Talkin' Trash (Bear Bottom Guardians MC 2)

Chapter 1

Life is just a series of obstacles preventing you from taking a nap.

-T-shirt

Conleigh

I watched with my heart in my throat as the ball was released from Lincoln James’, star quarterback of the Longview Liners, hand.

The ball went into a flawless spiral, the absolute most perfect pass there ever was, only to stop short when the man who was supposed to catch it was slammed to the ground seconds before it hit his hands.

Everyone everywhere who loved the Longview Liners like I did collectively groaned.

“Noooo!” I cried out, pissed off and outraged that the man didn’t catch the ball. “How could you do that?”

Then the buzzer sounded, and the season was over, just like that.

I prayed that they’d pan over to Linc so I could see him, make sure that he was all right, but the stupid cameraman panned to the coach, who looked mad as hell. Then to the little pissant who they called Joe Blow, but was really named Joe Hoyt, who looked even epically pissed off that he was tackled.

I immediately felt horrible for calling him a pissant, because he really was a great guy. And catching that ball really was impossible, especially with half of their team hurt and Joe the only logical choice to throw to since he’d been the only one to make actual plays tonight instead of fumble the damn ball.

I watched with avid fascination as the world went on around them, waiting for a glimpse or two of Linc.

However, none ever came, and I only realized when they were filming post-game interviews that Linc had straight up gone to the locker room and avoided all contact with everyone.

Not that I blamed him.

Linc was always a sore loser, and he’d told me before that he was forced to put on a happy face and play nice when he least wanted to.

My phone chimed on the chair beside me, and I smiled when I saw my mom’s name on the screen.

She’d put a sad face with huge fat tears on it, and I knew that she and my stepfather, Steel, had been watching the game just as closely as I had been.

A couple of years ago, my mother wouldn’t be caught dead watching a football game—they reminded her too much of my former stepfather—but now, she’d cuddle on the couch with her big, bad biker president and stay there for hours watching a game with him.

Me? I’d always loved the game of football. I loved it even more now that I got to watch Linc’s tight ass running around on the field. Though, he thought I hated it, and I allowed him to think I hated it because me and Linc had a weird relationship.

Another text came in while I was replying with my own sad smiley face to my mother, and my heart started to pound.

Other things in my body started to act weird, too.

Like my vagina.

That thing was always betraying me.

Especially when it came to Linc James, my one-time not-so-much boyfriend.

I say ‘one-time’ loosely, though. At one point, we’d discussed being more than friends, but then he’d gotten too big for his britches, so to speak, and had forgotten all about little old me.

Sure, he still texted every now and then, like right now, but it wasn’t like how it used to be when we’d talk every single night.

I always made it a point to reply to him.

Always.

But I was never overly friendly.

I had to protect my heart, because I’d had it broken by one too many men over my life—my father, my first stepfather, and then finally, Linc.

It couldn’t handle being broken again, especially a second time by Linc James, professional football player, and owner of many hearts—including my own.

Linc: You up?

I swallowed past the lump in my throat and replied.

Conleigh: Yep. Lots of homework to do. I’m not sure this master’s degree thing is for me.

I really was thinking that. The more that I studied, and the more I got away from the actual nursing part of nursing, the more I realized that maybe I’d made the wrong decision.

Originally my goal had been to become a doctor, but that would take way too long for me to accomplish, and on top of that, the required schooling was so intense that you couldn’t really work or do anything else while in school. In the end, I’d changed my major to nurse practitioner with a plan to possibly explore the option of becoming a doctor once I had established myself financially.

A long time ago, my mother, brother, and I had been poor. And when I say poor, I meant the kind of poor where eating ramen noodles once a week was a treat, and I was stealing shoes from the store for my baby brother. That kind of poor.

My mother wasn’t the one to do that, though.