Page 15 of Always My Comfort

It wasn’t my 105 mile-per-hour pitch, although that had gained me quite the following, and because of it everyone had higher expectations of me. It was my family history, one brother in the NFL two that tried, our name was popular in the sports industry.

My alarm went off again, and I reached for my phone on the bedside table to silence it. Peace filled the room once again.

Just as I was about to fall back asleep, exhausted from yesterday’s training, the phone buzzed in my hand. Answering the call without checking the caller ID, I immediately regretted it.

“You better be out of bed, man.” Luke was a morning person—always had been—and I had always been a night owl. Sometimes, I wondered how we got along.

“You damn well know I’m still in bed. I told you how late practice ran last night,” I grumbled, sliding a hand down my face and rubbing my tired eyes.

“I also know that you have your first game in a week, and you want to be pitching rather than keeping the bench warm, right?” Sometimes, I hated the fucker.

Times like right now because he was right.

Richard was the only player on the team who took an immediate dislike to me, not that it was any surprise, but he was making it hard to be accepted by spreading rumors.

He’d already told everyone I took steroids the day I threw my record-breaking pitch, and some believed him.

“That dipshit start anything new?” Luke asked and I sighed.

“Half the guys keep checking to make sure I’m not taking steroids, the others could care less, but Coach is breathing down my neck.” Sitting up, I stood from the bed and stumbled into my bathroom.

“What about that bartender, Logan? Bump into her yet?” Since Luke had proposed to Melanie and picked a date for their upcoming wedding, he was hell-bent on finding me a date. He reminded me a few times a week it was time to start looking for a girl to take home and settle down with.

“I’m not goin’ near her, man. Remember, her ex is one of my teammates. That’s a can of worms I don’t want to open anytime soon.” He chuckled.

“When has that ever stopped you? You’re Jaxon Dexter. Whatever you want, you take.”

Logan had been a mistake.

A mistake I didn’t want to make twice.

I had fallen for her green eyes, and the moment she opened those pretty pink lips and mentioned one of my favorite beers, I was a goner.

Most women didn’t know a thing about beer, but she was well-versed, and after watching her throw her slender neck back for a shot, I wanted her in my bed.

“It was a mistake—" I started to tell him, but he erupted into laughter.

“Bullshit. Don’t lie to me. She was still in your bed the next morning we left. You never let them stay,” he reminded me. He’d made fun of me the entire flight home and told Melanie all about the bartender who’d changed me.

“She had nowhere to go,” I argued, thinking back to the conversation I shared with her in the early hours of the morning.

I was pretty sure the alcohol made her spill all her secrets about her ex, but she still withheld a name and refused to go into detail. All I knew was that they dated for a while, and he was terrible in bed. She’d thanked me for making her see stars and for being gentle.

Hell, I’d never been complimented in bed before. He must have been useless.

She humbled me in one night, and when I woke the next morning, her soft, black hair tickling my nose as she cuddled into my chest, I was sure I had died and gone to Heaven.

Never in all my years did I ever think a woman could make me want more than one night.

But Logan did.

She showed me in one night what I could have.

“You daydreaming about her, man? No time for that now. We have a run to go on.” Groaning, I brushed my teeth and changed into a pair of joggers.

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re fuckin’ annoyin’?” He chuckled as I laced up my sneakers.

“All the damn time, man. Have you met Mel? I think she tells me ten times a day.”

---