Page 69 of The Play

Or maybe, he could.

Micah Rose was that old adage about still waters running deep, personified.

Deacon sighed. “I didn’t want it to be like this.”

“Trust me,” Micah said, “I didn’t want a lot of things either. But now, I wake up every day, and I know I’m fucking blessed. Maybe this wasn’t how I expected to get here, maybe Charleston wasn’t where I thought I’d play, maybe I didn’t expect to be married at twenty-four, but I’m happy. In the end, it was worth it.”

“If you tell me to make it worth it . . .” Deacon gestured towards Kieran to get another round, but his gaze slid right over the pair of them.

Was the bartender avoiding him? He wasn’t drunk, not by a long shot, he just needed something else to take the edge off . . .because there was nothing he wanted more than to march out the door of this bar and go to Grant’s penthouse and make it all worth it.

“Hey, you said it, not me,” Micah said, raising his hands in faux innocence.

“And I dragged myself out here, to ‘have a drink.’” Deacon rolled his eyes.

Micah laughed, as Deacon tried to catch Kieran’s attention again, but again, he didn’t look in Deacon’s direction.

“Ugh,” Deacon said.

“You know,” Micah said conversationally, “we do have practice tomorrow.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know it,” Deacon grumbled.

But at the moment, he really didn’t give a shit.

What he wanted was a drink, so he wouldn’t march right out this door and straight to Grant.

He turned, jostling the guy next to him, trying to get Kieran’s attention again.

The guy shot him a sour look. “Watch yourself,” he retorted.

Usually nobody was interested in giving Deacon a hard time. He was a big guy and had a look that he knew promised he didn’t fuck around. But this guy was clearly a hell of a lot drunker than Deacon. It was obvious from the way he wobbled and almost didn’t right himself when Deacon accidentally nudged him.

“Sorry,” Deacon said, not sounding very sorry at all.

“Wait a sec,” the guy said, turning back to him with that glazed expression. “You’re Harris. You’re that fucker the owner guy bought a football team for.”

God, how fast and far had this news traveled?

Deacon hadn’t even known about it when he’d left his house, and now, it felt like everyone on the street had already heard the story.

“Guilty as charged,” Deacon said dryly. “That’s me.”

The guy stared at him blearily. “You don’t seem worth all that.”

“Trust me, I’m not.” If Deacon ever talked to Grant about this—which he would have to, wouldn’t he?—that was going to be the very first question he asked.

What’s so goddamn special about me?

Deacon could hardly be pissed off at some guy who was wondering the exact same thing he was.

But then, he didn’t stop there.

“Now that owner guy, he’s hot. You got him on his knees yet, ’cause I bet—”

He didn’t get the rest of the sentence out.

One moment, he was upright and the next he wasn’t and Deacon’s fist was aching.

---