Page 5 of Play the Last Track
I hesitate for only a moment, letting my grin slip just a little as I think about my bruised and battered hand. Before I can talk myself out of it, Scott calls the play, and I’m sprinting down the field.
My legs burn under me, but I ignore it, pumping them fast as I keep the ball in my sight. It sails through the air, and if I get there, it should tuck into my waiting hands just as I get into the end zone.
I’m a step or two off. My fingers tip the ball, and I slip, unable to grab it as pain shoots up my fingertips and ripples through my injured hand.
Fucking hell, that hurts.
I catch the ball on the bounce and slow down. I look up to see Scott glaring at me from thirty yards away. I drop his gaze and toss the ball to the side, jogging back over. I position myself to his left, crouching on the line.
“Again,” I grunt.
I sink into my zone. My knuckles are probably rubbing raw against the bandages, and my glove won’t be helping, but I can’t bring myself to care. The look on Scott’s face when I fumbled that pass, an easy fucking pass, was a punch to the gut.
So I block it out.
Last night. Katie. The comment. The asshole. The punch. All of it.
I focus on football, and the next pass that flies through the air, I catch it.
Chapter Two
Flynn
Behindcloseddoors,I’ma creature of habit.
Football can be glamorous. The world is loud, bright, and big.Overwhelming.
But to me—to who I am to the public and the fans—I’m unfazed by it all. I smile and make jokes. I laugh on the sidelines and wink at the camera. I am the loud, the bright, the big.
Flynn Reed.
Number forty-nine. Tight end for the Boston Broncos. The charming, cheeky one.
I don’t mind it. Keeping up the act and the persona has become part of the job. When the social girls need someone for their content, they come to me. When the team needs a player for press days, I’m their guy.
I’m honestly happy to help out and step up.
I plaster a smile on my face, and I do whatever they need. I’ve done it since they drafted me right out of college, eight years ago.
When I get through my front door, in the safety of my own home, I get to drop the smile.
I toe off my sneakers just inside the door and flip the light switch on the wall next to me. The lights over the displayed records hanging on the wall illuminate, and there is a pile of books I haven’t found a place for stacked along the corridor below them. The darkwood paneling of the stairs seems to seep into the deep forest green color that I chose for the entryway. It’s moody, but it’s home.
I hoist my bag up further on my shoulder as I take two stairs at a time to the upper floor. Dropping the bag inside my bedroom, I rip off my hoodie and hop on one foot and then the other to tug off my socks. I throw them toward the hamper.
In the bathroom, I carefully unwrap the bandage covering my knuckles.
Just as I had suspected, the skin is red raw and chaffed. I turn on the faucet in the sink, leaning down a little to run my knuckles under the clean water. I hadn’t bothered showering at the stadium, not wanting to risk anyone seeing my hand. The open cuts sting, and I let out a hiss.
“Goddammit,” I groan, shaking my hand out.
I swipe the hand towel from the railing and press it gently over my skin. There isn’t much point in drying my hand off when I’m about to get in the shower. Still, I dab the dry towel over my damp skin before setting it back on the counter. I wander back into my closet, pulling my T-shirt from over my head. I strip off my shorts and my briefs. All get tossed into the basket as well.
Back in the bathroom, I turn on the shower and step under the spray. The water burns my skin, steam billowing out in waves. When the water trickles over my knuckles, they start to sting again, but I ignore them.
So stupid.
Punching the guy was so, so stupid. I am an idiot. A fucking idiot.
