Page 24 of The C*ck Down the Block

Jesus. When did my little brothers get so fucking smart? Their words hit me right in the solar plexus. I knew they were right.

Okay, yeah. I had to stop treating Trixie like she was some unattainable prize and just go after what I wanted. That’s what I’d always done, and it had pretty much always worked out.

Except that one night when I asked her out ten years ago.

I palmed the ball and threw it in a perfect spiral all the way across the entire training center and right into the bin of balls fifty yards away.The cocky, confident guy that had taken me to the top of the football world was exactly who I needed to be to win her heart.

And this time, I wouldn’t let anything stand in my way. “No more holding back, no more second-guessing. Either she falls for me or she doesn’t.”

The worry that I would lose her completely if she didn’t want a romantic relationship with me absolutely had to be ground into the dirt beneath my feet. I wasn’t going to lose her. I wasn’t. She was my best friend besides my family, and best friends made the best lovers, and partners for life.

And yeah, I could definitely see us together forever.

“That’s the Chris Kingman we’ve been waiting to fucking show up,” Declan said, clapping me on the back a little too hard as only a defensive lineman would. “Now let’s get in a real workout and get your head back in the game.”

A few more Mustangs were in the training center, and we spent the next few hours running drills and pushing each other. This was going to be a great god damned season. Even better when I had Trix watching me from the fifty-yard line, or up in the box with the other wives and girlfriends.

Sure she watched our games, but knowing she’d be there especially for me and that I could come home to her afterwards and lose myself in her, that had me more excited to play than ever before. Play and win.

THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY LIBRARIAN

TRIXIE

Even though I showered and changed into a work outfit after my first fake date with Chris, I was still finding pieces of hay poking me in places hay shouldn’t be. I think they were planted as a reminder of how weird my morning had been. This was two days in a row where I’d honestly thought Chris was about to kiss me.

Kiss.

Me.

Nope, no, that was too weird. I’d chalk it up to him trying out the whole fake flirting thing. But he’d done it last night before I’d asked him to pretend to be my boyfriend. Did he really want to kiss me?

Did I want him too?

My computer dinged with an email notification and I just about fell out of my chair. Aw, crudmuffins. It was time for my evaluation with Karter. My head was not in the game today and Creepy Karter was the last person I wanted to deal with.

I gathered my notebook and pen, because at least if I pretended to be taking notes, I wouldn’t have to see him staring at me like a piece of pie he wanted to stick his dick into. He was never overtly sexual, so I had no grounds to stand on if I wanted to call HR. But he still made me uncomfortable.

His office was just on the other side of the space where our cubicles were lined up, so he saw me coming. “Aw, Beatrix. I was just coming to find you. Come on in.”

“Thanks.” I sat and opened the notebook on my lap, clicked my pen and did my best not to take a deep breath to steel myself for this conversation.

“How’s it going? How’s your mom, your family?” He steepled his hands and leaned forward, his eyes flicking to my chest and back up.

Oh god. I had definitely never spoken about my mother to Creepy Karter. So that’s what caused the gross vibe I got off him. Just like every other guy in my life, Karter had seen my mother’s porn videos and thought I’d be a chip off the old BBW, hot mama block.

What the hell was wrong with men? This. This was why I liked being friends with Chris, and the rest of the Kingman boys. Friends.

Never once in all the years I lived next door to them did I ever worry that any of them thought they could get in my pants just because my mother had been a sex worker. To them, she was just another soccer mom, and one they appreciated and respected.

I did take that deep breath now. Maybe I was overreacting. I’d been overly sensitive about how people treated me because of my mother since she first had the sex talk with me and told me about how she made a living.

Never had I felt ashamed of her or what she did. I loved that she helped raise me to be both sex and body positive. But the rest of the world sure tried to make me feel weird about it at every turn.

“My parents are fine. Doing some traveling abroad. Shall we get to the evaluation?”

“Your family does seem to be remarkably interesting. I don’t think my own mother has ever even left the state.”

Okay, maybe he really was just making small talk. Fine. “Ah, well, Colorado is beautiful and there are lots of nice things to see here too.”

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