Page 22 of The Kiss of Deception

I show him the most famous finger, without looking up from the laces I’m tying. If I see his face, I’ll remember him on the sidelines, beaming at my girlfriend as he answered her questions like they were old friends in a cafe rather than professionals performing their duties.

He doesn’t even like interviews—none of us do—yet these days they all seem to have a lot to tell the press.

But Zoe is my girlfriend. If there is anyone she should interview, it is me.

“Have you seen her?” asks Collins, the resident jerk. My back straightens, locked and alert. “I wouldn’t keep her waiting either.”

“Oh, yeah. Me neither.” Leo interrupts before I can snap, infamous boat shoes now in his hands as he fiddles with the laces, struggling to untie the several knots of the intricate prank.

I’m about to snatch the damn shoes from his hands and beat him with them, but his hands rise fast in apology. “She kinda scares me, man! She’s terrifying.”

Something about that statement makes me fucking proud of my girl—and pisses me off on her behalf at the same time.

I grab a shoe and hit him across the head.

There’s a point to make.

“Keep my girl’s name out of your mouths.”

My voice is heavy with warning. It drips from every syllable, so it permeates the air and penetrates every pair of ears in the room. The light mood dies to match my mood as I address the room.

“Keep her name out of your mouths. Keep her face out of your heads. In fact, erase it from your memories or I might feel more generous than usual and do it for you.”

Cheery chaos evaporates as a stunned stillness settles, a heavy silence.

I am not the man they know.

Miles Blackstein is all charming grins and silly jokes, cheerful and easygoing and unbothered. He never takes anything seriously, much less personally.

This one, this growly protective version, is new. So they gauge, measuring the seriousness of my threat, unsure how to respond.

I’ve never been a violent person, but this is non-negotiable. I’m fluent in locker room talk—and Zoe will not be the main topic within these walls. Most of the guys toe the line between playful and respectfully offensive, having long outgrown the pimpled teenage phase where misogyny was cool. But some of them seem content to never grow up.

“Would you look at that?” Gus’s chuckle slices through the tension. “Looks like the man finally found his balls.”

His joke would have sounded offensive coming from any other guy, but from him, I see it for what it is. An attempt to defuse the quiet pounding in my chest, each heartbeat a tick on my jaw counting down the seconds before I blow up and obliterate a healthy team to rubble.

“He does have a use for them now,” Davis adds with a contemplative tilt of his head.

“Yeah, maybe she found them.” Fucking Collins has to open his fucking mouth again, and if he doesn’t shut it right fucking now, his tongue might be mopping the dirty floor with his bleached hair. “Must’ve been an exhausting exploration, with how far up they were stuck. Poor Zo—”

He doesn’t get to the last syllable of her name before I’m on him, his navy jersey crumpled in my fists. We’re pretty similar in height, a matter of centimeters and blind rage separating us. I’m bigger.

“I won’t fucking say it again, Collins.” My biceps strain with tension as I push the sentences through gritted teeth. “Say her name one more time and you might not finish the season.”

He tilts his head in victory, pleased to have goaded from the reaction he desired with his incendiary words. If it’s a game to him, I couldn’t care less that I played right into his hand as long as I’ve gotten my point across.

Around us, the team watches the scene unfold, unwilling to pick sides.

I unfist his jersey, his smirk stuttering as he staggers back when I shove him.

“Great game, my people!” Andrew Bass storms in with clapping hands as though he belongs here with his unwrinkled suit and meticulously styled hair. “Great work, team. Proud of you.”

Blindly, I reach for a shirt, still pulling it on as I cross the room. I need out of this fucking place, and yesterday would’ve been too late.

Apparently, it’s not my lucky day. One second after the heavy door slams shut behind me, it creaks open again.

“Miles B.!”

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