Page 85 of Off Camera
Me
I’ll text you when we’re finished, but no promises.
Avery
Cool.
Before I go…
*Attachment: 1 video*
We won last night. Time to play the song!
Me
My ears are bleeding.
You have a 1-2 record.
Avery
So?
Thunderhawks, a oh oh oh oh ohhhhhhhhhhh!
“Pass me a water?”Dallas asks, and I scoop out two bottles from the cooler, tossing one his way. “Thanks, man.”
I settle on the couch next to him. “Where is Maverick? This is his apartment, and he’s not here.”
“He said he was on his way up,” Hudson Hayes, one of Maverick’s teammates, tells us. He shrugs and flips through the book on his lap. “Didn’t sound like it was a crisis.”
“Sorry I’m late,” Maverick calls out, bursting through the front door and appearing in the living room. His shirt is on backwards and one of his shoes is untied. He puts a hand on the wall, panting, and takes a deep breath. “Lost track of time.”
“Doing what?” I ask.
“Wedding stuff,” he says, but I see the lipstick on his neck. “Emmy and I got caught up looking at dinner menus. That shit is expensive.”
“Is that what we’re calling it these days?” Dallas snorts. “You have a hickey under your ear, Miller.”
“Oh. Whoops.” He gives us a sheepish grin and collapses into a nearby chair. His fingers dance over his throat and he sighs. “I can’t keep my hands to myself around that woman.”
“We don’t need to hear about your sexcapades, Mavvy,” Riley Mitchell, another one of Maverick’s teammates says. “You’re making some of us feel single as fuck, and we just want to talk about the book.”
“The book. Right. Yes.” Maverick holds up the dark romance novel we read over the course of the month and taps the cover. “Thoughts?”
“I liked it,” I say. “Outside of our usual wheelhouse, but I’m a fan.”
“It, uh, made me question some things about myself,” Hudson admits. He’s a quiet guy, someone who’s just as talented as Maverick but less boisterous about it. “I enjoyed it, though.”
“No shit.” Riley clasps his shoulder. “Look at you and Reid stepping outside your comfort zones and liking it.”
“I mean, I’m not going to go to a haunted house and ask the guy in the Michael Myers jumpsuit to fuck me, but I’d be down to try a thing or two from the book,” I say. I scratch my jaw and tuck my chin to my chest, hiding from their prying eyes.
“Like?” Dallas presses, and he’s never one to nudge his way into someone’s business.
“I don’t know.” I shrug. “Tying her hands up? Having my hands tied up? As long as it’s consensual and everything. I wouldn’t want to use rope. That seems… extreme. I’d have to study the logistics of it first. Extensively. Maybe something small like a shoelace or a?—”
A ribbon.
