Page 48 of The C*ck Down the Block

The advantage of having three brothers who were at the top of their games and had multi-million-dollar contracts like mine, was that we had our own Kingman family jet. We’d make Hayes start paying his fair share once he had a few seasons under his belt. It’s not like he even knew what to do with the money he’d been offered as a first-round draft pick rookie anyway.

What sucked is that my agent knew I could be at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan airport in under twenty mins if I had to, and anywhere in the continental US in a matter of hours.

I had no time to even pack, much less see if Trixie could go with. She was still at work, and I knew better than to bug her there. I’d probably land before she was even off.

At least I could take a nap on the plane. It wasn’t like I’d gotten a lot of sleep last night. And I wasn’t even a little bit sorry about that.

I glared at my brothers. “You guys suck.”

“I think you’re the one who sucks. At least based on what I heard coming from Trixie’s upstairs window last night.” Declan gave me a smirk.

“Oh, Chris,” Everett put on a fake high-pitched voice. “You’re a sex god. Do it to me, big boy.”

I loved having my entire family living all around me, but there were disadvantages to having your shitty little brothers so close.

I flipped them both off as I left. “I curse you both with delays to your weekly condom delivery order.”

“Hey, thems fighting words,” Everett called out to my back as I walked out of his house.

I was just as much of a grump on the plane, and Maguire even moved to the seat farthest away from me and got out his laptop to do some work.

The second we landed, I saw the message from Trix asking where I was.My thumb hovered over the screen, debating what emojis could possibly encapsulate my mix of frustration and regret. We had a minute, because the car that was supposed to be waiting for us at the FBO wasn’t here yet.I decided to just call her.

“Hey, you,” her voice was light, maybe a little too cheery. I had warned her I had bad news.

“Hey, you’re home? I’m gonna Facetime you.” I forced myself to sound more upbeat than I felt. Her adorable face popped up on the screen, and I could see she was in the backyard letting the chickens out. “So, listen. Something’s come up.”

“Whoa. Where are you?” She examined the screen. “Because I do not see Rocky Mountains or golden fields of grain behind you. Is... is that smog?”

“I’m in L.A.” I told her about the commercial and how Maguire had rearranged the schedule so that it didn’t overlap with her reunion. “It’s crappy timing, I know. I’ll be back in time for the fundraiser on Friday, but it’s just... I wanted to spend the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours in your bed.”

There was a brief silence, but when she spoke, her voice was warm. “Well, that’s the job, right? It’s not like I don’t know you get busy at the end of the summer. And I’m not going anywhere. You know where to find my bed when you get back.”

She gave me a cute little eyebrow waggle. That’s my girl, flirting and making me want to hop right back on the jet and... I couldn’t do that.

“Yeah, I do.” I flirted right back, because it was the only thing I could do. “I just hate that we finally figured out how good it is to be together, and I already have to leave.”

“Me too. So,” her voice took on a playful note, “what are you going to bring me from this fancy trip of yours?”

I chuckled. “Are you asking me to bring you home a toy, naughty girl?”

Not that I could compete with what she already had hidden away in her closet. Maguire looked up from his phone and rolled his eyes.

“It’s the least you can do for abandoning me.” She threw her arm across her forehead like she was swooning. “I’m going to have a serious serotonin drop and be depressed the whole week.”

“Well, we can’t have that.” I knew what would make me feel better. But I couldn’t have that, so I’d have to settle for the next best thing. “Wanna have phone sex later?”

She laughed, and for a moment, everything felt right in the world, even with a week-long gap stretching out in front of us. “Umm, kind of. I’ve never done that before.”

This was at least the third time she’d said something similar to me. I was fucking giddy that I was the only man who’d gotten to do these things with her. But at the same time, I wanted to take all the men she’d dated out back and beat their asses and send them to how to please a woman school.

I hated that she’d had shitty experiences with her past boyfriends. I knew she had a bad breakup in college, mostly because she hated to talk about it. I was going to do my best to erase every bad memory she had and replace them with our own. “Hmm. Then I can’t wait to call you later, babe.”

“I’ll be waiting. Probably naked. Just so you know.”

God she was so fucking perfect. “That’s my good girl.”

She grinned and got that cute slash of pink across her cheeks. We hung up, and the big black SUV arrived to take us to the hotel and apparently some kind of story board meeting later tonight.

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