Sawyer (Carolina Reapers 2)

He nodded. “I’ve spent my life trying to make up for my dad’s mistakes.”

“You know your mom doesn’t hold you responsible, right?” I asked. “I’ve only met her once and I can tell that.”

“She doesn’t,” he said. “But she doesn’t have anyone else.”

“What about her sisters? The ones she mentioned.”

“They’re closer now that we’ve moved here,” he said. “But they weren’t there through my father leaving, through the diagnosis and treatment. They weren’t there…” he sighed. “I’m not really being fair. They showed up when I asked them to. But…I was the one. The one to take it on when no one else could.”

“I’m sorry you had to do that.”

“I’m not,” he said, shrugging. “I may still hate my father. Hate the drugs and the world he left us for. But it happened how it was supposed to. It brought me here. Brought me to my dream.”

I smiled. “Well, you were brave enough to chase it.”

“With a little help,” he said, eyeing me.

And I could see it there, the connection leading us back to that night he walked into my bar. The night he needed the right person to tell him to stop thinking so much and simply go. There were so many things I’d love to watch Sawyer do if he acted first and thought later—like that dare. Thank God for Connell. The Scotsman had hand-delivered Sawyer to me on a silver platter and who knew he’d taste so damn sweet? So addictive. Even sitting here now, I wanted him. I could feel that low hum in my core, begging me to reach out and touch him again. Taste him again. Because he’d shocked the hell out of me with that kiss, spun my head, and set my body ablaze. It was impossible not to want more when it came to Sawyer McCoy.

“You would’ve gotten there on your own,” I finally said, reeling in my churning desire.

He easily placed his arm on the back of the bench, tucking me in closer but not close enough to be an invitation.

A dangerous line we teetered on.

Friends, growing closer on one side.

And on the other?

A deep, intense craving to risk that friendship and devour him. To damn everything that screamed we shouldn’t cross that line—our busy lives, the fact that he had a cleaner past than mine, the certainty that he was going places and I was happy standing still. All of it.

And the terrible thing?

I couldn’t tell which side I wanted to win.

All I knew, with devastating clarity, was that the second Sawyer walked into my life, it got brighter.

7

Sawyer

We’d fallen out of first place in the conference, and it hadn’t stopped there. The point lead we’d had when I came in as the Reaper goalie almost a month ago had quickly vanished, and the team that had been nicknamed the Inevitables was now hanging on to second place in our division by the skin of our teeth. Only the top three slots were guaranteed a place in the playoffs.

Even worse? We were six points behind North Carolina, which felt like taking the open wound and dunking it into the Atlantic.

The sound of my own voice reached my ears, and I glanced over to where two of my teammates were watching my latest post-game interview on their iPads. Thank you, in-flight Wi-Fi.

“It’s just hard to believe that the simple loss of Fields, and Thurston’s injury has turned this team from Inevitable to Inconsequential,” one announcer said, his colleagues chuckling.

I leaned my head back and closed my eyes as my teammates hissed.

Fuck me, I was killing this team.

“Don’t let it get to you,” Connell said as he took the seat next to me.

I shot him the closest thing I had to a fuck off look as another clip from my interview started playing.

“Turn that shite off!” Connell snapped at the guys across the aisle, then ran his hand over his blond hair in an uncharacteristic show of exasperation. “It’s not easy, coming off the bench like you have and stepping into all this.”

“Agreed,” Logan said, looking back through the opening between seats.

“Easy for you both to say,” I grumbled. “You guys were winning just fine with Fields in the net.”

“And Thurston,” Connell reminded me, then flinched. “That didn’t come out right.”

“You fucking suck at pep talks, MacDhuibh,” Cannon noted from a seat right behind us.

“Have you got anything better, you surly arse?” Connell fired back.

“Not my job to babysit the new kid,” Cannon answered, turning the page in whatever book he was reading.

“Nice,” Connell sang in a mocking tone.

I sighed all the way to the bottom of my soul. Never in a million years had I thought that reaching the dream would be easier than keeping it.

Cannon’s book hit the seat next to him, and suddenly his head appeared over the seat to my right. Jesus, was there an inch on the guy that wasn’t tatted up besides his face?