Sawyer (Carolina Reapers 2)

I scoffed. “You left me long before I left you, Chad. And it doesn’t even matter. We’re done. We’ve been done. There is no us anymore.”

He nodded, the muscle in his jaw clenching. I moved to go around him, but he stopped me again, this time so fast I dropped Sawyer’s warm-up jacket.

“Sorry,” he said, darting to pick the jacket up before I could move. I held his gaze, not wanting to lose sight of his eyes in case they switched from cordial to lethal.

“Give that to me,” I said, each word slow and clear. “And move.”

He handed me the jacket after another breath and backed away. “No one is perfect,” Chad said. “Someday you’re going to remember that.” He turned his back on me and headed around the building. “I’ll be waiting for you when you do.”

My hands were still trembling when I parked outside Reaper arena, which was a too-quick drive from my bar. I sucked in a sharp breath, held my chin high, and rushed Sawyer’s jacket inside minutes before the shoot.

“You’re lucky your girlfriend cares about you,” Langley chided Sawyer as I made my way toward the exit of the arena.

I winked at Langley, blew a kiss to Sawyer, and got out of there as fast as I could. I couldn’t dare let Sawyer see the fear in my eyes. The anger and the exhaustion over the one piece of my past that wouldn’t stop haunting me.

Because the last thing I ever wanted it to do was to start haunting him too.

17

Sawyer

Holy shit, we were really going to the Cup.

“Well, we’re not here for fun,” Cannon said without looking up from another book.

“Guess I said that out loud?” I questioned as our bus pulled into the private airport we usually flew out of.

“That or I’m now a mind reader.”

The 737 was parked directly ahead of us, and the bus turned to stop just outside the small trailer that served as security.

I swung my backpack over my shoulder as we filed out of the bus. Just ahead, the box truck carrying our equipment was open in the back as several of the equipment managers and a few airport staff quickly unloaded a mountain of gear.

“Gentlemen!” Coach called as we gathered on the asphalt outside the security building, a sea of black warm-up jackets and ties. Thank God Echo had brought mine this afternoon, or Langley would have forced me into something awful just to prove a point.

Echo. God, I already missed her. She’d raced over as the team was loading the bus so I could sneak in one last kiss before the trip, but it wasn’t enough. I thought about the wives flying out commercially tonight, and a stab of jealousy hit me in the stomach. I loved that she worked so hard for the bar, but there was a part of me that longed to see her at the game now that we’d made the finals.

“Let’s get through the checkpoint as quickly as possible and get you into the air,” Coach shouted above the noise. “It’s a four-hour flight to Vegas, and I want you in bed early. No gambling, no booze, no women, nothing. You understand?”

“I play better when I get laid,” Cannon grumbled next to me.

Connell laughed from his other side but kept his mouth shut for once.

After we all muttered the expected, “We understand you,” Coach led the way into the trailer.

“This time tomorrow night, we’ll have won Game one,” Connell predicted, nodding his head like it was already a fact.

“Next time we’ll have to charter a bigger plane to fit your fucking ego.” Cannon shook his head and closed his book. The title made me raise my eyebrows. Somehow I expected a guy with his temper to read books on serial killers or murder mysteries, not Atlas Shrugged.

“Jesus,” Connell’s accent drew the word out. “They’re taking this drug thing a little far, don’t you think?” He nodded toward where a K-9 unit entered behind the coach.

“Can you blame them?” Ward asked from my other side. “They can’t afford to take any chances.”

The line started moving forward, though we were regretfully in the back quarter of it.

“Just do us all a favor and take your damned sunglasses out of your pocket before you go through the metal detector this time, McCoy. No one needs to get held up again.” Connell winked because he’d put them in there to begin with.

“You’re not getting me this time, asshole,” I said with a grin shoving my hands into my warmup jacket. No sunglasses. I felt something odd in my right pocket, and pulled it free, holding it between my thumb and forefinger.

Looking down, I saw a small, plastic bag half-full of white powder.

What the fuck?

Keeping my hand low, I tested the texture of the powder, rolling my thumb over what felt like baby powder under the plastic. But I didn’t use powder, or keep it in anything like that…