“You keep looking at your phone like it’s a bomb that’s about to detonate,” Wes mused out loud as he sat across from me at our table. We came to get dinner at a restaurant not far from the airport before leaving.
I rolled my eyes. “No, I don’t.”
“Sure you do,” he argued before taking a sip of his drink. “You’ve been doing it for days now. I can’t tell if you’re waiting for good news or bad.”
I raised an eyebrow at him. None of the other guys were paying attention to us and for that, I was extremely grateful. “I’m not waiting for either.”
Wes mimicked my expression. “So, it’s more of a who then instead of a what.” He paused as an amused smirk played on his lips. “It’s the photographer, isn’t it? Harper?”
My eyes widened slightly and I gave him a murderous glare. “Dude, shut up about her.”
He fought back a laugh and silenced himself as he took another sip of his beer. “That’s what I thought.”
“No one can know about that shit at the club and you do not know how to keep your mouth closed.” I paused for a moment, dropping my voice lower. “If I want any chance of anything else happening with her, I can’t have anyone knowing.”
Realization finally dawned over Wes’s expression and I swore, sometimes it really took him a few moments before he caught up. I suppose too many blows to the head would do that to you.
“Ah, shit, her job with the organization,” he said with his voice as low as mine. “There has to be some kind of a loophole or a work-around.”
I shrugged as I took a swig of my own beer. “Trust me, I already have a plan, because I need her.”
“Damn, dude, you plan on wifing her up this quickly too?”
My nostrils flared as I let out an exasperated sigh. “It’s not completely like that. Just hear me out… I need her around to play like I did the other night.”
Wes gave me a look like I was insane, but it tracked. I didn’t play terribly while we were on the road, but I didn’t play like I did that night she was at the game. It wasn’t like I had anything to prove to her, so it had to be another good luck charm sent to me from the universe.
“What about Ballsy?”
I laughed out loud at the thought of someone overhearing us and what their thoughts might be. To anyone that wasn’t seated at our table, our conversation would have sounded like some off-the-wall shit.
“Ballsy is one thing I will never, ever give up, so don’t worry. She’s not a threat to him.”
Wes laughed along with me. “Oh, thank God. I don’t know what we would do if you threw out that ball of tape.” He grabbed the pitcher of beer from the center of the table and filled up his glass. “What version of Ballsy is this one anyways?”
Wes knew the history behind Ballsy, but it had become a bit of a joke between the two of us. No one knew the history behind it but him. One drunken night, I broke down after he grilled me about the damn ball of tape and I told him the truth. The connection to my late mother.
Ballsy made an appearance every season and that habit was never going anywhere.
“I honestly don’t even know. I stopped counting after it was Ballsy the tenth.”
Mac cleared his throat from where he was sitting next to Wes and we both glanced over at him. “Sometimes I really wonder about the two of you and question the stability of your mental health.”
“If you need to worry about either of us, it would be him,” I joked, motioning to Wes.
Wes barked out a laugh. “Says the guy who has a ball of tape THAT HE NAMED.”
“Oh, yeah, I heard about that,” Mac said with his curiosity now piqued. “This is something I have to see sometime.”
“It truly is a work of art,” I tell him with the smile of a proud parent on my face. “I have a picture of the one from last season, if you want to see it.”
I picked up my phone to scroll through my photos to find one to show him, when it vibrated in my hand. Heat instantly crept up my neck, warming my entire body, and I locked my screen before tucking it back into my pocket.
“Actually, I don’t have any good ones. I’ll have to find them another time.”
Mac shrugged and didn’t seem to really care, while Wes raised an eyebrow at me. I narrowed my eyes at him in warning and he gave me a nod before diving into a conversation with Mac.
Lincoln stood up from his seat and knocked on the table to get everyone’s attention. “Coach wants us ready to leave in, like, ten minutes, so be ready, boys.”
A few of the guys grumbled, but I think a majority of us were just ready to get back to our home city. I sat back quietly in my seat as I eased away from any of the conversations and pulled my phone back out of my pocket to check my messages.
There she was… finally responding.
Harper
Hey.
That was it. Simplistic, yet highly cryptic.
Nico
Hey yourself.
She was severely mistaken if she thought this was how I played. She should have known from the other night that I wasn’t one to beat around the bush. I was straight up with her and I wasn’t sure I should expect the same from her in return.
Harper
So, I was thinking about what you said the other night and I don’t see how it is going to work out.
Ah, there it was. The answer that I was half expecting, but not the one I was wanting to hear.
Nico
And why is that?
My mother taught me better. She raised me to be a respectful gentleman. I would at least be decent enough to show Harper that. I would never push her—or anyone—into something they didn’t want.
Harper
It’s just too risky. I have too much to lose.
So, she wasn’t saying she didn’t want to. It was more a matter of we couldn’t because of what could happen.
Nico
What if I told you that no one would ever find out?
Harper
Someone always finds out, Nico.
I shook my head at my phone and tucked it into my pocket as everyone got up from the table. We had a bus waiting out front to take us to the airport where we would board our team’s jet and head back to Orchid Beach. I followed Wes out of the restaurant and my phone was burning a hole in my pocket.
The last words that Harper sent continued to plague my mind until we were all filing onto the jet and taking our seats. Some of the guys had fallen into comfortable conversation and a few were already half asleep. Wes was reading a romance novel and I wasn’t even about to approach that subject.
Instead, I pulled out my phone and opened up the message thread between Harper and me. She wasn’t wrong with her statement. In most cases, that was what happened. Things always got out and then you were fucked.
What Harper didn’t know was I wouldn’t tell a single soul, not even Wes. If I could prevent anyone from finding out, that was what I would do. She didn’t understand the weight we put on good luck charms.
I needed her around, even if she didn’t want to take me up on my offer.
Nico
That’s where you’re wrong, love. I plan on keeping things between us quiet but have no intention of you being quiet.
Harper
Are you always so sure of yourself?
A smile pulled on my lips and I stared down at my phone as the pilot drove the jet onto the runway. I had approximately a minute before we would be in the air and needed to put my phone on airplane mode.