First and Tension (Summersweet Island 4)

No hint of a future crazy redhead anywhere in sight.

“Fascinating. Show me the family photo albums of you frolicking in the surf later,” Tyler deadpans. “Lucky for you, I don’t believe in coincidences. I’m going to head over to this hillbilly island in the middle of nowhere and take care of it.”

“What do you mean take care of it?” I ask him worriedly as I wipe the sweat from the back of my neck with the towel he threw at me, wanting to kick my own ass for being worried about a woman who’s trying to screw me. And not in the fun way.

“I’m going to have her whacked, obviously. Jesus, Quinn, I’m going to see how much it will take to pay her off and shut her up.” Tyler shakes his head at me, bringing his phone up to his ear as he makes a call to his assistant.

“You’d stop getting STDs if you’d stop paying for women, Deal!”

I can’t help it; another laugh flies out of me when Craig shouts from the Stairmaster. Thankfully, it temporarily puts a stop to the queasy feeling in my stomach. I only spent a handful of hours with that woman, but she definitely didn’t seem like the type who would take too kindly to being bribed for her silence.

I also didn’t think she would be the type of woman to lie right to my face after the shit we shared with each other and then go running to the press, but here we are.

I can’t believe I even tried to track her down when she turned into an obsession I couldn’t get out of my head. Thank God no one from the party returned my texts or voicemails.

“Julie!” Tyler barks into the phone while all sorts of crazy ideas start running through my head. “Call my pilot and schedule me a flight over to that shitty little island off the coast of Virginia Beach ASAP.”

Was any of it even real or the truth? She didn’t even tell me she cheered for the same fucking team I played for, for four years! Who does that? All her little cheers throughout the night make sense now. Fucking adorable little cheers that made me want to bend her over the closest table and—Nope! Stop it!

I thought she looked a little familiar, but I’ve met so many people during my career that pretty much everyone looks familiar at a certain point. Ellen Westwood, the scary director of the Vipers Cheerleaders, put a rule in place long before I was drafted that the cheerleaders aren’t allowed to have anything to do with the football players, no matter how hard the players try. After a while, the guys just stopped trying and stopped paying attention to them, as shitty as it sounds, considering these women bust their asses every day to root for us. There’s no point lusting after hot, athletic women we never have a shot with unless they quit their job, which is some serious double-standard bullshit. There are still plenty of guys who buy thirty copies of the cheerleaders’ yearly calendar and jerk off to it, but I never understood the point. I’d much rather fantasize about a woman I can actually be with, not someone forever off-limits.

Like the woman I fantasized about for five months, who made me laugh and forget about my problems for a few hours… who actually turned out to be psychotic.

“What do you mean it’s not big enough to land a private plane on?” Tyler shouts, pulling me from my thoughts. “Do they even have running water and electricity? Jesus Christ… I’m sorry, did you just say… a ferry? A fucking ferry! Fine. Book a private one for me for later tonight, and make sure it’s stocked with caviar and…. I have to ride with everyone? And I have to walk up to the dock, buy my own ticket, and they only take cash? Is this fucking island located in the 1950s?”

I just want to ask her if she got some kind of sick satisfaction out of pretending to be a decent human being on a night when I was questioning all my life choices.

“Do the two professional athletes who currently live there, and clearly don’t care about their own well-being, play football? Since, you know—” Tyler laughs a little maniacally. “—the Deal Firm specializes in football, and my client list only includes an extensive number of professional football players.”

Tyler pulls the phone away from his mouth long enough to wink, give me a finger-gun point, and whisper, “An extensive list, but you’re always my number one, Quinn.” Something I’m absolutely positive he tells all his clients. He brings the phone back to his mouth and yells at Julie. “Then no! If they don’t play professional football, I haven’t heard about those two schmucks, and I don’t give a shit!”