Our Love Story

I have nothing to be ashamed of.

“Great,” the woman says, looking me up and down. “I’m Deb, and you’ll need to see Tamara and Denise about what you’ll be wearing. They have a Black Bull sundress that should work.”

I shrug, having no reason to say no. “Sounds great. Whatever I can do to make today as painless as possible for the guys.” I smile warmly and Ethan’s eyes meet mine—they say Thank you. I’m reminded of how stressed he’s been over this entire event. I want to do everything in my power to make today wonderful for him. For all of them.

“Oh, thank God,” Deb says. “I was scared you’d be some diva fighting for the attention of one of these guys.”

I smile softly, mostly to myself. Knowing I am not fighting for anything when it comes to the love of the men before me. My heart has been split in four and multiplied that many times as well.

“Drew is in the house!” A booming voice announces from the door.

I look over at Mason, his jaw is clenched, and his eyes are steel. If Deb was hoping to avoid drama, it isn’t me she needed to be worried about.

Drew Riley walks in wearing a button-down shirt, undone, with surf shorts and flip flops. Long blond sun-bleached hair bouncing as he walks. Literally, bouncing.

“What’s up, my boys?” he asks, walking around and offering fist bumps. I’m impressed with the way the guys rally, making a genuine effort to make this work, so Deb doesn’t sense the hostility in the room and reconsider Black Bull’s partnership with them.

But I feel it and it’s heavy.

Wanting to smooth things out, I offer Drew my hand to shake. “Hi, I’m with the guys, I’m Chloe Brunner.”

“Chloe, pleased to meet you,” Drew says taking my hand and kissing the top of it. I smile tightly, pulling my hand away. He just smiles and laughs. “Are you like an extreme sports groupie or something? I heard you were in Jamaica and Tahiti. Or are you their assistant.”

He uses air quotes when he says assistant and I want to punch him in the face.

Noah steps forward and interjects. “She’s our—” He pauses, swallows. This was the exact thing I was worried about.

What am I? But the seconds tick by and it is growing increasingly awkward.

“I’m a groupie,” I say, not wanting to bring attention to anything besides the ExSports event that means so much to the guys. “Pretty obsessed, actually, so when we met in Jamaica, I was over the moon.”

I smile widely, not caring if everyone in this room assumes that I’m sleeping around with the guys. The truth is—I am. And I’d rather that be the story than something that people wouldn’t understand.

That this is a real relationship. That this is real love.

People seem to understand women who sleep around more than they’d understand whatever we are.

Drew smiles. “Well, lucky me, I’m sure glad I’ll be here all week then.”

Deb scowls. “Can we please at least pretend to acknowledge the Black Bull policies?”

“Of course,” Ethan says stepping in. “Let’s go to the dining room and finish the paperwork you emailed about?”

Ethan leaves with her, and Noah shows Drew his room. Enzo goes to change into clothes with the Black Bull logo.

I’m left with Mason. “You want to talk about him?” Our conversation about messing around suddenly seems like years ago.

“It’s bullshit. He’s a player. That’s it.”

I kneel in front of him, taking his hands in mine. Our foreheads pressed together.

“But your ex and him... It seems like worth talking through.”

Mason shrugs. “Trista and I only dated two months. We’d never slept together. But it was exclusive. And then Drew showed up at the event in Miami. He made a move, she went for it.” Mason smirks. “Trista showed her true colors, lying about it, but I saw them with my own eyes. We weren’t very serious so I moved on, but I can’t shake the way I think of Drew.”

“That makes sense.” I press my lips to his, kissing him without restraint. Wishing like hell I could straddle him in this chair and ride him into the sunset. God, I miss being filled by him.

“I hate he’s on this team, but you being here makes it all so much better.”

I kiss him again, this time threading my fingers through his hair, my mouth parting and our tongues colliding.

“Ahem,” Deb coughs loudly. “Is this what you call groupie behavior?”

Mason pulls back, grinning at me. “No, this is what I call love.”

I bite back my smile, loving how open he is with those words.

Truth is, I call this love too.Chapter 31ChloeThe interview takes forever to get started. They put so much makeup on me, dress me in a tight little “sport” dress, and take the angle of love when asking the group questions.