Page 50 of End Game

Barrett and I… we’re closer than we’ve ever been, but now that we’re together all the time, I’m noticing the distance between us. The chasm between who he is with me and who he is with everyone else. I can’t figure out which one is the real version of him.

Any other night, I might suggest he go out into the main room and chat up some girl. There have got to be tons of women who are ready and willing to go home with a gorgeous, hotshot football player, even if they’ve lost today’s game. And Barrett is a genuinely good guy, charming and attractive and fun to be around. I’m sure he’s got moves.

Still, tonight… I don’t want to share him. He’s mine, all mine. I don’t want to give him up.

Setting my hand on his arm, I catch his attention. “Do you want to dance?”

Barrett makes a face. “You want to dance.”

“We don’t have to,” I tell him quickly. “I thought it might be fun.”

“Dee, everything hurts so bad, I just want to go home and lay down,” he says. “I don’t even want to jack off, I’m so tired. So, no, I don’t want to dance. I don’t want to do anything.”

My phone buzzes again. Trey. I turn the screen off and tuck the phone into my pocket.

“Do you want cheese fries?” I ask instead.

Barrett smiles softly. “Yeah. Let’s go get you some cheese fries.”

Chapter 16

Barrett

There’s a body in the bed beside mine. The faint rattle of lungs breathing tells me the person is alive. The petite frame and generous curves tell me the person sharing my bed is female. The long, dark hair and bronze skin tells me what I was afraid of: once again, Diana is in my bed.

My head pounds and my mouth is as dry as the Sahara. I roll away from her and she sighs, burrowing into the blankets. It takes considerable effort to sit up, and even more to swing my feet down to the floor. Standing up is near impossible.

I definitely drank too much last night. My body is sore and tender after the punishment I took in yesterday’s game. Hobbling to the bathroom, I lift my shirt and survey the mess of bruises on my belly, chest, and sides. There’s a knot between my shoulder blades that tangles as I lift my arms in a stretch. My knee is swollen, my thigh scratched from a particularly brutal fall late in the third quarter.

Everything hurts. This is nothing new. I’ve been playing football since I was nine years old. It’s my fourth year playing with fully grown men at the collegiate level. I know what I’m in for: a world of hurt. And a sense of accomplishment. A feeling of pride. Camaraderie with the guys on the field with me, battling it out.

This is my last season of football. After thirteen years, it’s almost time to be done. As much as it abuses me, as painful as it is, I still love the sport. I still have it in me to get through this season. Next summer, when I’m not preparing for the upcoming season for the first time in my life, I’m sure I’m going to miss it.

Football has been part of my life nearly as long as Diana has, but if I had to decide between one or the other, I know what I would choose in a heartbeat. She’s my everything, my best friend. One day, I hope we’re more than friends. For now, I’m content to have her in my life in any way I can, no matter how much it tortures me.

By the time I make it out of the shower, she’s awake and on her phone. Diana scrubs a hand over her face and groans.

“What’s wrong?” My morning voice is scratchy and rough.

She sighs. “I didn’t think I drank that much…”

My stomach sinks. “What happened?” She only had two drinks, and then we went for cheese fries and burgers again. I thought she was mostly sober by the time we crashed into my bed at three o’clock.

“I texted this dude.”

There’s an itch beneath my clavicle that I can’t quite scratch, a burning sensation spreading through my chest. “Oh?”

“He didn’t text back,” she says. She sounds… disappointed?

“How’d you meet?” I ask ever so casually, digging in my dresser for a pair of boxer shorts.

“At the pub the other night.”

The night she went out with her soccer teammates? The night she cancelled on me and then didn’t answer my texts while she was being chatted up by some dude?

We aren’t dating. We aren’t in a relationship. There is no reason for me to be upset over the fact that she was flirting with some guy at the bar… except for the fact that I wish that guy was me.

I clear my throat. “What does your day look like?”