Chapter 23

Masturbation is a form of stress relief. So, go fuck yourself and check the bitch at the door next time you visit.

-Hancock’s secret thoughts

Hancock

“Can we help?” I called to the woman who was stalled in the middle of the road.

Gentry stopped next to me, panting heavily, just like me, from our run, and stared at the lady with concern.

The woman started to cry.

“That would be wonderful,” she wiped her tears. “My son is in the backseat, and I’ve been trying to get out, but every time I do, a car whizzes by.”

We were on a main road in the busiest part of Longview, during rush hour, when everyone drove like assholes to get home.

So yeah, I could understand her hesitation to get out of the vehicle.

“Put it in neutral,” I hollered. “And keep your foot off the break!”

Once we were sure we weren’t going to be run over—because that would be a lot fun to explain to our coach—Gentry and I got behind the SUV and started to push.

Gentry cursed, and I looked over at him to see him shaking out his left hand while he pushed with his shoulder and right hand.

“What?” I asked, straining.

The SUV started to roll slowly forward, but eventually started to gain speed giving us a small break, and I grunted.

“Jesus, it feels like there are bricks in this thing,” Gentry grumbled, sweat pouring even more heavily down his face.

I looked up in time to see the parking lot ahead, and I yelled out over the din of traffic.

“Turn the wheel!”

She turned the wheel, and we managed to push it the last few feet into the parking lot before it stopped completely.

“Damn,” Gentry said, backing away.

The woman hurried out of the SUV, and she ran to the back hatch where we were leaning heavily.

“Oh, God,” she said the moment she was back there. “Is your hand okay?”

My eyes immediately went to Gentry’s hand, and I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw it wasn’t his pitching hand.

“Yeah, fine,” he grumbled, starting to press it to his shirt to stop the bleeding.

“Wait!” she cried. “I have some Band-Aids in the car.”

She hurried around the other side of the SUV, and came back moments later with a little red pack in her hands.

“I carry this everywhere. I hope you like Transformer Band-Aids,” she smiled timidly.

Gentry held out his hand, which she reached for, and she pressed a white gauze pad against it before covering it with the Band-Aid.

“Bumblebee,” Gentry murmured. “My favorite.”

The woman started to laugh.

“You and Cailean,” she pointed to the back seat where I assumed her son was sitting.

Gentry looked through the glass, and his eyes widened.

“You’re not kidding.”

The woman shook her head.

“No, I’m afraid I’m not,” she grinned.

I took a look myself and smiled when I saw the kid fully decked out in Transformer clothes—Bumblebee to be exact—and waving at us.

“Happy kid,” I mumbled.

“He thought it was fun,” she sighed. “Now I have to go beg my dad for a ride.”

“You sound like you’d rather saw off your own foot,” Gentry observed.

“I would,” she confirmed. “My dad’s a mechanic, and I’d rather not hear him say ‘I told you so’ about buying this car.”

“Why?” Gentry asked. “What’s wrong with it?”

She grinned.

“It’s not American made.”

Gentry and I both nodded, understanding clear now.

“He a soldier?” I wondered.

She nodded her head again.

“Army. Retired after twenty years,” she confirmed.

“Well, we’ll wait until someone comes. As long as you’re comfortable with that,” Gentry offered.

The woman looked relieved.

“Thank you,” she whispered, and then pulled out her phone, a look of pain on her face. “I’ll be biting the bullet over there for a few seconds.”

With that, she walked away, and I looked over at my still staring friend.

“You might want to wipe that drool off your face.”

Gentry’s head whipped around to stare at me.

“Fuck off.”

***

“That little fucker is about to have his ass handed to him,” I murmured to Gentry as we walked into the locker room half an hour later. “What’s his deal?”

Gentry’s eyes went to the kid in question.

Croft was shoving his shirt into his pants, making sure he was tucked in completely all the way around his body, before he turned to grab his glove.

A glove that looked exactly like mine, even down to the red nail polish on the tip of the left finger.

That was something my mother used to do to all of our gloves as a way to distinguish my glove from all of my brothers. I had red. Hannibal had green. Hunter had blue. Harrison had orange. And Holden had yellow.

Which made me wonder…why the hell did that kid have a glove with red tipped fingers? Nobody else did that, and I began to ponder the likelihood of him doing the same thing with the red paint. It wasn’t a fucking coincidence that that kid had it and I did, too.

Which got me to thinking.

I hated the glove.

There was something wrong with it since I’d gotten it back, and I didn’t like it one freakin’ bit.

“What’s wrong?” Gentry pushed.

“Fuckin’ glove has felt off since I got it back,” I grumbled. “Gonna have to switch to my back up.”

“You should start breaking in a new one,” Gentry suggested.

I sighed.

“I am, and I will,” I mumbled. “How’s your hand doing?”

“Fine,” he murmured. “Better since I got the Band-Aid, unbelievably.”

I snorted and hunched my shoulders as I ripped my shirt over my head, throwing it in the bag at the bottom of my locker.

“Do you think she’ll come to the game next week?” I questioned him.

He’d invited her to the game when he’d seen her face after she’d spoken with her dad, and her eyes had gone all round as she looked from me to Gentry.

“Yeah,” Gentry nodded his head. “I do believe that she will.”

Turning my smile away from him so he wouldn’t see it, I bent down and grabbed a clean shirt just as I heard Rhys clear his throat directly next to me.

I turned only my head and raised a brow at him. “Can I help you?”

“You might want to head to the training room,” he mentioned. “Stop right outside the door.”

Brows furrowed, I did just that, leaving my clean t-shirt on the bench behind my locker as I weaved my way through the people milling about here and there as they trickled in from their workouts.

At first, I wasn’t too concerned.

Rhys looked fairly calm.

Nothing could be too wrong with Sway if he was that calm, right?

Wrong.

I realized about thirty seconds after arriving at the doors to the training room why he’d been so calm.

He didn’t want to say anything and risk taking the brunt of my anger. So, he’d sent me here, knowing I would hear.

“Look at her trying to lift that box of supplies. Seriously. How hard is it to lift forty pounds? I had to sign a sheet saying that I could lift up to sixty pounds to even get signed on,” another trainer I didn’t know very well said.

“She’s a fat ass,” I heard Sinclair snap. “Sway can’t even do the most basic tasks. How is she still allowed to work here?”

“Excuse me? She’s my fat ass,” I heard myself saying. “Now get the fuck out. You won’t be working here in an hour. You might want to go ahead and pack your stuff.”

Sway turned the moment she heard my voice, and then her eyes narrowed at what had come out of my mouth.

But I had no time to soothe the hurt I saw on her face.

Not when I was this fucking mad.

“You have no authority to get me fired,” Sinclair snapped. “Now if you’ll excuse me.”

“Siggy!” I bellowed.

Siggy, who I’d seen in his office on my way to the training room, came barreling out of his office like he’d been shot from a cannon.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, jogging over toward me.

“Your assistant trainer just called my woman a fat ass.”

Sway gasped, as did everyone else in the room.

I hadn’t actually claimed her publicly before, and that showed on her face, making me realize what an incredible shithead I’d been for not doing it before now.

“Since when is she your woman?” Gentry teased from behind me.

“Since a couple of weeks ago,” I answered quickly. “Now shut up, and go get your hand looked at.”

“I’ll do it,” Sway volunteered, her eyes going wildly around the room.

I nodded. “Thank you, baby.”

Everyone stayed quiet until Gentry and Sway had left the training room.

“Sinclair,” Siggy started. “I suggest you pack your office up now. You won’t be working here by tomorrow afternoon.”

“You can’t fire me,” Sinclair snapped.

“I can’t, no.” Siggy agreed. “But I can suggest it to the people who can, and trust me, I will be doing that. If I can’t trust you to treat Sway correctly, how can I trust you to treat my players?” Siggy paused. “And honestly, Sway could fire you right now, seeing as she’s your superior. The question is, why hasn’t she?”

Sinclair’s eyes narrowed.

“I’ve worked here for four years now. They’re not going to fire me because of one insignificant comment,” Sinclair snapped, looking wildly around the room now for support.

“An insignificant comment that you made about the coach’s niece and the girlfriend of Hancock Peters,” someone muttered.

Sinclair’s mouth twisted in fury at hearing that comment.

“We’re not allowed to fraternize with the players. This…” he gestured to me and where Sway had disappeared into her office. “This isn’t even allowed. How, and why, she should get special treatment doesn’t even compute in my brain.”

“Maybe it’s because your brain is malfunctioning,” I murmured, crossing my arms tightly over my chest. “Never once, in my years of life, have I seen someone act so uncaring to another human being. You need to rethink your choices and start acting like a decent human being to people who don’t fit into your nice, perfect little box.”

“She disgusts me,” Sinclair sneered.

“That woman is the most beautiful person in this whole entire world. She makes my heart skip beats when I look at her across my pillow in the morning.” I cleared my throat. “I’m lucky to have her as my girlfriend. I’m lucky to have her as my friend…and you would have been her friend as well had you treated her with the respect she deserves. Now you’ll never know and not because she wouldn’t forgive you if you worked for that forgiveness, but because I won’t let you near her again. You’ll never get the chance to apologize, and I can’t find it in me to care.”

His eyes settled on Croft, who was busy looking between me, Siggy and Sinclair before starting the cycle completely over again.

“Say something,” Sinclair demanded of Croft.

Croft’s mouth opened and then closed.

When nothing came forth, Sinclair’s eyes narrowed.

“You’ll regret this,” Sinclair promised. “You should be careful who you share your discrepancies with.”

With that, Sinclair left, not bothering to clean his office out.

It was obvious that he thought he’d be back.

If I had my way, though, he wouldn’t. Not now, and not ever.

Siggy and I watched him go, as did about five other players, including Rhys.

“Thank you,” I said to the man who’d told me about the situation in the first place. “I appreciate it.”

Rhys shrugged. “You’d have done the same had the situation been reversed.”

“Now I have to go apologize for calling my woman names when I really didn’t mean what came out.”

“I hope you meant some of them,” Sway replied from behind me.

I turned.

And then the words started to fall out of my mouth without me being able to control them.

“The words…they came out wrong,” I apologized. “I swear. I don’t think you’re a fat ass. In fact, I think you’re beautiful. I think you’re perfect. I love your curves, and the way they cup my hardness. I love the way you feel when I lay next to you. I swear, I didn’t really mean those ugly words.” I promised her.

“Did you mean it?” she asked.

I blinked, surprised by her understanding tone.

“Mean what?” I asked, confused.

She smiled. “That I make your heart race.”

I pulled her hand to my body, and flattened it against where my heart was thundering in my chest.

“Does that answer your question?” I asked.

She smiled.

“I love you, Hancock.” She threw her arms around my neck. “Now it’s time to get you dressed so we can go to the house for a few. We have dinner with your friends in a few short hours, and I forgot something at your place.”

My brows furrowed.

“That’s three hours from now,” I said. “What did you forget?”

She leaned forward, her lips deliberately brushing against my ear, and her whispered words had the power to make my heart hammer.

I’m starting to forget what it feels like to have you inside of me.

***

“Do you remember yet?” I asked, thrusting so hard into her that her breasts jumped.

She arched her back, her eyes closing.

“No.” She shook her head. “Fuck me harder, it might come back to me.”

I grinned and did just that.