"Fuck!" I screamed at my front door slammed in my face. The bursts of joy coursing through me popped and Mia's rejection doused me with an ice-cold shower.
After she sprinted out, barefoot and hugging her crocs, I leaned my shoulder against the wall near the window. The surface was ice compared to the heat surging beneath my skin. I dragged both palms down my heated forehead. After sagging my weight into the wall, my brain was still dizzied from losing control of what I never imagined would happen but held zero regret over.
Or, zero regret until she crumpled into despair.
All I wanted was a simple kiss, a taste. I thought it would scratch away the heated pull that attracted me to a girl who held no interest in me. The selfish part of me hoped it sparked a reaction in her.
But fuck, not that one.
One small reciprocation left me wild and unhinged. I needed her closer. Being in my lap wasn't close enough. Only when I moaned her name and buried myself in her wet heat was I satisfied. Her tight pressure choking me was wildly addictive and I was desperate, craving more and more until I took more than she was ready for. Her body was all in, trembling with arousal dripping down to my balls, but her mind wasn't.
My brain couldn't form words to describe what had happened. She'd infiltrated every cell in it. I was haunted by the feeling of her hot, soaked walls choking the relief out of my dick and each thrust pumping me with unbridled pleasure. The greedy prick swelled at each recall. Another taste, another feel, and another kiss were all I thought about.
Once wasn't enough.
Mia was stubborn but she unlocked the most stubborn organ inside me – my heart. It tethered itself to her soft, vulnerable side. She tossed aside her own restrictions and opened up, crying my name in a mess of sweat, tears, and flyaway black strands stuck to her flushed forehead. Mia without abandon, her mouth arching and rounding in ecstasy, was the most beautiful version of her.
She probably hadn't realized what she had unlocked. I wasn't a Super Bowl MVP quarterback because I sat back on my ass during games. My shoulder wasn't close to full recovery - okay, that was also because of Mia, but I put in the effort. I pushed my body past its limits, well beyond the limits of average people, in search of being extraordinary.
And I sure as fuck didn't quit when my adversities upped their ante. I trained, sweated, and sacrificed for what I wanted. I didn't take what I wanted, I earned it.
Off the field, it was her. A look at my empty kitchen while I ate tasteless food revealed that I wanted her here. I'd gotten used to her presence, the flutter of her lashes onto her cheeks and the upward curl of her mouth pursed around a fork or spoon. I missed our conversations, even the shallow ones because seeing Mia relaxed and smiling felt like an honor and accomplishment.
How much time she needed to process what had happened filled my stomach with guilt. Two days passed, and I wasn't sorry for what happened. Not on my end. There was only remorse that it upset her. She hadn't budged on her secrets. Were they darker than a simple ex breaking her heart?
Damn those thick walls.
With a dip into my shallow pool of patience, I closed my eyes and drew a breath from my last row spot. I almost tasted Mia's presence in the air. Musky perspiration dotted her natural scent, both a whole lot more pleasant than mine. It coated my skin along with the smooth, warm feeling of her skin, a buttery contrast to the callouses I never got rid of.
My first coach told me they were symbols of strength, evidence of football toughening me up. Bullshit now, but back then I believed it.
In an era where players shared their daily dietary restrictions, chest beating war chants and celebration dances, and groin cup size, fans and reporters assumed they knew every detail of our lives. They overlooked the bleeding knees, bruised shins and ribs, and the sweat-soaked smell that never left my uniform and jock strap because they were the uninteresting side. They ignored the hours of pain and recovery. Hard work wasn't glamorous, but it was necessary.
Where football owned its own religion, I wasn't a god. My body had as many miles as the bus that drove our high school team all over the state. An offseason freak accident jarred me into the reality that I wasn't untouchable or unbreakable. But, with smarter workouts, I molded myself to be better and stronger. With yoga, I increased my flexibility and longevity of my joints and muscles. I was all in, but I needed Mia to continue my progress.
Unfortunately, she disappeared into nonexistence.
With Mia not teaching at the studio and the media shitstorm about my foundation scam, the female attention on me tripled. Bold girls tucked phone numbers under my windshield wipers or in my curled-up mat. Open flirtations soaked the air thicker than Shanti's incense. She taught Mia's Tuesday and Thursday classes. I approached her after meditation, where my brain swam with more Mia-related thoughts than a school of minnows.
She offered a flash of white teeth. "Mister Pearson."
"Is Mia alright?" I rubbed my hand over the throbbing between my eyes.
Her round eyes contrasted with the nod of her head. "She's feeling under the weather, but I expect she'll be back next week. She'll be thrilled with your progress. I see such an improvement in your practice."
She was right. Smaller muscle groups, like my calves and ankles, no longer vibrated in static balance positions. Both shoulders rolled in fluid, wavelike motions through Shanti's vinyasas, a polar opposite sensation from Mia's first class. Balance developed steadier and my distracted thoughts were easier to ground... until they circled around Mia.
And, for the first time since I walked into this studio, my shoulder recovery wasn't my priority. The sincerity in Shanti's voice didn't convince me that Mia would return. "Thanks."
Brainless motions were all I accomplished for the next three days. I was useless, distracted by the addictive details I attempted to forget but didn't want to. She was so wet, slicked with arousal, pulsing and clenching around me. My mind went where my body couldn't. The softness of her warm skin. The heat burning in her eyes. The echoes of her breathless, desperate voice humming in my ears.
Fuck, and I'm hard again.
Wet dreams haunted me into sleep deprivation. I woke up, soaked in sweat, my thighs locked up, and my boxer briefs stretched with a mammoth-sized erection. I spent every night after being with Mia with my hand fisting myself back to flaccid, only to wake up in the same miserable position or tangled up in a sticky mess of sheets. Every time, I achieved only relief, not satisfaction.
After a week and prodding Michael for Mia's favorite flower, I sent her white lilies daily until she responded. Leaving no room for interpretation, the messages were short and direct: I wanted her presence back. Her response was a thank you via a Michael text, along with him requesting I remain patient.
The reminder that I slept with my agent's, no, my friend's sister, slammed a sledgehammer in my chest. I stared at Michael's words: be patient. Tingles spread down my ankles and into my toes dangling over a kitchen island barstool.
We were adults though. Michael was a reasonable, level-headed person who wasn't licensed to carry. And I cared about Mia. The last thing I wanted was miscommunication, so with no idea what to say, I dialed his number.
"Yes, Sam?"
"Uhh, hey..." I raked my fingers over my scalp while the other palm sweated on my phone. On their own agenda, my feet made circular passes around the kitchen island. "Michael, I need to talk to you?"
His doubts echoed mine. "Are you telling me or asking?"
"Telling." The wavering in my voice said otherwise. I dragged a hand over my beard. "Mike, I want to... Uhh... it's about Mia."
A loud sigh crackled in my ear. "Sam, I've told you -"
"I'm not bugging her. I want you to know, I..." Fuck, this was more difficult than it played out in my head. "I need to know if she regrets... me."
"No." He sighed, crackling more static. "But she feels guilty that she doesn't."
She what? How was that a feeling? Women's guilt levels were in their own stratosphere.
"Look..." I took a deep breath. "I like her a lot, Mike. If she feels the same, then I want to be more than friends."
His deafening silence drowned my heart racing in my ears. Thud thud thud. It echoed in my ear drums. "You think I don't know that?"
A laugh released tension in my shoulders. I scratched the back of my neck. "You know."
"More like I hoped." His laugh was quiet. "So, why are you telling me then?"
His reaction rushed an exhale out of me, slowing my steps. "Because I don't want to make things weird between us."
"Sam?" Michael's tone shifted, tightening to his stern, 'you should have known better' lecture. "I got Mia the job at Midfield."
My feet tripped over themselves. The kitchen blurred and I pitched forward, stopped only when I palmed the counter and almost dropped my phone. A grasping sensation seized my chest, as if an invisible hand clutched my heart. "You knew about the numbers shit they were hiding?"
"I suspected." Fuck, I hated that vague answer of his. "And my sister couldn't have stayed quiet about something wrong in the books no matter how much they paid her."
His words about her conviction weren't surprising but his angle of planting his own sister was. "You... used her?"
The thought sickened my stomach. I didn't have a sister but couldn't imagine-
"If you mean I gave my sister a job opportunity that pulled her out from..." His voice trailed off and he sighed. "Yes. Mia's Midfield job was supposed to be temporary. In hindsight, I was surprised she lasted that long. From a purely practical standpoint, teaching yoga doesn't pay her enough to sustain herself."
As if I was a child, he held back information. The honesty in his admission overshadowed his real reasons, the impractical side, for putting Mia not on my team but in my life. Not knowing why he wasn't telling me the full truth was a vice clamped in my chest.
"Fuck practicality. Why me, Mike?"
"The alternative rehab idea started with Jer's recommendations that plyo was increasing your strength and stamina levels but not your shoulder's mobility. But, for you to take it seriously, it had to be someone..." My ear crackled with another sigh. "Personal."
"Personal," I spat out the word.
The irony that Michael knew I'd fall for Mia hit me like a punch in the groin. Stupidly, I called to make sure he was okay with me having feelings for her, only for him to admit that he had set me up. My professional life's puppet master knew that when he pulled personal strings. And now they were entangled with no ends to unravel.
I didn't know whether to fire his ass or thank him.
He backtracked to the personal side. "I love you like a brother, Sam. An irritating and reckless brother, you were on the edge of spiraling. You needed someone who wasn't impressed with you, who'd challenge you out of your own stupidity. Push the right buttons so-"
"So, that I would prove her wrong." Heaving my chest, I pushed out a loud exhale.
At a moment where I had the right to be entirely selfish, a pawn in whatever the fuck heart strings game Michael pulled, my thoughts shifted to Mia. What about her needs? She rejected my stupidity more times than I counted, but also clung to me in moments of need. While I deserved it in the past for ego- or dick-driven interactions, this wasn't one of those times.
She needed me. And I wasn't sure why, but I wanted her to need me. It filled a purpose in my life that I didn't know existed.
Leaning over, I rested my elbows on the cool, smooth island surface. A chill spread through my skin from the contact point and grounded me from the thick foggy clouding my brain. "Answer me honestly, were you interfering in my best interest or hers?"
"Both." He cleared his throat. "Sam, I can't tell you Mia's side. It's a situation where she has to open up and that's not easy for her. I'm not above begging on her behalf, but please be patient."
'Be patient' slotted itself into a close second behind 'you can't.'
"And?" I crossed my arms over my chest and frowned at Jer's... flair for the dramatic.
Given Michael sat in the GM's conference room, we didn't have time for whatever the fuck Jeremiah wrote on his clipboard for the last nine minutes.
Like any negotiation, Michael came to the table with a ridiculous, bloated up-front bonus for past achievements structured contract, a moderate compromise back-ended with performance-based contingencies option, and a rock-bottom, 'I'll wash jock straps and refill Gatorade if you keep me on the team' offer.
Contract negotiations dragged on for hours, into a second day. Despite my offseason fuckups, Michael dangled my terms in the free agency gossip mill. Six teams bit, none of which I was interested in. Only Dallas' close proximity to my parents would've tempted me out of Houston, my home, my football family. Michael and I sang that pro-Houston song to every mic shoved in our faces, which increased as preseason camp approached.
"Jer."
"Relax." the top of his head responded. Pen scratching, he continued the hums of 'hmm' and 'Ahh' chorus he sang all morning as he tested my shoulder's mobility.
"Jer." I wasn't made of patience and flicked my fingers at my sides. What the fuck took him so long to write up? He was messing with me, had to be.
"Dotting an I." He stabbed his pen into the clipboard.
"Jer." My right eye twitched.
"Crossing a T." Another pen stab raised my eyebrows. "Aaaaand..." he drawled with a circular roll of his pen over his paper.
"Enough." I snatched the clipboard and groaned at a paper-sized smiley face drawn on a blank piece of paper. I work with a manchild.
"Relax, I sent Mike the report ten minutes ago." Jer's head tipped back, releasing a loud cackle. "I just like messin' with you."
Flipping through pages of scribbled doodles that made Mia's look like Picassos, I frowned at not seeing his assessment. "What's the number."
"Ninety-two."
Any normal person would probably have been happy with that result but not me. In a profession where inches and seconds shaved off meant the difference between eternal glory and empty-handed disappointment, I strove for nothing less than at least one hundred percent. 'No one tells me I can be faster, higher, or stronger' was my motto since high school.
The more years I played football, the more it changed. Pee Wee started so I could toss the ball with my dad mimicking Warren Hayes the Hall-of-Fame quarterback who played ten years in Dallas, high school was to keep my ass too busy to get in trouble, college was my scholarship lifeline, and the NFL was my life and livelihood.
At each incremental step, boys became men, stringy limbs forged into solid muscle, and friends morphed into coworkers, but we remained a cohesive unit. One broken or out of sync part eroded the whole machine's efficiency. Houston being an almost five-billion-dollar machine only increased the pressure to perfection.
The athletic perfectionist in me clenched my jaw. "That's it?"
Jer hen-clucked behind his teeth. Those pearly whites might have tempted some, but I scowled at his justification. "Considering you were ninety-five percent when the season ended and sixty-four percent before Mia blessed your life, I'd say you're doing pretty damn good."
His somber reminder of Mia cooled the irritation simmering inside me.
"We should celebrate."
"Someone say celebrate?" a deep voice called out, drawing my eyes to a large pair of dark-skinned hands held in prayer over a chunky gold cross on a chain. "Namaste, Twinkle Toes."
"No." I pinched my nose bridge at my offensive teammates, Devlin and Smitty. They strutted in with workout gear and bags slung across their chests. Their heavy steps squeaked across the gym floor.
"Why you never come out with us, Cap?" Smitty referred to the countless club invitations circulated in the name of 'offensive team bonding. I couldn't delete them fast enough.
The loose women side of being a professional athlete never appealed to me. The number of guys who both enjoyed drama and got burned by it was about the same as the number in solid relationships with their college or high school sweethearts. Professionalism capped most distractions during the season, when the team and players were flooded with the limelight. Exceptions existed, including these two guys, four years my junior.
"Keeping quiet," I answered. "You should try it."
All three burst into loud, ear-splitting laughs. Jer palmed Devlin's shaking shoulder. Sighing, I waited for the cackling hyenas to gasp. "I mean it. I've had enough PR shit to last through my career."
"Not me. Too many ladies, too little time," Smitty smirked. "Candy up and left your ass but it's all clean fun."
"Unless..." the direction Devlin's cleft chin tipped was not in my favor. Neither was the flash in his devil-dark eyes. "You and that peach of a golf partner got a little-"
My hand slammed into his chest before my warning, "Don't," passed through my mouth. His shiny white shoes stumbled back. Rock hard muscles clenched into my palm and his neck tightened.
"Fess up on this yoga shit, Cap." Smitty's hands knocked mine down. "Is it for show?"
"No." My admission drew Jer's eyes. "It made the difference in loosening up my shoulder so I can throw to your candy ass."
"Seattle's got a team instructor for a reason, not that your manchild ass could handle it. And you should care about his shoulder." Jeremiah's smirk reflected the same smugness puffing up my chest. "It's your contract year too, Smitty."
The words 'team instructor' put a smile on my face, cooling off my stake in this pissing contest. I would've paid a month's salary to see Mia handle these cocky clowns. She would have crushed their egos in five minutes.
By the time I showered, the message I hoped for waited in my inbox.
Mike: Option C no-brainer. Paperwork to sign in your email. Keep quiet until team announcement.
Mike: Congratulations.
"Yes! Fuck yes!" I squeezed my right fist under the relief that surged through me.
I released a shuddered breath and bumped my fist on the searing hot roof of my car. A permanent grin made its home on my face. Four years, beyond well-compensated, right here in Houston was my dream. My roots remained intact, Houston was my fucking team and my home. All those weeks, all that work, all that bullshit washed away.
I wasn't going anywhere. The rush of relief slacked my muscles, sagging me against the nearest wall. A frantic buzz of my phone indicated my still-employed team shared my excitement and relief.
Ash: Yesss!! Right in time for my Christmas list. Gonna cost you this year, Sammy.
Simone: Sending over my revised services bill right now.
Jer: Celebration time.
While the team planned at my expense, my thoughts shifted back to Mia. My success belonged to her as much as the rest of my team and I wanted her acknowledged for how much she helped me. So, if anyone deserved to celebrate, then it was her.
Every attempt I made to impress Mia had backfired in my face but a gut instinct pushed me that this was the right move. It just needed a little Mike flavor.
Me: One more contract I need you to negotiate.
Sammy, what are you thinking? Any guesses? (hints are in this chapter)