Going for the Seven

Chapter 3

Samantha

I'll admit it, I had a thing for the 'bad' guy.

Always had.

I blamed it on the fact that I had grown up dealing with team after team of football players. It had forced me to learn to put them in their place, so they would never question following the orders of a 'little girl'. So if I were to date a nice guy, they wouldn't stand a chance against me.

That being said. The guy standing in front of me now literally screamed 'bad boy'.

He stood just as tall as the blond Adonis. His dark hair was shaved close to his scalp and tattoos ran up his thickly muscles arms, disappearing into the tight black shirt he wore. Where Adonis was more classically handsome, this guy with his chiseled bone structure and piercing eyes had my stomach in knots instantly.

"How about you go find someone else to pester O'Connor?" He directed at the Adonis. His near black eyes glared down at the hand still holding my wrist. A hand that I was sorely tempted to break. Surprisingly, the overly cocky football player backed down.

"Find me later gorgeous, when you get bored with this guy." He winked at me before blending back into the crowd.

I couldn't contain my eye roll as I turned to face Mr. Tattoos. "Lovely friend you've got there."

"He's my roommate, so unfortunately I'm stuck with him." He explained rubbing a hand along the back of his neck as thought it pained him.

"Well, thanks for saving him, I guess." I moved to go around him, eager to get deep into my beer and a dark corner where maybe I could stop drawing so much attention.

"Saving him?" New guy fell into step with me. He may be my usual type and extremely attractive, but he needed to get the hint. I wanted to be left alone with my Mr. Miller-Lite. Then I just may move on to a new favorite, Mr. Jose Cuervo.

I sighed heavily as I stopped to face this stranger again."If you must know, yes, you were saving him. Because if he hadn't let go of me when he did, he was about to lose his ability to father future little Adonis'."

He looked at me questionably as he processed what I had just said. It was a look I had grown used to. Most people didn't know how to take my crass nature, and it had only grown worse in the last year. Since I had lost everyone I cared about, my thick skin and tough armor that  had grown so thick I almost felt I was now completely unreachable.

I could tell the moment what I had said finally sank in. His eyes crinkled, and he grabbed onto his side as he burst out laughing. It was a deep laugh that erupted from him as though he hadn't laughed in a while. Like he hadn't had reason to.

I wasn't about to stand around and be mocked. Spinning around, I took off for the kitchen area which appeared to have a backdoor. It took awhile to make my way through the packed room. I also stopped quickly to grab another beer from a cooler, deciding to double fist it so I wouldn't have to brave coming back inside for a while.

Outside, the music wasn't blasting and there was no crush of bodies threatening to suffocate me. There were only a few groupings of people chatting, but they ignored me as I leaned up against the side of the brick house. I took a long sip of my beer, hoping it would soon drown out my thoughts.

The weather was perfect. The air still had some summer warmth while not threatening to cause you to drown in your own sweat. It was almost exactly like the weather had been a year ago. After Cash's first home game....

"We killed them." Cash bragged as he threw his overly large body into the porch swing beside me. He was grinning ear to ear like a goober.

"Watch it." I complained as he almost caused me to spill my sweet tea. Mom and I had worked through three batches earlier that day before we managed to find the perfect proportion of tea to sugar; so I would be pissed if he caused me to spill even a drop. "And I wouldn't call a score of 14 to 7 killing-them."