Page 36 of The Play

Ugh.

“I don’t want you to ever have to choose, though, between football and uh . . .” Grant hesitated again. “Whatever this is.” He waved in the air between them. “So this is me saying this isn’t happening.”

“Because you own this team?” Deacon repeated it and tried not to sound incredulous, but that happened anyway.

Grant gave a sharp nod.

“Then why do we keep doing this?” And that sounded actually wrenched out of him, as he took a step closer and then two steps and then three until he was practically right on top of Grant.

Watched as his eyes dilated in the fluorescent light of the bathroom.

He was in a dark blue button-up shirt, which made his eyes look like an ocean, fathoms deep.

Why did they keep doing this?

Because they couldn’t stop themselves.

Because he couldn’t stop himself.

When Carter had sent that text, inviting him to the victory party at the Pirate’s Booty the night after Thanksgiving, Grant had argued with himself a hundred times and come up with a hundred different conclusions.

He shouldn’t go. It was inappropriate.

But then Carter had texted him again, convincing him that it was actually more inappropriate to skip the gathering.

So he’d come, thinking that if he had a chance he’d tell Deacon that last night had been a mistake. No doubt Deacon would already be on the same page but saying it clearly would reemphasize the line that they never should’ve crossed.

Except that it backfired.

Because Deacon was right there, in his space, smelling so good and looking so good, and suddenly it was so much harder to remember why they were such a catastrophically bad idea.

“Then why do we keep doing this?” Deacon asked, and he sounded just about as wretched and desperate as Grant felt.

“I don’t know,” Grant said. No closer to answers than he’d been last night. Why did this keep happening? Why did it feel like fate, so inevitable that they were powerless to fight the surge of it?

Maybe he should’ve been more jealous of Nate, cuddled up next to Deacon like he was more than just his friend, but it was hard to be jealous when Deacon was literally drinking his preferred beverage. All because that bartender with the crazy ability had said he should.

“Yes, you do,” Deacon argued. “It’s why I let that kid flirt with me. It’s why I try not to look directly at the husbands. It’s why you came here tonight, no matter what persuasive logic Carter used.”

Grant sighed.

“What do you want me to say?” he asked, resigned. “I told you last night, yeah, I wish things were different. But they’re not. I’m still having these fucking calls each week with the commissioner’s office. They didn’t come out and say it, but they weren’t happy about all those pictures and stories that came out of Vegas, when Beck and Micah got married. It looked bad, according to Cheryl.”

He hadn’t wanted to tell Deacon this.

Sure, they were partners, but Deacon was a player, while Grant owned this team. Had bet his entire financial future on it, no matter how sunny a prospect it looked now. And would continue to pin everything on it next year and next year and the year after, long after Deacon retired.

Everything he’d put on the line for Deacon’s reputation. For his own reputation and for the Condors’ reputation. If they did something about this, Deacon wouldn’t be the only one who paid the price.

It would be both of them, over and over again.

And everyone he was responsible for, the people whose salaries he paid, the money that made it possible for them to put roofs over their heads and food on the table for their families.

Only once had he been forced to make layoffs at InTech, because he’d recklessly, in his fourth year, authorized an aggressive expansion that had backfired. They’d grown, but not that fast. He hadn’t slept for a week. Had thrown up in his office bathroom after being forced to announce the ten percent workforce reduction.

After that, he’d vowed never to ever, ever compromise any of his businesses—but more importantly, his employees—like that ever again.

Buying the Condors had been a risk, but he’d made one hundred percent sure that if the team failed, it wouldn’t ever come back to InTech.

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