. “We heard Thad Dumont was here, but they didn’t mention that two football players were here this weekend. Do you play football too? You’re so big!”

She drags her gaze up and down my torso again, eyes pausing in the center of my legs. Brazen, considering her partner is standing beside her, probably wondering what else on me is big, too.

“I’m retired.” I reach forward and extend my hand to the guy. “Davis Halbrook.”

“Retired!” she exclaims. “You can’t be in your thirties!”

“Thirty-three,” I amend. And yeah, that sounds young to retire, but not when it comes to football. My body is already beat to shit and I pay for it every day.

“I’ve heard of you,” the man says, his legs bare despite the chill in the air. “How are you enjoying retirement?”

“I’m in finance now, so there’s still no sitting around.” Finance sounds boring to most people—compared to playing professional football—but I have a Business Degree after playing college ball that comes in handy now that I’m off the playing field. Never thought I would need Plan B (an actual degree), but here we are, the ripe old age of thirty-three, with a bad knee, bad back, and more concussions than I can keep track of.

Many of my clients—I manage retirement accounts and investments—are athletes and retired athletes.

“You’re here with Dumont and his girlfriend?” the couple asks.

“Yup, she’s always wanted to come to a place like this and found this campground on social media.”

The woman—who still hasn’t introduced herself—titters. “This isn’t my idea of a romantic weekend, but we had to compromise. Erik wanted to spend the weekend at a dude ranch in Wyoming but had to settle for a campground with Wi-Fi and electricity. He can ride horses tomorrow. Best of both worlds.”

“Roughing it in style.” I nod with a grin. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name,” I say to the woman. “You’re Erik and you are…?”

“Celeste. But everyone calls me Cookie.”

Cookie.

I refuse to ask the origin for the nickname and how it came about. Definitely sounds snooty, though, she doesn’t look it?

“Are you here with anyone special?” Cookie coos.

“No—there are four of us in our party, but Juliet and I just met.”

Cookie’s eyes light up. “Oh—Juliet. What a romantic name! We can’t wait to meet her, can we, Erik?” Another squeeze to her partner’s arm, the pair of them positively radiating sex.