Focused: A hate to love sports romance(32)

I held her gaze and saw exactly what she'd be willing to give me.

Nothing about her tempted me. Not her long legs or curvy hips, the nipped in waist and generous bust, or the curly dark hair spilling down her back. Most guys on the team didn't believe me, but it's entirely possible to flip the off switch when it comes to the desire to sleep with a stranger.

She was beautiful. Incredibly beautiful.

And the last thing I wanted was to see the look in her eyes at how much she'd let me do to her. It was every cliché that I hated about being a professional athlete. Because I did what I did, I was desirable. Because I wore a recognizable jersey and had a familiar face, she'd let me flip her flat on her back with no more than a nod of agreement on my part.

Nothing about that appealed to me, and so, no part of my body reacted.

Instead, all I wished was that she was someone else. Someone shorter with lighter hair and brighter eyes and a bigger smile. Someone who found my temper mildly amusing and schooled me on football. Someone who looked at me and wanted to dig beneath the surface, not worship the fa?ade.

"Could I have some privacy to make my decision?" I asked her.

She glanced at the camera and back at me in question, like she couldn’t tell whether I wanted her or Marty to leave the room.

"I'd like to be alone," I said more firmly. Her eyes shuttered in an instant, and she gave me a nod of deference.

"Of course," she purred.

Marty stayed by me, a strangely comforting presence as I braced my arms on the ledge and stared ahead.

"You find a house, Griffin?"

All that restlessness from early uncoiled slowly, sinking into something comfortable. "I think I did, Marty."

He gestured on the ground, just behind the couch. I didn't see what it was at first until I crouched down and pulled it out by the edge. A smile lifted my lips when I saw them stacked on top of each other.

I called the agent back in the room.

"I want it."

Her eyes flared with a different kind of excitement. "Excellent. I'd be happy to present an offer to my clients."

"I'll offer their asking price, but I want a two-week close date so I can move in before the season starts." And I lifted my hand, letting her know I wasn’t done. "I also want to film a segment here tonight if they’d be so kind as to not return home just yet."

She lifted her eyebrows. “They’re out of town, so that should be fine.”

“And I want to borrow these.” I lifted the other hand.

If I thought her eyebrows were high before, they shot up even farther.

"You ..." She shook her head. "That's what you want?"

"Do we have a deal?"

"I-I'll call them right now," she said cautiously. In her eyes, I must have lost a bit of my appeal and replaced it with a healthy dose of insanity.

Marty chuckled. "You're serious, man?"

I looked at my hands. "As a heart attack. She won't say no to this."





Chapter Fifteen





Molly





"Do you think Paige would think it's weird if I write a paper on the maternal impact she had on older children who have no biological tie to her?"

My hand froze, the bottle of wine suspended mid pour over my glass. "Umm, no?"

Claire typed furiously on her laptop before slapping it shut. "I can't figure out what to do with this paper, and I have to get started."

Isabel came down the hallway of our apartment and glared at Claire’s computer like it kicked her in the crotch. "Do you have to type so loudly? You sound like a chicken pounding a mallet on that thing."

Claire flipped her off.

From my perch on the couch, I smiled at both of them as I took another sip of my wine. It was drier than I usually liked, so I grimaced as I swallowed. Lia and Claire were huddled together on the other end.

Their faces were mirror images of each other, but our family could tell them apart with no problems. It was in the angle of Lia's jaw and the slope of Claire's nose. Not to mention, the second they opened their mouth, it would be a dead giveaway to anyone who actually knew them.

Our mom—or as Isabel affectionately referred to her, that selfish bitch who birthed us—might not have won any parenting awards, but she passed down a helluva gene pool because all four of us bore a striking resemblance to her. I could see her easily in the dark, thick hair, high cheekbones, and shape of our blue, blue eyes.

Isabel's smile was more like our dad's, more like Logan's, and she had the same lanky, athletic build that Emmett promised to have as he grew up. My curves had lessened into adulthood, but the twins still maintained a curvier figure as they tiptoed quietly into their twenties.

"Why wouldn't you write your paper about Paige?" Lia asked, handing Claire a half-finished glass of wine. Claire took it without a word and finished for her. "She basically was our mom."

In the kitchen just around the corner, Isabel slammed the cupboard door shut. "There's no basically about it," she called.

I smiled at Claire. "Which class is this for?"

She was graduating from college with a major in developmental psychology and a minor in sociology with plans to start her master's in the spring after a winter graduation. Dropping her head back on the couch, she sighed. "Sociology of families. I should have taken it earlier, but"—she shrugged—"I was kind of dreading this part of it."