Page 20 of Irresistibly Risky

I’m staring. I know I am. But it can’t be helped. My face is flushed, and it’s like watching live-action porn, only better because this man is chiseled from stone and built with more muscles than I remember learning about in med school.

He goes for his locker and starts digging through it, and I take in the lines of his back with equal fascination and appreciation as I did the front of him. The man is a work of art. Sculpted and muscular—I might have already mentioned that, but damn—yet still somehow long and lean. He’s not overly bulky, but I doubt there’s an inch of fat on him. He has those twin indents right above his ass that mimic the twin indents on the other side of him, and I swear, I never cared or noticed any such thing on any other athlete I’ve worked with in the past, but I’m a living, breathing, drooling, pathetic mess of a woman right now.

“Are you with me, Doctor?” he questions, and my gaze snaps away from his back and up to his face that’s turned over his shoulder and angled right at me. He’s been talking to me this entire time, and I was too busy drooling over his body to notice any of it.

He gives me his favorite cocky smirk when he realizes this. “Should I start again?”

I open my mouth to say something when my phone rings in my bag. Setting down the coffee, I pull it out and see it’s my mother, and she never calls unless it’s a big deal.

I hold up my hand to Asher and immediately answer. “Mom?”

“He said, Mama!” She cries into the phone, and instantly tears spring to my eyes.

“He did?!” My hand covers my mouth. “When?”

“Just now, Wyn. He was looking at a picture of you on my phone and said, Mama. Clear as day. He’s only ten months old. Such a smart baby. Just like you were. What did those doctors know when they said his speech might be delayed.”

I hiccup out a sob. I missed my son’s first word. A first word that is especially epic given his slight hearing impairment. “I’m on my way home now.”

I stand up, shoving my phone back in my bag. “I have to go,” I tell Asher.

“Is everything okay?” he asks, concern all over his face as he reaches for me, almost as if he wants to comfort me.

“It’s… fine. Good. Amazing almost, but also…” Not. Because I wasn’t there to hear it. “I’m sorry. We’ll talk on Monday.” With that, I fly out of the room, away from Asher Reyes, and back toward the man in my life. The only one who deserves my attention. Certainly not the hot quarterback who seems to effortlessly steal it every chance he gets.

6

When I was sixteen years old, I left home with my four best friends and Suzie to tour the world as a rock star. It was the best time of my life. I didn’t care about the music—that was always Greyson and Suzie. I wanted the adventure. The high that came with it. But little by little, as I started college online and not in person and spoke to my older brother, who had just won his first Super Bowl, I felt a shift inside me.

I didn’t want to play music anymore. I wanted to play football.

I knew I had the talent, but with every passing day, I was watching the opportunity slip away. When Suzie died of a stroke in the shower and our band fell apart, I was even more of a mess. I was relieved the band was over—how fucked-up is that?

We lost Suzie. The best and coolest girl I knew.

So I always wondered if I was tempting fate or Karma with that relief.

It’s why I never went to the doctor when I got hit. I was afraid they’d tell me it would require surgery because that’s what happened to every ball player I knew who ever went to the doctor. They had surgery. I knew I was potentially putting off something important, but I wasn’t ready for that level of risk.

Now I don’t have a choice. It’s surgery or my game is over.

My father retired at thirty-six. My brother still plays, but he’s laid up with a torn ACL—I wasn’t lying when I told pretty Wynter Hathaway that anytime someone has gone to see a doctor, it’s never been good news—so I don’t want to bother him with my woes while he’s going through his own and is at the end of his career.

We’re not that close anyway.

He and my father never liked that I went with Central Square instead of football from the get-go.

Besides, any time I’ve ever needed advice or simply to talk, I went to my guys. My best friends. Which is what I’m doing now because as luck would have it, tonight is our monthly Friday poker night at Zax’s. Even Lenox comes in for it, and that dude hates leaving his cabin in the wilderness of Maine. He was Suzie’s twin, and where he wasn’t much of a talker before she died, now if he strings more than five words together, it’s a lot.

I ring the bell for Zax’s penthouse, and the door opens a moment later. “Hey, doll,” I say to Aurelia, Zax’s fiancée. “You’re looking beautiful as always.” Aurelia, or Lia Sage, as she’s known in the fashion world, is a model turned designer. She’s also Grey’s and Zax’s ex-stepsister who now works for Zax’s fashion company, Monroe Fashions. The two of them reunited and had a lot of drama, but Zax finally stopped being such a grump, and they fell in love.

“Hey yourself. You look… kind of like shit.”

I snicker. “Thanks, babe. I love how you always set it straight for me.”

She gives me a hug but then cups my jaw and stares into my eyes. “For real, Ash. Your smile is fake as hell. Are you okay?”

“Come with me.” I drop my arm around her shoulder, and we walk through their mammoth place toward the game room. The guys, Fallon, who is Grey’s woman, and Layla, who is Callan’s, are all here. I hug and handshake everyone, and then turn to Callan. “Where’s Katy?” Katy is his niece, but he recently became her guardian when his brother and sister-in-law died in a tragic car accident.

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