Page 18 of Home Game

“Shawn is the love of my life, and I think about him more than anyone else,” Rush said. “But I care about every person who walks through those doors, okay?”

“He might be right, Em,” Landry told me. “You’re chugging whiskey like you’re a grizzled old man in a saloon.”

Landry had come with me tonight as a designated driver, and also because he knew I’d been thinking too hard about cracking theproblemthat was Storm Rosling.

“Now’s not the time to deny me alcohol, Lucky,” I told him. He laughed.

Just about everyone called Landry “Lucky.” He kept me grounded when I was stressed, and I’d been leaning on him more in the past couple of years. We’d worked alongside each other at Lux Marketing for a long time, and he’d become so much more than just a colleague—he was my best friend, and just as much of a marketing bloodhound as I was. Sharp, kind, and great at what he did.

People sometimes said Landry and I were like twins who weren’t related. He really did feel like family.

“We both know what happens when you overdo the whiskey,” Landry said.

“You and Rush are both very good people,” I told him. “But I promise. I can handle the liquor.”

I didn’t know if it was true or not. I’d done a couple of shots already, and I felt the whiskey hitting my blood like fire.

I kept looking over toward the front doors, waiting for Storm to walk through.

“Where is he?” I asked Landry. “Over an hour late. He operates on hotshot football player time, I guess.”

“Not everyone shows up ten minutes early to everything like you,” Landry said.

He was right. I was always punctual, always the good boy.

Maybe it was the whiskey talking, but I was kind of feeding on the energy of the brewery, right now. A quiet buzz coursed through my veins, anticipating what I might do when Storm walked through the front doors.

Fake photo leak, my ass.

I knew way too much about marketing to believe that any part of Storm’s explicit photo leak wasn’t intentional.

I didn’t know if it was a friend who dared him to do it or if it was all him, but it seemed like everyone on the internet other than me seemed to believe it was just an accidental leak.

An older man came and sat down on one of the bar stools next to me, tipping his trucker hat in my direction.

“Evenin’,” he said in a gruff way.

“Hello, there,” I said.

“Hey, William,” Rush said, already passing over a beer glass to the old guy, who was clearly a regular.

“What’s up here at the bar tonight?” William asked.

“Not too much. Shooting the shit, chatting about Storm Rosling.”

The old man narrowed his eyes, adjusting his hat again. “Is that the dumbass who keeps making news headlines for fights?”

I felt a wall go up inside me so fast I almost had whiplash.

“Storm’s not a dumbass,” I said automatically.

Whoa.

Where was that coming from? I was defending the guy, even though he was my new rival?

“I’m not so sure,” William said. “I know I don’t like what I see in the news about that Rosling guy. My Denver Ferals are supposed to be good men, not brutes.”

I cleared my throat. “Storm is a good man,” I said.

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