Page 45 of Tight End

Chapter 18

Brixton

My smile spreads wider when the anger flickers into Sam’s expression.

He doesn’t like to be caught off-guard.

And now he’s about to find out exactly what he signed up for when he agreed to be my sham of a boyfriend.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” he growls under his breath. “Are you trying to turn this into a goddamn circus act?”

“I’m just the puppet.” I shrug. “The label execs are pulling all the strings and I doubt they’d want to be part of a circus.”

“You’d better not screw this up. It isn’t just about you.” Sam’s brows furrow, his hands wrapped into tight balls at his side, and it’s pretty clear what he wants to do with them.

“You wanna deck me? That would be hella fucking juicy, yeah? A lover’s spat, caught on video with all the other bullshit they want me to spew.”

“You’d love the drama too much. That alone is reason enough for me to do the exact opposite of what you want.”

“And I think you’d love it if I kissed you again.” I run myhand over his heart. “Don’t lie to me, either. I can feel your truth, Sammy.”

With a quick glance over my shoulder, his eyes widen and he looks back at me, his lips lifting reluctantly.

“I’d rather have an enema,” he says through his fake ass smile.

I laugh.

Fuck him if he wants to deny he felt anything from that kiss.

Because I sure as hell did. Every thick, hard inch of it.

It takes every ounce of restraint I have to not reach down and rub my hand over it again and again until he screams that I’m right.

But before I can challenge him, Ben and Tylerflank me on both sides and lead me into the conference room. They lock me between them, making sure I have no chance to escape, and march me to the front of the room where there’s a table set up with a microphone.

When I drop into the chair, I catch the glares of my bandmates now sitting in the audience.

Well, two of them.

Lane looks at me like…

I swallow hard and drag my eyes away.

Like he feels sorry for me.

And that pisses me off to no end because I don’t need anyone’s goddamn pity.

My family is gone. Nobody can ever replace him. And every time I’ve seen my father since the funeral, that fact haunts the shit out of me.

My own fucking father couldn’t give a crap less about me.

His flesh and blood.

All because of a situation I had zero controlover.

And it’s hung around my neck like a goddamn rotting albatross ever since.

All the success in the world can’t give me what I lost.

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