Thrusted? I’m never going to get through this day. The worst part is that the good-looking asshole knew exactly what he was doing to me.
They always do.
Which is why they’re in my no-fly zone.
Lincoln
IT’S FUNNY WHAT YOU LEARN at two in the morning when you’re bored, sober, and a little uneasy. It’s a trifecta I’m just getting acquainted with. I might be sober a lot during the season, but boredom and anxiety aren’t familiar. Or fun.
Around.
Around.
Around.
I’ve tried to watch one blade of the ceiling fan, focusing on it and trying to block out the other four as they whiz above me. Over the last thirty minutes, I’ve learned it’s impossible to count the number of rotations in a minute when it’s set at medium speed. I’ve also learned that Skittles make violent projectiles when launched into the blades of the fan, regardless of the setting.
I already knew that though. That was a painful lesson learned at a party a few years back.
Rubbing my shoulder, I see the slight purple indent of the candy against the white paint of my bedroom. It will be gone tomorrow. Rita, the housekeeper, is thorough like that.
I snatch the remote off the bedside table and flip the fan off. It slows, shuddering just a bit before the spinning comes to a halt. Immediately, I remember why I turned it on in the first place: it’s the silence that kills me. It’s the quiet that allows all of the worries to wage a sneak attack against me. It slams into me from every direction since my meeting with the Arrows’ General Manager after my therapy appointment today.
“It’s still too early to know anything, Lincoln. All I can tell you is that we want you back in an Arrows uniform next season,” Billy Marshall, the GM, says.
“I want that too. This is my city,” I gulp, purposefully not looking at the report on the table between us.
“Let’s work through the rehab and see how it goes. You know it’s not up to me. It’s up to the owners. I’ll have a say, and you know I’m pulling for you. Hell, we all are. You’re a franchise player, Landry. But you know, at the end of the day, this is business.”
“Ugh.” I lift myself off the bed. My back muscles strain from the stress of the day, little sleep, and more than a little pain. Glancing in the mirror, my voice cackles across the room at my reflection. “You’re a mess, Linc. But your abs look awesome.”
Inch by inch, a smile slides across my face as I envision other awesome-looking things. Namely, Danielle Ashley in her pale pink dress.
“Fuck me,” I mutter, thinking back to the sweet bow of her hip. It’s amazing that I have it memorized without touching her. Just like that, I’m hard. Again.
I can’t with this girl. She’s gorgeous with her olive skin and dark, exotic eyes. Full lips that nearly reach her high cheekbones when she kills me with that smile. Her black hair was piled on top of her head with curls falling out of the haphazard mass. Sexy. As. Fuck.
Then she goes and banters with me . . . and doesn’t offer her number. I mean, she wants me. Of course she does. She saw me and she knows who I am—let’s be real. It’s nagged at me all day that she didn’t slip me her business card or offer the availability of when she’ll be in the office so I can “accidentally” stop by again. All I can figure is that the call coming in was important. Super important. Earth-shatteringly important.
Scratching my head, my own hair sticking up in every direction, I try to remember if this has ever happened to me. I go through the list of women I’ve encountered recently: the redhead that gave me the coffee in the drive-thru, the chick that keeps sending me naked selfies that I met in a bar on South Padre Island the week after our season ended, and Blondie today. I could’ve had her number. Hell, I could’ve had her in the fucking elevator. So why not Dani?
Why do I care?
Moseying down the hallway towards the kitchen, I take in the pictures hanging on the walls of the hallway. Pictures of me in different stadiums, with my brothers, my parents, pictures with friends that I can’t even remember the last time I talked to. By all indications, I should feel at home here. This is my house, after all. But . . . I don’t.
I have no idea who hung those pictures. I don’t know what happened to the guys in the pictures I’m with from Savannah. As I peek into a bedroom as I exit the hallway, I sure as hell don’t know what’s in all the boxes stacked against the wall.
Flicking on the kitchen light, the marble countertops sparkle, the bowl of fruit on the island looks perfect. It’s all so . . . odd, like it’s some kind of photoshoot and I’m just wandering around on stage, waiting for someone to whip out a camera and ask me to smile. It’s been this way since I threw the ball to home plate in the last game of the season and heard the rip in my shoulder. The thing is, I don’t know what it is I’m feeling, exactly.
A general unease sits atop me now and I can’t relax. Not like I used to. There’s a dread, maybe a fog, that sort of lingers in the back of my mind. I guess that part of me used to be filled with activity. Usually I’d be on someone’s boat right now, partying and living up the offseason. Now I’m home, for lack of a better word, watching home remodeling shows because my shoulder is fucked. There are no getaways, no quick trips to Mexico, no social events to speak of. Just me and the quiet.
The worst part of it is that I don’t really have a desire to be with the guys. For the first time, it’s unappealing. So unappealing, in fact, that I turned off my work phone, as I call it, and am unreachable to anyone but team management, doctors, and my family. Why take calls from my friends when I know what they want: booze. Boobs. Banal conversation. I’ve been there and done it. Hell, I wrote a few damn chapters in the book on how to do it. But it just feels like those chapters need nothing added to them, and that’s scary as fuck.
Maybe I’m just depressed.
Pulling a box of pizza out of the refrigerator from a couple of days ago, I remove a piece and bring it to my lips. As soon as it hits, my stomach rolls and I toss the slice back in, making the box bounce on the counter. I glance at the clock. It’s late. Really late. There’s only one person awake at this hour that’s acceptable to call. I head into the living room, grab my phone, and listen to it ring.
“Hey, Linc,” Graham answers, his voice as clear as it would’ve been if it was two in the afternoon.