Series: Fever Falls Series by Riley Hart
Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 85157 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85157 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
“Oh, sugar, I think we’re meant to be,” Lincoln told me, and Beau rolled his eyes.
“I don’t think I’m going to enjoy hanging out with both of you at the same time.” Beau took a drink.
“Can’t handle us, huh, Campbell?” Beau sure as shit could handle me. I quite liked how he handled me.
“Don’t let him fool you. Beau pretends to be a stick-in-the-mud, but really, he loves this shit. He doesn’t know what he’d do without me.” Lincoln grunted when Beau elbowed him in the side.
“I pretend to be a stick-in-the-mud? Fuck you very much. I just act like a grown-up.”
“Which translates into what?” Lincoln fluttered his lashes at Beau. “B-O-R-I-N-G. But we know it’s just an act. There’s a wild man in there just trying to burst free.”
“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Beau replied.
“Oh my God. There was this party for Beau’s twenty-first birthday, and he might or might not have gotten a little bit too drunk. He was dancing on the tables, singing at the top of his lungs—”
“Wait, wait, wait,” I cut Lincoln off. “Dancing on tables and singing. That sounds familiar, Campbell. I believe that’s something you’d give me shit about.” I knew how he’d looked at me the night of our graduation party—the frustration and annoyance that had been in his eyes…but I’d felt something else in his stare too. Something that seared my soul, made me want to run, while at the same time, made the need to be closer to him flare to life even more. It had been what made me go looking for him that night. It had been what made me kiss him.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Beau answered.
“Oh, yeah, sure you don’t,” I said, then to Lincoln, “Continue please.”
“He’d been wild as hell that night. Then, of course, he turned back into straight-man-trapped-in-a-gay-man’s-body Beau, made everyone shut up so he could turn on the TV and watch the end of a college football game. And then he got all emo, took two guys in the bedroom, and had his first threesome—oh. Oops…”
It was as if my heart stopped, like I was in a hospital and they put the paddles on my chest, shocking me forward, and I jerked toward the table.
Beau had stopped partying on his birthday to watch me play football…
Then he’d slept with two men.
I didn’t like the fucking part, but the other? The other made my heart swell.
“You know you’re judgmental as shit,” Beau told Lincoln, effectively preventing a conversation about the other revelations from happening. Not that I knew what to say anyway. I was distracted by the fact that Beau had fucked two men after watching me play ball. Not that I hadn’t had my own threesomes.
Beau added, “Gay men can like sports. It’s not a straight or gay thing.”
“I know. It was a joke. Not a very good one, obviously.”
“Well, no one has ever said you had a good sense of humor,” Beau replied, and Lincoln gasped.
They playfully tossed jabs back and forth to each other before Beau launched into a funny story about Lincoln, then Lincoln another about Beau. We ordered dinner and ate. I was caught between enjoying seeing them together, seeing Beau with a close friend, watching him let go and laugh, and the J word again that was a weird-as-fuck feeling for me. I didn’t do jealousy.
They were telling a story about Lincoln in nursing school when my cell rang. My pulse jumped, wrapping against my skin, when I saw a familiar California phone number. “I’m…going to step outside and take this real quick,” I told them.
Beau frowned at me as though he was worried something was wrong. I did my best to give him a reassuring smile. My finger lingered over the screen as I walked away. “Hey, hold on just a second.”
“Still think the sun rises and sets on you, I see,” my agent, Andrea, replied.
“Ha-ha.” When I got outside, I leaned against Fever Pitch. “Okay, I’m here.”
“How are the sticks treating you? Helping you get your head on straight?”
No, not straight…but my head is clearer than it’s ever been… “It’s not the sticks, and I’m doing fine. You?”
“Good,” she replied. “You keeping in shape? Staying out of trouble? The only headlines I’m seeing are the initial ones with you popping up in your hometown and the latest about coaching the special-education team. Good call.”
My heart leaped into my throat. I should have known that would happen eventually. I couldn’t believe it stayed quiet as long as it did, that I’d missed the headline or that reporters hadn’t come calling. “I’m not doing it for my reputation, Andrea. I’m doing it because I want to.” Because I loved doing it.
“Does the reason really matter?” she asked bluntly. “What matters is that it is helping your image. And there have been some talks…the Tigers’ quarterback’s contract is up after this season. They don’t have the money to keep him. He doesn’t want to stay, and they’re looking to rebuild their team. You’ll draw a crowd…especially coming out of retirement.”