Page 21 of Mine

The feel of his lips and his body lingered, even on the following day. Coach called saying we couldn’t run drills today because they had some maintenance to do, and I was fucking thankful. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to look at Riggs without getting embarrassed or turned on again.

I don’t know what the hell led to that kiss, but the moment his lips touched mine, my brain short circuited and I needed more. He was firm, a little rough and the way he held my neck, I was so turned on that I was ready for more. The only thing was, I had never been with a man before, the thought had never crossed my mind… maybe I had thought about it but acting on it never seemed like a need until Hunter.

Was I bisexual? Just thinking about the kiss again had my stomach clenching in arousal and as much as I hated Hunter Riggs, I wanted to kiss him again. God, this was so fucked up, how the hell did we go from exchanging hits to making out in the fucking showers?

The sound of a horn brought me out of my internal struggle, and I saw the light was green. I put my hand up in apology, turning left into the gated community my father lived in. It was ostentatious and it made me cringe every time I came here, yet Iwas grateful I didn’t live here with my parents. I parked my jeep in the driveway, got out of the car and inspected it to make sure it was as spotless as it could be.

My father was already looking for something to complain about and I did everything I could to limit his complaining. Once I was satisfied, I walked to the front door, knocked and the door immediately opened.

“Hello, son, took you long enough to get here,” my father said, walking out of the house with my uncle right behind him.

“Hello?” My father locked up the house, walking away from me.

“Well, don’t just stand there, we are already late,” my father snapped.

“I thought we were having brunch here.” I walked back to the driveway as they looked at me with impatience.

“Son, I told you we were going to see your brother today and you had to be here forty-five minutes ago,” he said, pointing at the car.

Fuck, I guess I was driving.

“I don’t remember getting an email or text for this,” I said, opening the car. I walked to the driver’s side, but my father pushed me aside, and grabbed the keys from me.

“I’ll drive. I don't have the patience for your driving and is it such a hardship to support your brother?” he said, shutting the door.

My uncle took the passenger seat, leaving the smaller back seat to me. I took a deep breath, needing to settle my thoughts before I got into the car. My jeep didn’t have the most spacious back seat, especially when my father and uncle pushed their own seats back.

“I would have come sooner if I had known we were going to his game,” I said, scooting in the seat, scowling as they huffed their impatience. “It's not as spacious as it looks.”

“Well, you're the smallest out of us so it makes sense you would sit back there.” My uncle sounded exasperated.

My father didn’t even wait for me to put on my seatbelt before backing out and driving to the stadium that was, thankfully, relatively close to his house. I wasn’t that much smaller than them and it irritated me that they always threw it in my face.

“Your mother was supposed to tell you,” he said, before asking my uncle about something, dismissing me.

I curbed the need to roll my eyes because he should know my mom never called me. The drive was filled with my uncle and father criticizing how football was played now, and how they needed to stop being so lenient on these players and whatever toxic bullshit they could come up with.

My father and uncle played professional football years ago and my older brother had just started his second year. I was the odd man out and they wouldn’t let me forget it. I could have been playing with my brother, we could have been a dynamic duo. I just didn’t have passion for football the way my brother did.

Football to my family was like breathing and I didn’t even feel that way about hockey. I loved the sport, and I was glad I had made it to the professionals, but unlike them, I knew it wasn’t everything. There were more important things to life but my father and uncle still chased their glory days. It was sad when you thought about these fortysomething-year-old men that didn’t think they were anything more than their football careers.

My father made his way to the gold parking lot, and it looked like we beat the crowd. I checked my phone, and it was only eleven. I had no idea what time kick-off was at and by the looks of it, we had another hour or two. As we walked into the stadium it seemed we had tickets in a suite and I was hoping they had food.

We walked into a suite that was thankfully empty, but if I knew my father, we were in some hot shot’s suite and the next five hours of my life were going to be miserable. Thankfully, they had food and it was the first thing I went for.

“Romeo, can’t you wait to eat?” my father snapped.

“I assumed we were having brunch, and I didn't have a big breakfast,” I said, gritting my teeth. “I’m still recovering from yesterday's game.”

“I thought you played on Friday.” My uncle said, looking at the food.

I knew he was hungry too. We were big men, and we needed to eat often.

“Yesterday, then I'm out of town for the next two games,” I said, grabbing a plate because there was no way in hell I wasn’t going to eat. “How did you snag suite tickets?”

My brother might be good, but not good enough to have his own suite or to get suite tickets on the regular.

“My old teammate said they had some space and asked if I wanted to watch from up here when I saw him at Tomás’ practice this week,” he said, while getting a drink from the bar.

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