Page 43 of The Sweetest Return

I lifted my glass and took a sip.

“I appreciate the compliment. We both know that’s all it’ll be for me.”

Because me and Milan both knew she had been trying to get my dick for years.

Back on the Yard, she had made it plain enough that if I ever slipped with Imani, she wouldn’t have minded stepping right into the opening. I never gave her one. Eight years, football fame, money, and enough women willing to make themselves available had apparently convinced Milan the answer might have changed.

It hadn’t.

She shrugged. “Things change. Maybe you should too.”

Before I could answer, Malcolm stepped between us with the timing of a man who lived to save me and make sure I hated him for it.

“Milan Carr,” he said, grinning. “Still bad as hell, I see.”

She laughed and hugged him.

Malcolm looked over her shoulder at me.

Panther, his face said.

I gave him a look that promised consequences and moved farther into the room.

Women like Milan hadn’t gotten under my skin in years. Football had introduced me to too many versions of that energy for me to confuse attention with interest. Women who smiled like they wanted conversation when they wanted access. Women who got familiar fast because they knew my name, my money, my history, and treated proximity like permission.

Milan was smoother than most.

But I knew what it was.

And she damn sure wasn’t the reason I couldn’t settle.

I had spent most of my life learning patience. You couldn’t play running back by seeing the hole you wanted and charging into it because you were tired of waiting. Sometimes the line needed another beat. Sometimes the linebacker had to commit first. You trusted the blocks, kept your feet under you, and let the play show you where it wanted to go.

Hit it too soon and you ran straight into trouble.

Wait too long and the opening closed.

I knew the difference.

At least on a football field.

Royal House was testing the shit out of me.

I only did the grown alumni part of Crown Weekend now. The donor events. Private receptions. Rooms where the checks got bigger, the bourbon got better, and nobody had to yell over a DJ unless they wanted to. I didn’t need the student chaos anymore. Didn’t need to stand in the middle of campus pretending it didn’t do something to me to see boys wearing my old number like it still belonged to a dream and not a body that had already paid for it.

Still, every year, I came.

And every year, some part of me looked for Imani Bennett.

She never showed.

Which meant I knew damn well what Malcolm was seeing tonight.

Every time the door opened, some part of my body checked before my pride could stop it.

Malcolm and Tee got pulled into a conversation with a former offensive lineman who now owned half the food trucks in Allegheny County, and Milan found her way back to my side within five minutes. She touched my arm while asking about Friday’s gala.

I answered.