Page 75 of Most Likely to Score
He breathes out heavily through his nostrils as we turn back onto my block. “Don’t just chase a piece of ass, Jones.”
Faster than I captured the ball last week, I grab the neck of his shirt with my free hand and yank him closer. My eyes are full of fury. I stare hard into his irises, my jaw tight. “She’s not a piece of ass.”
He holds up his hands in surrender. He knows I’d never hurt him. But he also knows I’m so much bigger than he is.
I shake my head. “Don’t call her that.”
He doesn’t say anything at first, but soon he smirks. Laughs. Smiles.
I narrow my eyes. “What the hell?”
“You really like her, don’t you?”
I drop my fist from his shirt, letting my hand fall to my side as Cletus whimpers. “I told you I love her.”
“I had to test you, though.”
“You called her a piece of ass to test me?”
Trevor grins sheepishly. “It worked. You made your feelings for her crystal clear. That was all it took.”
“Dick,” I mutter as we resume walking Cletus.
“Yeah, but I love you.”
I drape an arm over his shoulder. “I love you, too.”
“What now? Are you going to tell Ford? Tell Liam? How are you going to pull this off? This is a big risk you’re about to take, dating your publicist.”
“I know that.”
He claps my back. “Just want you to be aware. Brands are cautious these days. They drop athletes for the smallest of reasons. That could happen to you. You do know that?”
“I’m aware, and I’m also well aware I don’t have a track record to stand on.”
He shoots a rueful smile, his tone shifting now to brotherly concern. “You don’t, though I understand where you’re coming from. You want Liam to believe what you know in your heart to be true.” He taps my chest. “There’s a first time for everything, and you’re feeling it, so you want him to line up behind you. But you need to know that Liam might not see things the same way.”
I sigh heavily. “I know.”
“He might not be convinced as easily as I was.”
I scoff. “You were easily convinced? We might have different definitions ofeasily.”
He stops, looking me square in the eyes. “I do believe you. I know you wouldn’t put your neck out like this with me if you weren’t in love. But I’m your flesh and blood. I’m on your side no matter what. And that’s why I want you to be realistic about how other people—people who haven’t stood by you since Mom andDad brought you home from the hospital and all your big brothers and sister had to help give you a bottle and babysit you?—”
I raise a hand to cut him off. “Bottle? Are we back to bottles and babysitting?”
“When you’re the baby of the family, it’s always going to come back to bottles and babysitting. Point being, I’m on your team. And part of why you wanted me to work closely on your business is to make sure someone you trust implicitly is always looking out for you. I’m looking out for you when I say I’m behind you one hundred percent.” He slows and takes a beat. “And I also want you to be realistic, too.”
I rub a hand over the back of my neck, heaving a sigh as we resume our walk. “Yeah, I get it. I can’t assume that just because I feel this way about her, everyone else is going to clap their hands in glee and sayoh, we’ve been hoping you’d fall in love, Jones.”
He laughs. “If only it were that simple.”
Nothing is simple in this situation. I haven’t proven myself when it comes to relationships, and that’s the risk I’d be asking Paleo Pet to take—to stand by a guy who’s never gone the distance. “They’ll worry it’ll end in a few days, a few weeks.”
Trevor nods. “Yeah, they might. They might also worry it’ll blow up into a huge mess. They won’t want to be collateral damage.”
“They’d worry it’d look like a scandal,” I say, thinking of Jillian’s words in Miami. No matter how deeply I feel for her, I can see how the press would twist the two of us to suit a narrative. “I need to thinkcarefully about how to broach this with Liam when he returns this weekend.”
