Page 117 of Unrivaled

He hunched his shoulders and reached for his drink. If it was this hard to talk to each other after a regular season game, how the fuck were they going to manage if they had to play against each other in the playoffs?

GRADY CAMEout of his meeting with the coach in a black mood that he knew showed all over his face.

Showering didn’t help, but at least he’d missed any postgame interviews.

He texted Max, feeling guilty the message had sat there so long while Grady endured a mortifying conversation, but the last thing Grady wanted to do now was talk about it some more.

In Philly, the guys on the team would’ve taken one look at Grady and studiously ignored him.

Farouk assessed him head to toe and said, “You need a drink. I’m buying.”

Grady didn’t want a drink. He wanted to go home and get into bed and pull the blankets over his face. But Jess was still there, and she’d never let him get away with it.

Fuck, they’d come to the game tonight. He was definitely going to hear about it if he went home.

So he sighed and said, “Fine.”

“Sweet.” Farouk patted his shoulder. “Let’s go.”

But alcohol did not solve Grady’s problem. He stopped trying—and drinking—after the second beer and debated getting up and going home to face the music. Sooner or later he was going to have to read his texts from Jess anyway. But he was supposed to be entertaining the friend of the woman Farouk was trying to chat up, and he was aware that as an openly gay guy he was already not the ideal candidate for wingman. He didn’t want to leave Farouk hanging, or this girl bored out of her mind while Farouk flirted. He didn’t want to make the same mistakes he’d made in Philly and end up essentially friendless.

Across the table from him, Emily eyed Farouk and her friend, then leaned toward Grady. “Do you think they know they’re adults and they can leave the bar and fuck whenever they want?”

At least he had good company. That made him laugh, which caused Farouk and Janelle to look over.

They didn’t have to look that surprised about it, Grady thought. He hadn’t actually tried to bite anyone’s head off tonight unless you counted Dawg, but that had been in private and Dawg deserved it.

Except it turned out they weren’t looking at Grady at all but past him, and Farouk’s demeanor went from “charming pro athlete looking to get laid” to “alarmed pro athlete about to drag his teammate out of a fight.”

Grady turned around half expecting an angry fan—

And got an eyeful of angry Max instead.

“Hey,” Max said, way too belligerent for a guy whose team had won tonight’s game. “You can’t be here.” He frowned. “We were here first.”

Grady looked at him and then back at Emily, who wasn’t even pretending she didn’t find this conversation fascinating. The phraseit’s a free countrycame to mind, but just because Max was drunk didn’t mean Grady had to get down on his level.

The second thing that occurred to him wasyeah, well, we were here second, which was not any better. Instead he said, “Hi, Max.”

What he said didn’t matter anyway, because Max continued talking over him. “You don’t get to just, just, just be mad at me and not talk to me and then show up at my bar!”

Mad at him? Grady had texted and said they’d talk later! “I know this is going to come as a shock, but not everything is about you.”

“Fuck you,” Max said. “You’re mad at me! I could see it in the game! You had the face, with the eyes, and the thing your jaw does when I’m annoying—”

Grady clenched his teeth.

“See!”

Farouk cleared his throat. “Maybe you should take this elsewhere,” he suggested. “Before you get more of an audience.”

Fuck. Angelenos were great about not giving a fuck who you were, but even if the participants weren’t famous, a public argument would draw attention. Who could resist the chance to eavesdrop? Especially when Max was making it so easy.

With a huff, Grady stood from the table. “Come on. Let’s talk.”

The almost cold night air felt good. Maybe it would sober Max up into a semi reasonable person. Grady could hope, at least.

“You said you were fine, but you’re not fine! You’re pissed!” Max accused. “How are we supposed to, like, have a relationship if you’re pissed off at me when I do my job?”

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