Nixon (Raleigh Raptors 1)

“A bit?” Roman laughed. “Your dad would move you back in with him if he could. Then he’d have the entire defensive line escort you on every date.”

“True. But it’s all out of love,” she argued. “Besides,” she said to Liberty, “I’m majoring in sports management over in Chapel Hill, so I’ll take every second I can get with the team. There’s no one else in my class who gets the kind of access I do.”

“Speaking of access, don’t you think that neckline is a little low?” Hendrix snapped.

“Speaking of blondes, aren’t your standards a little low?” She took a sip of her ice water.

The guys around the table all groaned collectively at her burn while Hendrix shook it off with an exaggerated roll of his eyes before going back to long-distance flirting with the woman in the lower level.

Roman excused himself for the restroom just before our waitress showed up to take the orders, so I started, giving him time to make it back. Liberty ordered, then Rick ordered Teagan a salad, which had every head at the table swinging his direction. When the hell had he started ordering her food for her?

Teagan nodded along, and by the time Roman got back, the waitress was ready for his order.

“So, what’s the deal with you?” Rick asked as he slathered a piece of butter onto a roll. “You staying with the Raptors next year or what?”

“Dude, that’s confidential,” Hendrix warned Rick as he slid his roll over to Savannah, who’d already eaten hers.

“According to ESPN, you want more money.” Rick’s eyebrows rose. “What, being the highest-paid quarterback in the NFL not good enough for you anymore? Or you pissed about the franchise tag they slapped on you?”

Liberty stiffened.

“It has nothing to do with the money and all about the length of the contract,” I said quietly.

“Well, yeah. You’re thirty, which is approaching your expiration date.” Rick took Teagan’s bread and buttered it, too.

Guess he wasn’t always a dick.

“Really?” Liberty asked, concern putting little lines between her eyebrows.

“Most guys at my level retire in their mid-thirties,” I told her. “At most, I’ve got ten years left, I’d guess.”

“And you want those ten with us, right?” Roman confirmed. “Because we’ve heard about the other teams sniffing around.”

“Yeah. Nothing would make me happier than staying a Raptor for my whole career, but when push comes to shove…” I shrugged.

“When push comes to shove, you’ll follow the money,” Rick said. “We all will.” He shoved Teagan’s bread into his mouth and ate it.

Still a dick.

Liberty’s jaw ticked, but Teagan shook her head slightly.

“So, what happens if you don’t get the terms you want?” Liberty asked.

“If we can’t come to terms, I’ll have to sign with another team,” I said slowly, hating the sound the words made coming out of my mouth. I didn’t want another team. I’d been a first-round draft pick by the Raptors, and that’s where I wanted to spend the rest of my career.

“You going to pick up and move with him if that happens?” Rick asked Liberty.

Her eyes widened, and her gaze met mine with an edge of panic. “I hadn’t thought about it.”

I slid my arm from the back of her chair and cupped her face. “It’s nothing you have to worry about. And if it comes to that, we’ll have that discussion then, okay?” Shit, I’d barely gotten the woman to agree to a relationship with me. I wasn’t about to lay hypothetical problems at her feet.

Besides, Rick was wrong. When push came to shove, I’d do what was best for my baby, not my bank account.

We ate dinner in relative peace for being out in public, then stopped on our way out and took a few pictures with some fans who had spotted us. Hendrix caught a cab with the blonde he’d been eye-fucking, and the rest of us piled into the car we’d hired to take us back to the hotel.

Rick played on his phone while Roman and Teagan laughed about something, so I didn’t worry about them hearing me when I tugged Liberty closer. “You look amazing tonight. I can’t keep my eyes off you.”

“You don’t look too shabby yourself.” She smiled, then slid her fingers between the buttons of my button-down shirt, resting them on my abs, which immediately tensed. “Hmmm. Getting a little hard for me?” she teased quietly, stroking my skin in small circles.

The light touch tightened every muscle in my body.

“Why don’t you lower that hand and find out?” I grazed the shell of her ear with my teeth.

“In public?” she feigned shock. “What would your friends say?”

I stared long and hard at those kissable lips of hers, then ran my tongue across my own, noting with more than a little satisfaction that Liberty’s breath hitched. “I’d say that we have about ten minutes until I get you alone.”