Chapter Eighteen

Trey

“You disappeared pretty damn fast last night, Delgado. You hook up with that reporter?”

I glanced up from my phone to see Robby Brown sliding into the empty seat across the aisle from mine. We’d been in the air for about an hour and I’d used the first leg to catch up on sleep since the night before with Josie wasn’t exactly restful. Not that I was complaining. Far from it. Every tired muscle and ounce of exhaustion was worth it. Being with Josie, watching her come undone was like a drug, and I was officially hooked.

“So what if I did?” I replied, dropping my attention back to my phone.

Robby chuckled. “Damn, man. I’m not the nookie police. I don’t care who you banged. She’s a hot little number. I don’t blame you.”

I eyed him. “Aren’t you married, Brown?”

“Engaged,” he corrected. “And Paris doesn’t care who I eye-fuck as long as I keep my dick in my pants.”

I considered him for a minute, wondering what kind of weird ass, open-marriage shit he was mixed up in. I passed off any judgment with a shake of my head. Open marriages were way more common than most people would think, especially in the sports world. There were plenty of chicks who’d cut your dick off for hooking up, but there were others more than willing to hand out hall passes—as long as they got whatever they wanted in return. I was about to turn away, go back to minding my own business, but paused long enough to flick a hard stare at him. “Well, I do care who you eye-fuck. At least as far as Josie is concerned. She’s mine.”

Robby just laughed. He crossed his legs at the ankle and leaned back in his reclining seat. “Fair enough, man. I just would advise you to not make out where photographers are lurking. Did you see the headlines on Pulse Sports today?”

“No…” I replied, a pit of dread forming in the bottom of my stomach. Pulse Sports was a popular sports gossip site, usually filled with the off-season antics of pro ballers. I’d made their front page more times than I could count. Especially in the last six months as my life spiraled out of control. “Why?”

“Check it out,” Robby replied, his eyes still closed as he settled in for a nap.

I flipped to the page on my phone and groaned.

“Yup…What did they say again? Delgado’s auditioning his next baby mama?” Robby laughed.

Sure enough, right there on the front page, a picture of Josie and me, tangled up together, right against the wall just a few feet from the postgame press table. Most of the shots were fuzzy, taken from too far away, with not enough light, but a couple of them were clear face shots of Josie. Beside the photos of us together, they had a picture of Josie that I’d never seen before. She was wearing a business suit and had her hair slicked back in an all business ponytail. It must have been something from the station where she worked. Then, the final picture was her wearing those damn cut off jean shorts and the boots the day we’d first met. The writer of the story—if it could be called that, it was more like a verbal shit on paper—was making the argument that Josie and I had been sneaking around for some time and that we were keeping it low profile to keep from upsetting my delicate situation involving the she-devil claiming to be my baby mama.

The more I read—the angrier I became. It was nonsense. Total bullshit. But there it was, black and white, with glossy pictures as proof. I clenched my fist around the phone in my hand, wishing I could chuck it at the wall. Josie didn’t deserve to get dragged into the shit show that was my life. “Damn it! This is such horseshit!”

Robby glanced over at me and shrugged. “Aren’t you used to it by now, Delgado?”

I scowled at him. “Apparently not, Brown.”

He turned away and closed his eyes again, a faint smile playing at his lips. “Tough break, man. Who’s the girl?”

“She’s a reporter.”

Robby snorted. “Yeah, caught that part. I meant who is she to you?”

“I don’t know…”

It was a fair question. Not one that I’d considered before. Josie was just a piece of ass, wasn’t she? A hook up? A way to let off some steam? But if that were true…then why did I care so damn much about what happened to her?

Robby turned in his seat and faced me. “We’ve all been there, dude. You’ve probably dealt with the bullshit more than anyone else on the team. Why is this one bugging you so much?”

I shook my head and looked back down at the picture on my phone, the one with both of us together. Damn, she looked so sexy, staring up at me like that, her lips full, pouted, begging for mine.

Something twisted in my chest and I clicked away from the pictures. The screen of my phone went black, and I stared at it for another long moment before turning to look at Robby. “I’m just tired, man. This has been a helluva stretch and I know that once we get back, I’ll have a shitload of stuff to take care of. I don’t need this on top of everything else.”

Robby nodded, but there was a lingering question in his eyes. “Right. Well luckily, your agent seems like he’s on your team.”

I grinned. “For now…at least. I don’t know how many more fires Mason’s gonna pull my ass out of before he decides it’s not worth it.”

“Just pay him more,” Robby said, the suggestion followed by a bark of a laugh.

“Right.”

“You gonna tell the girl?”

I snapped to attention. “Shit…”

Robby shrugged. “I would, man. At least give her a head’s up.”

I clicked my phone back on and started typing out a message but got halfway through three different attempts before I decided that some things weren’t right to say over a damn text message.

* * * *

“Where the hell is she…?” I growled, staring up at the arrival and departures board for at least the dozenth time. My hand was clamped around the stems of a bunch of flowers I’d grabbed at one of the airport shops along with a bottle of water. The plane had touched down nearly an hour and a half ago on one of the private air strips. Most of the players had family waiting to pick them up. I watched Cody go off with his fiancée, Chelsea, some techy girl he was crazy about. Robby and Paris were tearing each other’s clothes off before they could even get into the back of the limo she’d arrived in. It was the same with the other guys. I, however, didn’t have anyone waiting for me. I’d arranged for a driver to pick me up, but once everyone was gone, told him to wait for me and I went into the airport.

According to the electronic board, Josie’s flight had landed twenty minutes ago, but there was no sign of her. Maybe I was wrong in assuming she was on the flight in the first place. When we said goodbye, she’d pulled up her flight information and I’d caught a glimpse of the airline, but I was gambling on the exact flight number. There were only two morning departures out of Denver, but both of them had landed already. Maybe she caught a later flight. Something in the afternoon. It didn’t make sense, but then, neither did her absence.

With my free hand, I fished my phone from my pocket and started to dial her number.

“Trey?”

My head popped up at the sound of my name and there she was, walking toward me with a half-smile, and wrinkled brows. A smile lit up my face and I quickly dropped my phone back into my pocket. “Hey there, baby.”

She crossed the distance between us, but clearly confused by my presence. “What are you doing here?”

I held up the flowers in my hand. “Waiting on you.”

Josie raised an eyebrow at me. “You’re trying to romance me now? ’Cause, to be honest, that doesn’t really seem like your game.”

I laughed at her fiery resistance and pressed the flowers into her hand and then reached for her suitcase handle as soon as she let it go. “Trying something new. Good for the soul, they say.”

She laughed at me and shook her head like she wasn’t sure if she’d slipped into some alternate reality or not. “Okay…so, flowers, chivalry,” she added, glancing at my hand on her suitcase. “You that hard up after three hours on a plane? Damn, Delgado, I’m not sure I’m gonna be able to keep up with you.”

A deep, rumbling laugh bubbled up from my gut. A good, old fashioned belly laugh. I wrapped my free arm around her shoulders and directed her to the exit closest to where my driver would be waiting. “Come on. I’m sure you’ll be just fine.”

Josie stopped walking and stared up at me. I cast a glance around, hoping no one was watching us. The last thing I wanted was for a bunch of people to take pictures and send them out to the rag mags in hopes of a payday. It was like living in a cage at the zoo sometimes. “Trey, hold up,” she said, a pained expression crossed her face and etched a deep line between her brows.

I sighed impatiently and she shot me a dirty look. I rested a hand on her shoulder and met her wide eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“What are we doing?”

I grinned and jerked my chin over my shoulder. “I was planning on getting you into the backseat of my town car and taking all kinds of advantage of you on the way to my hotel where we will order room service and champagne and fuck like rabbits all night long.”

Josie frowned at my joke. “Trey…you know what I mean. What are we doing? What is this whole thing?”

“Listen, baby, there’s something I wanna tell you, but not right here. So, come on, let’s get outta here and we can talk if that’s what you really wanna do.”

She shook her head and tried to give me back the flowers. “No…no. This is all a mistake. Trey, I can’t do this.”

I rebuffed her efforts to hand back the flowers and she stopped trying, dropping her hand down to her side so that the flowers hung limply beside her. “You know what, fine.” I released her suitcase and it crashed to the ground, nearly toppling over. “Have it your way, Jo. I’m trying to do the right thing here but if you’re not interested—”

“What does that even mean? The right thing?”

I threw my hands up. “Nothing. Forget it. I’ll see you at the next press conference.”

Josie reached out and grabbed my bicep before I could turn away. Her eyes were wide and pleading. “Trey, I’m not trying to be mean—”

I scoffed. “Save your whole ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ bullshit, Josie. I’m a big boy. You’re not gonna break my fuckin’ heart or something.”

Her lips twisted into a tight corkscrew. “Right, of course not. How could I break your heart? I’m just a girl you fucked while out on the road. A boredom buster, really.”

People passing by us slowed their footsteps at her outburst, and I grabbed her around the shoulders, jerked the suitcase handle into my other hand again, and started toward the doors. “We don’t need any more attention. Especially right now,” I growled down at her.

“I’m sorry if I embarrass you,” she said, her tone dripping with sarcasm. “I would think that by now you’d be used to being a spectacle.”

I stopped, frozen in place. Her barbed words didn’t hurt me. Hell, I was damn near bulletproof to that shit by now. But they did shock me. I hadn’t expected them coming from her. “Where the hell is all this bullshit attitude coming from? I saw you less than eight hours ago and you were sweet as pie. Now you hate my guts?”

Josie scoffed and shook her head, refusing to meet my eyes for a moment. When she looked back up at me there was a glossy coating reflecting back at me. “I don’t want to be a part of this mess, Trey. Obviously, by now, it’s a little late. I’m just trying to get out before it’s too late.”

My heart twisted in my chest, sending radiating waves of pain and guilt through me. “Fuck…you saw it already.”

She nodded and blinked away the tears that had gathered at the corners of her large eyes. “When we landed…I turned my—uh—phone on and saw about thirty messages and texts from friends and friends of friends who saw the story online.”

“Shit,” I hissed, squeezing my eyes closed tightly. “Jo, I should have—”

“Trey? It’s him! Trey! Trey!” A pack of twenty-something females were barreling as fast as their designer stiletto’s could take them right in my direction. “Trey!”

Beside me, Josie scoffed. “Have fun with your fans. Here, they’ll appreciate these more than I do,” she added, handing me the flowers.

I gripped her suitcase harder as she tried to tug it away, and without another glance back at the pack of screaming fans, hustled Josie out of the airport at a clip they couldn’t match in their ridiculous shoes.

“Trey!” Josie said, trying to yank her arm out of my grip. “Let me go! I need to go home!”

“I want to talk to you first.”

“Well, this is probably not a good time to tell you, but guess what, you don’t always get what you want!”

I glanced over at her. “This time I do.”

She blew out a frustrated puff of air but didn’t struggle as we exited the airport.

“Asshole!” one of the disgruntled fans we’d left behind called after me.

Josie snorted. “Charming.”

“My car’s over there,” I said, ignoring the drama.

Josie sighed and let me steer her through the cluster of traffic outside the arrivals gates. The driver Mason hired for me hopped out and raced to open the back door for us. I let Josie climb in and passed the luggage off to the driver with a mumbled ‘thank you’ before getting in beside her and slamming to door closed.

“Where are we going?” Josie demanded, pressing herself against the opposite door, leaving as much space between us as possible.

“My place.”

She considered it for a second. “And then your driver will take me home?”

“If that’s what you want…”

“It is,” she snapped. “As it is, some nosy jerkoff probably got pictures of us at the airport. Why do the gossip magazines even care? Aren’t you with a different woman every other night anyway?”

I flexed my jaw, holding back something nasty. She was riding me hard—and not in the right way.

Josie sighed and rubbed at her temples. “I’m sorry…I know you didn’t ask for this to happen either. I’m just struggling to process everything. I got off the plane and was kind of in a daze, trying to figure out what the hell happened. On top of that, my boss has probably seen these photos and will think that instead of getting an exclusive interview with you, I got distracted and slept with you instead. Gawd…as if he didn’t think I was a fucking joke before…”

She turned away and stared out the window for a long moment, seemingly collecting her thoughts.

I was about to ask about the interview she’d mentioned, when my driver slid back into the front seat and lowered the partition. “Where to?”

“The hotel,” I replied, before sagging back in my own seat.

The partition went back up, making the back seat soundproof from the front. The car pulled away from the curb and we set off for the downtown hotel I was calling home until I resigned myself to buy somewhere to live. I wasn’t quite ready to give up my California home, but with endorsement deals dropping like flies, and a few lawsuits in the works, I didn’t know if I’d be able to hold onto it and afford a new one. My financial guy would probably shit a brick.

“Jo, I’m sorry this happened but you gotta know it wasn’t my call. I didn’t want those pictures out there.”

She nodded and glanced over at me. “I know.”

“I thought if I was the one to tell you, I could, hell, I don’t know…soften the blow, at least a little.”

“So, that’s why you were waiting for me at the airport? To warn me about the pictures?”

I nodded. “Well, and, I wanted to see you.”

A smile tugged at her lips. “You getting soft on me, Delgado?”

I chuckled and scooted across the leather seat to join her on her side of the car. Our thighs touched as I slid beside her and I wished we were naked. I reached out and touched a strand of her long hair, twisting and winding it around my fingers. Her eyes went wide as they locked on mine and I grinned. “Baby, when you’re around, there ain’t one thing soft about me.”