Page 14 of Maverick
7
MAVERICK
Everyone’s beenjet lagged before—that type of disorientation where your body doesn’t quite know where it is or which way’s up. I thought I’d adjusted to it all, but as I pried my eyes open, I wassowrong. I didn’t recognize the room I was in, nor the bed I was lying in. It couldn’t have been my own, because mine was still sitting in a box in my empty bedroom. I groaned. My throat hurt, my head pounded, and the pressure behind my eyes made me feel like my brain was about to explode.
Blinking away the haze of sleep, my eyes adjusted to the darkness. Thunder rumbled in the distance and fat raindrops pattered against the unfamiliar window. I smirked. Ilovedthe rain. I’d traveled all over the country, but nothing beat that fresh, earthy smell in the air that preceded a Southern thunderstorm. I rolled onto my back and stretched, but before I could sit up, the bedroom door eased open. Quinton padded into the room and realized that I was awake.
Right: Quinton Webster had brought me home. My defensive team captain was the hot stranger I’d hooked up with in San Diego, the one I’d been fantasizing about for weeks—and he’drecognized me. Now I was laying in his bed.
How in the hell did I get here?
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, pulling me from my thoughts. “I didn’t mean to wake you. I thought you might want the window open.”
“That’d be great.” My voice sounded like I’d swallowed a frog, and talking made the pain even worse.
Quinton smirked, unlocking the window and raising the glass to let in some fresh air. “Someone’s got the sniffles.”
“I am way too miserable to call this something as cute as ‘the sniffles…’ But yes, I do.”
His responding laughter sent a shiver down my spine. “Lucky for you, I was the one grandkid that got all my Granny’s good cold remedies—so long as you can handle a bit of brandy.”
Still lying in bed, I crooked a brow at Quinton’s large shadow strolling my way. “Can’t sneeze if I’m knocked out?”
“Sometimes I think the brandy was for her.”
I shuffled over to give him room to perch next to me. “How many grandkids?”
“Fourteen, over six kids of her own but I’m the baby, so?—”
“You’re the favorite.” The fondness in his voice made me hesitate to ask: “Is she…”
“Alive and well. She’s ninety-three and in better health than all of us combined.”
My lips drew up into a smile. “Sounds like the woman knows what she’s doing.”
I wasn’t sure when, but at some point, his hand gravitated to mine. Our fingers locked together, his thumb stroking the inside of my wrist in a way that—combined with the rumble of the storm outside—nearly had me asleep again in seconds. “Why don’t I get you some medicine and leave you to get some more rest?”
My bottom lip rolled between my teeth, and I concentrated on the feeling of his warm palm against my clammy one. I didn’twanthim to go away. Not only did it feel wrong to expect him to leave his own room, but because his presence alone made me feel better.Working together made things more complicated, but now that I knewhewas the one I’d wholeheartedly given myself up to in California, it felt… right.
“Talk to me, Maverick.”
“Am I allowed to ask you to stay with me?” The words rolled off my lips before I could stop them.
A deep breath, and flicker of lightning illuminated Quinton’s broad frame next to me, his brown eyes twinkling in the light. “You are.” He raised a single finger, brushing a gentle knuckle across my cheek. “Will you tell me what’s going through that pretty head of yours?”
As if my body knew something that my head hadn’t accepted yet, I relaxed into the man’s touch. Sniffling, I let my eyes flutter shut. “I don’t want it to backfire on me.”
He chuckled. “You’ll never know if you don’t spit it out, sweetheart.”
I fidgeted with the edge of the blanket he’d so caringly tucked me in with. It wasn’t often that I was able to stretch out on a bed comfortably, but this one had room to spare. Empty space sprawled across the mattress to my right—a perfect Quinton-shaped opening. I opened my mouth to speak, but the words that came out weren’t the ones I had in mind. “I was never good enough for him.”
A coughing fit interrupted Quinton’s response, but he waited patiently, tugging me to sitting and rubbing my back until it passed. “We don’t have to talk about that right now,” he said soothingly.
“We do—Ido. Is that okay?”
“Of course.”
When he fell silent, I took that as my cue to continue. “We met freshman year. To us, Tuscaloosa was a huge change compared to the places we came from. We bonded over that and… then it turned to more. But where I was comfortable being out, he wasn’t ready to ‘show off’ a relationship—his words, not mine. We kept itbehind closed doors for years. That attitude you mentioned? He’s always had it, and it didn’t just end when we left the field. I pretended that the inappropriate jokes and snide comments didn’t bother me because in the bedroom, I was his sole focus. He always knew exactly what to do.
