Bishop (Arizona Vengeance 1)

The fact that I just introduced Brooke to Erik as a woman I’ve been dating a few months will send a message to the team that she’s not just arm candy.Chapter 8Bishop“I still can’t fucking believe it,” Legend mutters as he looks from me to Brooke—who is standing across the room—and then back to me again. I also cut my gaze to Brooke, but hold my eyes there a moment, watching as she talks to Erik’s arm-candy date, whose name I still have no clue about.

We’ve finished dinner, which was a two-and-a-half-hour affair, and now some of us have gathered in the spacious bar area of the restaurant, while others are still lingering over dessert in the dining room.

“How in the hell could you keep quiet about dating the coach’s daughter?” Erik asks me, his tone as disbelieving of the situation as Legend’s just was. “I mean, you dated her while you played for the Vipers and while Perron coached the Phantoms. And you never told anyone about it?”

Dax laughs and claps Erik on the back. “I knew about it. But I’m just as good as Bishop about keeping secrets.”

I have to grin at that. Dax has appointed himself as a character in our hoax upon Coach Perron and the team. The first time tonight someone questioned me about the secrecy of my relationship, Dax jumped right in and loudly told everyone listening that he knew from the get-go.

In fact, he went on to start feeding the fake details of the story of how we met. Luckily, I had recounted with pretty great specificity what we’d told Coach Perron, and Dax picked right back up there.

“We were at Club Zero,” he told the group that made up our table of eight. We had purposely sat down with some of the players we didn’t know very well in an effort to start getting to know them. “And there were so many people there, because this is like a really hot space to party. At any rate, Bishop saw Brooke on the dance floor and he became like a zombie. Sort of creepy the way he stared at her with his tongue all hanging out. He only got the guts to go talk to her after I plied him with a few mixed drinks and gave him about ten pep talks. Yeah…you could say their entire relationship is all my doing, as Bishop was too much of a pussy to approach her otherwise.”

I wanted to cheerfully strangle him and Brooke was giggling from behind her hand. The other players were highly amused, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to correct him. The story went on from there, Brooke and I adding to it, making up shit on the fly. We revealed the secrecy in that we just didn’t want to complicate things with her dad, but he found out and so we’re coming clean to everyone. We left that very vague, preferring that no one know that Coach Perron actually caught me in a compromising situation with his daughter in her office.

“What’s Coach Perron really like when he’s not riding our asses at practice?” Legend asks, jolting me back to the present.

I shrug as I turn to look at him. “He’s cool. Still a little gruff, and he’s overprotective of Brooke, but he just wants what’s best for her.”

I had determined the first night I agreed to enter into this deception that I was going to paint Coach in as good a light as he’d let me. I figured it was going to go a long way in keeping our relationship stable when Brooke and I “broke up.”

“You know you’re fucked if this thing with her doesn’t go the distance,” Legend returns to me.

He wouldn’t be wrong about that.

“Is it going to go the distance?” Erik asks casually.

“It’s serious,” is all I’m willing to say. We have not perpetuated the engagement that Brooke told her father about. We figured he isn’t really going to say anything publicly about it until it’s done formally with a ring, and I’m not about to do that, so for now, Brooke and I are just dating and I’ve confirmed it’s serious. Between the guys at dinner, and Dax, Erik, and Legend, word is going to get around probably before the night ends that Brooke and I are a serious couple.

I look back over at Brooke. I have to admit, she held herself together well during dinner. Both of us kept light on details, but when she spoke about me it was with warmth and affection. She was also attentive to the other people at the table, and it was a good opportunity for me to actually observe her for the very first time without the pressure of our duplicity hanging over us or without us being preoccupied with sex. I found out tonight that just watching someone interact with others will tell you a lot about them.