Page 35 of Face Off
“She’s not under my skin.”
He lets out a laugh as he increases his pace. “Says the man who almost tore my head off just now. You like her, and she likes you. And from the sound of it, you two are already trying this whole relationship thing.”
“Were.”
“Were?” he says, glancing over at me.
I thought this relationship thing would work out well with Hayley. The chemistry between us is off the charts. Like none I’ve ever experienced before. Yet, she froze and freaked out when Celeste and Cam caught us together in the kitchen. The way she looked at Celeste as if she were almost pleading for her to swallow her whole. It was almost as if I wasn’t just the only secret she was hiding. I expected at least a phone call or text once I left her house, apologizing, but nothing came.
“I don’t know, man. She doesn’t want anyone to know about us. It’s like she’s keeping a secret from me,” I say, stopping pedaling altogether. “I was okay with her keeping us a secret, but I just have this feeling… there’s something she’s not telling me.”
And I’d find out eventually that, that gut feeling is right. I always have a way of knowing that something isn’t right before it rears its ugly head at me. It’s how I found out about Tiffany and the shady shit she pulled behind my back. I was blinded by lust for so long that I’d mistaken it for love. But no matter how I felt at the time, it never replaced that nagging feeling in my gut that something wasn’t right. Saved me from making one of the biggest mistakes of my life.
He stops and looks at me for a moment. “Talk to her about it. She’s had a hard life from what I heard.” He shrugs, climbing off the bike and grabbing a jump rope. “Being a teen mom can fuck you up. Christ, I couldn’t imagine becoming a dad when I was her age.”
I sit on the bench press and marinate what Halloway has said. Fuck, he’s right. She was abandoned while pregnant, then cheated on by the first guy she let in, and now here I am. Acting like a total dickwad, not considering what has made her act the way she is.
“Talk to her and don’t let it fuck with your head. We need you, man,” Halloway says again before leaving me to stew over my thoughts a moment more.
Hayley
The sound of my heels echoes throughout the room as I pace the hard wood floors of my office, replaying what happened. Brooks’ hands on my waist snaking up under the shirt I stole from him, my bare pussy begging for him to dip a finger inside. The feeling of soft lips caressing my skin, leaving behind a sense of pleasure from his scruff rubbing along the way. The sound of ‘Mom’ echoing throughout the house, followed by the embarrassing introduction of my mother to Brooks. Well, Brooks doesn’t know she’s my mother.
But now, thanks to being caught with my pants around my ankles… Well, no pants present at all. I’m panicking.
Full on throw me in a psych ward, freak out, panicking.
Not just from being caught with a player in my home, almost completely indisposed, but because I called Brooks a colleague when he’s so much more. Well… was so much more.
‘Am I missing something here?’ my mother asked as she sat at the kitchen island, her perfectly manicured fingers tapping away at the granite. ‘You have never called me by my first name.’
‘It was nothing, Mom,’ I said, moving around to finish cooking what I had originally planned.
‘Is that why you’re currently wearing a Skipjacks shirt that is ten times too big for you? Yeah, certainly looks like nothing to me,’ she challenged as Cam let out a little chuckle.
‘Brooks likes Momo, Gram,’ Cam said, plucking a piece of bacon from the paper plate and popping it in his mouth. ‘He keeps asking Mom out on dates, and she keeps denying him.’
I do not… well I did, but not anymore. ‘That’s not true. I’m trying to stay professional.’
‘Professional.’
‘Yes. Professional. Plus, he doesn’t know that Dad is Dad to me. So, I had to play it off as if you were just an acquaintance.’
My mother stared at me for a moment, searching my eyes for God knows what. But call it mother’s intuition. She knew me better than I knew myself. ‘Oh, hun. I know you want to keep your professional life separate from your personal life because you’re afraid to have another disappointment. But did you ever think that he may not be like you know who?’
Another Boyce? Tucker? Yeah, I got what she was getting at.
‘I signed a non-fraternization clause. Do you know how pissed he’ll be if he found out I went and fell for one of his most valuable players?’ I sigh, propping a hip against the kitchen counter, watching Cam eat another piece of bacon. ‘He’ll be forced to fire one of us, and we both know it will be me and not the other way around. He’s an asset. I can be easily replaced.’
Shit.
Did I just admit that I was falling for Brooks to my mother? That couldn’t be. It was too quick. Too lust filled. Yet no matter what I tried telling myself, the reality that I truly liked Brooks and had started to fall in love with him hit me like a ton of bricks.
‘Don’t let your father ruin something that could be the best thing for you. You deserve happiness and love.’
And that’s how I ended up here. Pacing my office, wearing a hole in the floorboards. God, I’ve royally fucked up. My mother is right. I can’t put aside my wants and needs because of my father. And now I’ll never get the chance. Brooks probably wants to end things now.
Fuck it.
