The Players (TP4)

By pseudoannie

145K 12.7K 1.7K

(Complete) It is not easy growing up with the perfect Jack Harris, especially since Ryan Harris has always be... More

Author's note
1 - The Players
2 - Indecent
3 - Banished
4 - Booty call
5 - The Jail bait
6 - Loud One
8 - Guys and Baby
9 - Block Party
10 - Driving me crazy
11 - Relax we're all single
12 - Cucumber
13 - The B in the bathroom
14 - I know some secrets
15 - Angry recluse
16 - Never dropped the football
17 - By Labor Day
18 - Therapy for her soul
19 - I don't care if you do
20 - Still only one
21 - Perpetual house guest
22 - Google
23 - The way I like it
24 - The scum hurt her bad
25 - Not banished
26 - Severely Misguided
27 - Up a notch
28 - A little excitement
29 - There are no secrets here
30 - Tell Uncle Ryan all about it
31 - Hotel Shangri La
32 - It's open
33 - Don't think what you did was okay
34 - It happened again
35 - You leave a path of destruction
36 - Interpret that message
37 - I love a good cat fight
38 - One emotional visit
39 - Takes one to know one
40 - No f-ing clue
41 - No cucumbers
42 - Broadway Tenor
43 - Regret, lack of regret
44 - There's no room for me
45 - You weren't the only one
46 - Like AA without the alcohol problem
47 - Just a summer fling
48 - Skip the crying
49 - I am now
50 - What's yield?
51 - Loved not love
52 - If I had five minutes alone
53 - Incorrigible
54 - For Good
55 - No More Secrets
56 - Dessert
57 - An imposter
58 - Happy Birthday
59 - Better Him Than Me

7- Double Standard

2.2K 215 9
By pseudoannie

Adam

Adam felt younger than his thirty-eight years since he started seeing Amanda. He had spent two Sunday mornings lounging in bed with her and thought he could get used to it. Ryan had asked if he was bringing her to Maine and the idea intrigued him. When he tried to envision her meeting Jack and Maddie, he wondered if it would be such a good idea. Adam was still on the fence when they met for drinks midweek.

She walked into the bar wearing a tight fitting dress which showed off every blessed curve. Adam took his eyes off her just long enough to notice the eyes of almost every male in the room were on her. It made him stiff knowing her smile was for him. Shit, we should have just met at my place, he thought with longing.

She greeted him with a kiss on his cheek. "Hey baby!"

Again his body reacted, but he was an adult not an adolescent. "How was your day?"

"Oh all right." She sighed. "My boss is leaving. It's a bummer because he was a great guy to work for. Oh well..."

"Maybe, you'll like the new one, too."

"Yeah. At least there's a long weekend to look forward to. A bunch of us are going to The Cape for the weekend we've got in on a house share."

Adam noticed she looked at him as if judging his reaction. He actually felt slightly relieved for many reasons. The first was she would not be overly clingy. The most significant was he no longer had to consider introducing her to his friends. He definitely liked her and enjoyed being with her, but their relationship was based on sex. He wasn't delusional to think they had some deep connection - no pun intended.

"Great! I'm going to see my business partner. I've been putting it off. To be honest I'm not that excited about seeing his new baby."

"Not secretly longing to make little Adams?"

"Not totally opposed, but definitely not longing. The only thing I'm longing for is to practice... safely," he whispered in her ear as he licked and nipped at her lobe.

"Was it your idea to meet for a drink?" Her hand on his thigh was slowly moving higher.

Adam pulled out his wallet and threw down a few bills. "Drink up!" Then he took out his phone and ordered an Uber.

Once again, they had strewn clothes across the living room. They never even made it to the bedroom. Adam was glad he had thought to throw a few condoms on the coffee table. Smiling, he considered asking Ryan about investing in Trojan, not that he had any clue if it was even a public company.

Before he sent her home in an Uber, she said, "So we can get together next week. I mean that's if you're cool with it and um... anything that might go down at The Cape. We're not tied to each other or anything, are we?"

He looked at her with her cheeks still flushed and her dress that every man in the bar admired, but he was the only one to see underneath it, well at least tonight. She was fun and sexy as hell, but she was not the kind of girl he imagined fitting in with Jack and Maddie. He may have been a willing participant and perhaps it was a double standard, but she was much too easy. Hell, he thought, he would reap the benefits while they lasted.

"Yeah... have fun! Don't even think of me sitting around talking about babies. I'm scared shitless of seeing his wife's breasts." He joked.

She laughed. "And you love breasts." She kissed him long and deep. "I'll show you mine when I get back."

"Damn, yeah!"

She turned and sashayed out the door into the waiting car.

Adam saw the look on the driver's face and felt pride, not jealousy because he was getting the girl every guy wanted.

Ryan

Ryan paced around the room with his headset on. He did the same thing in his real office because he couldn't sit still. The difference was there he wore dress clothes and today he had on shorts and a t-shirt.

"Don, I'm sorry, but the game last night wasn't even close. Your Nat's are no match for my Sox."

The old man laughed when Ryan heard the front door open and a voice calling out. "Hello."

"Listen, Don, I will call you back. Someone just walked into my office." His voice was calm, even though he wasn't calm at all. His anger was building over the intrusion because the pesky cleaner wasn't even bothering to knock.

When the invader appeared in the doorway, he looked at her. "You! What are you doing in my house?"

She was the booty call girl he had seen in the coffee line. Maybe she was a professional, and this was some kind of joke Cam was playing on him. His partner had been telling Ryan he was much too uptight lately.

"Excuse me, but I don't know you and this is not your house. This is Heidi's house, and she hired me to look after it all summer. I won't have you making my employee cry. I don't care if you are a bully, you won't scare me away until my work is done. You're a slob. This place is a mess."

"Your employee?" She had left him nearly speechless.

"Yes, my employee and Heidi is my friend, so don't think she'll care about your complaints."

"Your friend? I don't think so, you're not her kind of ..." He remembered her booty call.

"Excuse me! Just because I'm not rich, you think I'm not good enough for Heidi. I was told you were raised by Kelly Harris, but I think I was lied to. You're nothing like Kelly or Jack for that matter."

"What the hell! Who are you coming in here and comparing me to my brother?"

He was angry - angrier than he had been in a while and he'd been angry a lot.

"I'm Lana Drake and I'm here to clean this house. If you don't like it, you can go work someplace else. There's Wi-Fi at The Landing."

"How do you know my mother?" She started picking up the empty cans and dirty dishes around him. He had been lax lately with cleaning up after himself.

"The Point is small and I live across the street."

She held her chin up high and never caved to his aggression. He had to admire her. She also had a grace about her as she walked around picking up his mess, which embarrassed him. He wondered if she was a dancer. She reminded him of a dancer he dated once. She was incredible; he mused and felt a stirring in his pants at the memory and focused on the intruder and his anger. Unfortunately, the intruder had a look he also felt in his pants with her long chestnut hair, pouty lips and long lashes which didn't help clear his mind. Then he let his eyes wander and he took in her figure complete with the loveliest pair - definitely real, zero silicone and saline.

"Fine! Just do what you have to in the rest of the house and be quiet about it." He agreed out of utter frustration.

"Cam never minded the vacuum when we cleaned while he was working." Her voice was cheerful.

Jesus, could this get any worse, he muttered under his breath.

As he resumed his work, he refused to admit it wasn't very disruptive. When he broke for lunch, she was still working. He looked in the bedroom and she was bent over the bed, straightening what he assumed to be fresh, clean sheets. The view was nice, and he thought he could do something with her in that position. He already knew she was easy, but then he remembered he was here to get away from women not to invite more trouble.

Later that afternoon, Heidi called and thanked him for allowing Lana to do her work.

"You aren't really her friend, are you?" She secretly impressed him with the clean house and the stocked kitchen. She had even left her card with instructions to text if he had grocery items to add.

"Only the best... inseparable every summer for years. She's the main reason I wish I was in Maine this summer."

"She's not like you. I saw her one-morning getting coffee. It was the strangest thing." He thought back to that awkward moment. "I was between her and a guy about the same age. He was hip with an earring and jeans, anyway they were discussing a booty call."

Heidi laughed out loud. "You are such a pervert. Lana was never one for booty calls. I honestly think she's only slept with..." Heidi suddenly stopped herself. "I, on the other hand... never mind. Earring you say? That sounds like Oliver and if he was begging her, then you got the whole thing wrong."

"I know what I heard, I felt embarrassed to be in the middle of it and you know me I'm a whore."

Heidi laughed. "You definitely are, but Lana works at Oliver's restaurant. He probably needed her to waitress. The restaurant is in Portland, amazing by the way, but he lives across the street in the summer."

"I thought your friend lived across the street." He tried to remember the words exchanged in the coffee line. Could he have been asking her to work?

"She does, but he's next to her. Watch yourself, I know everyone on the street."

"I've been running with Peter. He seems okay."

"Score one for Ryan, you have some good sense. Peter is a great guy, but everyone is. Now relax, it's summer and you're at the beach. Really, Ryan life doesn't have to be so damn serious. I'd tell you you need to get laid, but that's how you got into all your trouble."

Heidi surprised him when she spoke so boldly. Maybe it was her pregnancy hormones. What a fool Cam was, it was clear who the boss in their house was. Ryan would pity him except he knew his friend was getting what Ryan wasn't.

A/N The Cape refers to Cape Cod a very popular summer beach destination in Massachusetts.

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