Hothead (Irresistible 4)

“Oh yeah? Why is that?”

“You made it easy tonight. The game just went by fast. I didn’t feel the usual shit as much,” he confessed.

“What do you mean the usual shit?”

The cotton pulled tight on Drew’s T-shirt as he shrugged his big shoulders.

“I don’t know. I just didn’t feel the stress as much. The shit they said to me – I wasn’t just pretending not to care this time. I really didn’t,” Drew said, his brows pulling tight as if he was realizing all this as he said it.

“And you think that has to do with me?” I laughed gently. He didn’t return my amusement.

“Yes,” he said, looking me in the eye. He stood closer now, stroking the back of my calves as he gazed down at me. “Helped just knowing I had you to come home to tonight. Kind of made it feel like everything the fans were saying didn’t mean shit. Pattie, Tim – the fans use them against me because they think that’s as personal as it gets with me. That that’s what I care about most.”

“But… it’s not?” I asked slowly, feeling a dorky smile curl my lips. Drew laughed as he watched me.

“No. It’s not,” he said.

“What is it then?”

“I think you know the answer to that,” he murmured, leaning in to kiss me softly on the lips.

I didn’t even care that he didn’t say it out loud. You’re what I care about most. It would’ve been nice to hear but I knew how hard it was for Drew to say even as much as he’d just did. So as I kissed him back, I told myself to give him time.

Eventually, he’d come around.

“Aww, look at these fuckin’ lovebirds.”

I heard the jeer and immediately pulled away from Drew’s kiss, but he caught my jaw with his hand, pressing his lips to mine for another hot second before letting me go. Then he eyed the heckler standing in line to order.

“Don’t let them get to you,” Drew murmured just as our orders arrived.

“I won’t,” I said calmly, though I could feel the tension rising as more bar patrons trickled over to the taco stand, all of them hawking us like a damned zoo exhibit.

Fuckin’ Drew and his hunger emergencies, I groaned inwardly as the hecklers got closer.

There were two in particular who worried me. They were in their fifties with ruddy faces and beer bellies. They looked like actual pigs to me, especially as they talked loudly about being about to see up my “slutty little skirt.”

“Don’t,” I whispered under my breath to Drew. “Don’t give them a reaction.”

He had his back facing them and his eyes staring straight ahead into the kitchen, but I could see as he chewed on his food that his jaw was tightening. I could tell from the way he stopped blinking that he was focused on these assholes without looking at them, and his sudden concentration scared me. He seemed suddenly locked in the way he was when he was on the mound, and it made all the hairs on the back of my neck stand up at attention.

“Save yourself, sweetie,” the one with the ponytail said, waving at me in the corner of my vision. “You don’t wanna end up like that poor Lillard bastard.”

“Team Lillard!” someone shouted from a few doors down as Ponytail’s friend laughed.

“Yeah, you get this guy fired up enough and who knows what he’ll do. I’m sure he’s hit a woman before.”

“Plenty, in fact.”

Disgusting assholes. My jaw clenched as I folded my paper plate and tossed my unfinished food in the trash.

“Let’s go, Drew,” I murmured, exhaling in relief when he simply nodded.

“Oh, no, sweetie, you leaving?” Ponytail asked me as I got off my chair, though his bleary, mischievous eyes were on Drew as he said it. “You sure you wanna go with him? We won’t mind taking you in for the night.”

“No, we’d love it. In fact, I’ll let you sleep in my bed if you take that Maddox jersey off.”

“Watch it, motherfucker,” Drew barked, making my pulse jump.