I was already seated in the second row of the bus with JB, the two of us going over each player and what they’d need for today’s game, when Holden showed up.
“Clay’s ankle has still been bothering him, so we’ll need to tape it up good and do some mobility checks on it before he warms up,” JB continued through the list, but his voice faded.
Everything faded as I watched Holden out the window.
His hair was damp and darker than usual, laying in haphazard waves that he nonchalantly ran his hand through as he approached the bus. He shrugged his bag off his shoulder and handed it to one of the staff who was loading up the equipment, and then he immediately put his over-the-ear, noise-canceling headphones on.
He wore the team’s colors, a brick red hoodie and matching sweats with NBU’s golden logo stretched across his chest. There was something stupidly appetizing about him in those sweats, in the way they hugged his hips and thighs and… a certain other region, too. It wasn’t fair that he looked that fucking hot in joggers and a hoodie, but it wasn’t just that he was an athlete boarding a bus to a game with that cocky swagger only college athletes had.
It was that he looked cozy, comfortable, like he would crook that smile at any second, showing you his dimple and pulling you under one arm before he kissed your forehead.
Just as that thought hit me, Holden’s eyes snapped to where I watched him through the window.
I tore my gaze away, trying to catch up with JB’s conversation as my cheeks flushed and my heart raced. What the hell is wrong with me? I idly wondered, but I swatted that thought away like a gnat, too.
“…for Holden. And then—”
“Sorry, what was that?” I asked JB, blinking back to our conversation.
JB arched a brow with a smile. “I said, we should line up a pre-game deep tissue for Holden. Do you disagree?”
I paused like I was considering, like I really had to think about it. “No, I think it’s a good call. He may not be playing, but he’ll be tense from the sidelines. It definitely couldn’t hurt.”
“My thoughts exactly. I’ll put Tanner on that while you and I handle the active players.”
I tried not to slump with my disappointment that it wouldn’t be me giving that massage. “Perfect.”
Then, Holden boarded our bus, climbing the steps slowly with his headphones still in place.
It took every effort to keep my eyes on the clipboard where JB pointed as he went over the rest of the team’s notes, especially when I caught scent of Holden, that familiar spice of his body wash striking my nose and zapping me back to the night we kissed.
His joggers brushed my shoulder as he passed.
And I swore I felt his hand through the pocket squeezing my arm — just a little, just enough to make me tilt my chin down over my shoulder and glance back at him.
But he kept on walking, all the way to the back, and when he plopped down in a seat, he looked out the window — not at me.
I swallowed, wondering if I’d misread last night, if he was upset with what I’d done. He’d been the one to break our kiss last week, and we both knew it couldn’t happen again.
And yet…
I had no explanation for my behavior last night other than the fact that he’d driven me to the brink of insanity with just one fucking kiss. I’d seen him standing in his window.
Watching me.
And that power had tipped me over the edge of rationality.
Chills had raked over me when I unclasped my bra, when I saw his breath hitch even through the soft glow of the streetlight that cast him in an eerie shadow. I didn’t even know how much he could see, but I knew he didn’t look away.
Still, he hadn’t responded to my text after I’d pulled the blinds shut, and I had no idea how he felt about what happened between us — the kiss, or anything since.
I looked for any sign that he was as consumed with thoughts about me like I was about him. I longed to know he felt the same torturous burn that I did, that sense that we couldn’t do anything more without risking a full-on fire.
But the overpowering instinct to light a match, anyway.
When we made it to the South Hartford Stadium, I stood beside JB as we watched the team file off the buses, letting each of them know when and where we wanted to see them. I held my breath when Holden trailed down the steps, when he moved toward us with power and focus rolling off him in plumes.
Every player looked to him for their energy cue, some of them stopping mid-laugh while horsing around once he stepped off the bus. They fell in line behind him, channeling his calm essence, and he nodded to some of them while clapping others on the back. It was fascinating to watch, the way just one touch or glance from him could change a player’s entire demeanor, could wipe the stress off their face and give them the space to take a deep breath.
Even injured, Holden was captain, the team’s leader, their king.
He didn’t look at me once.
By some miracle, we pulled out the win.
It was a miracle not because the game was particularly brutal — which it was — or that the score was close the entire game — which it also was — but because South Hartford’s fans made every second of play time absolutely miserable.
They were loud, vulgar, and a level of rude I didn’t know existed. I’d been shocked by how deafening they’d been when we ran through the tunnel, booing and slinging out harassing threats. They didn’t chant the usual NBU sucks!, either — they were personal. They targeted Riley as a girl, called out Kyle for his social media stunts, and even preyed on Clay for the terrible things he’d gone through with his family last semester.
Holden had to physically hold him back with a hard hand on his shoulder when they started making jokes about his mom.
They were relentless, screaming so loud when our offense was on the line that Blake could barely be heard calling out the plays. Holden was steady through it all, though, watching on the sidelines with his arms folded hard over his chest. He pulled each player aside at one point or another during the game, holding them by the helmet as he told them what they needed to hear.
And somehow, by some strike of luck, we’d managed to hold them, to keep the score close.
In the end, a last-second field goal had sealed the win.
I could still see it as I showered in my hotel room, the way Clay and Zeke had carted Riley up onto their shoulders and paraded her around the field as the fans were silent for the first time all game. It was the most beautiful sight, that sweet vendetta.
I could also still see the concern in my father’s eyes when we’d checked into the hotel, the team rowdy and ready to celebrate. He’d watched me from his peripheral the entire time he stood at the lobby desk, and when he handed me my key, he held onto it a touch longer than necessary.
“I’m proud of you,” he said.
I swallowed, holding the key with my eyes on the ground below it. “Why?”
“Because you’ve really turned a corner, Julep. I can see it in everything that you do. Tonight, on the sidelines, working with the players… I haven’t seen you that focused, that passionate about anything since…”
He cleared his throat, and I looked down, hoping he wouldn’t finish that sentence. He didn’t need to.
“I just… I don’t want you to throw this away,” he said softer, finally releasing the key.
I almost laughed. “I’m going to bed, Dad,” I told him, finally meeting his eyes. “I’m tired.”
Dad nodded, though concern still etched his brow. “Good. Me, too.”
It wasn’t a lie. The exhaustion I felt was bone deep as I cut the hot water of the shower and stepped out, wrapping myself in a towel. I combed out my wet hair and slathered my face with night cream. Giana and Riley were my roommates tonight — which was fitting, since we were the only females traveling with the team. Apparently, Riley was used to rooming by herself as the only female player, and Giana was typically assigned a room with her boss, Charlotte.
But tonight, it was the three of us, and I was looking forward to eating pizza and passing the fuck out.
All those dreams were dashed when I emerged from the bathroom to find Giana hair-spraying her curls while Riley finished off her makeup.
They both looked at me at the same time, exchanged a look, and before they could even say a word, I knew what was about to happen.
“We’re going out, aren’t we?” I asked on a sigh.
They just smiled in answer, and without argument, I flipped open my suitcase and pulled out the one dress I’d packed just in case this happened.
As tired as I was, part of me was excited to go out with the team. I hadn’t had the chance, other than the one party at the Pit, and that had been a different vibe. That was a high-stress, let’s blow off steam kind of night.
This was a celebratory one.
My dad’s warning flashed briefly in my mind as I applied a little bit of makeup, but I quieted it, knowing that I felt in full control of myself tonight.
Plus, we were in a new city, and with everything that had been tangling up my thoughts lately, I had a feeling even with the weight of a long day bearing down on me, I wouldn’t find sleep easy.
And maybe, maybe, a small part of me wanted to see Holden.
“You look like you’re about to crawl out of your own skin,” Riley said in the Uber on the way to the bar.
I blinked, turning from where I’d been watching the city lights blur past. “I kind of feel like I already have,” I admitted.
Giana frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I mean… I’m not feeling like myself lately.”
“In what way?” Riley probed.
I considered, trying to figure out how to explain it without sounding like a crazy person. “I just… I’ve been feeling… weird lately.”
“Like sad?” Giana asked.
“No.”
“Angry, disheveled?” Riley chimed in.
“No… the opposite, actually. I’m used to feeling depressed. But this… I don’t know.” I picked at my thumbnail. “I feel kind of… excited? But also, a little freaked out. Anxious, maybe?”
Giana grinned then, leaning into my shoulder. “Ah, football season does that to all of us.”
I forced a smile. “Yeah. Football.”
Riley arched a brow, her gaze zeroing in on me like she saw something Giana didn’t. But she didn’t have time to ask because our car pulled up, and Zeke ripped open the back door before hauling Riley out on his shoulder like a sack of flour.
“Put me down, you Neanderthal!”
He just laughed and carried her inside the bar as Clay did the same to Giana, although she didn’t protest, just grabbed for the back of her skirt to make sure she wasn’t flashing anyone her ass. Clay seemed to read her mind because he covered it with one of his gargantuan hands, which made Giana smile and kiss his forehead as he carried her inside.
“You want a ride like that, too?”
I froze at the sound of his voice, but managed to turn slow and calm, like I wasn’t affected at all. “Do you want a knee to the groin?”
Holden chuckled, his eyes a bit glossed as he tucked his hands in the pockets of his jeans. He still wore his NBU hoodie, but something about those jeans had me even more dizzy than the joggers had this morning.
He watched me for a moment, rolling his lips together like he wanted to say something else. Instead, he gestured with one hand toward the bar, and I led the way.
Loud house music thumped through the walls even before Holden jogged around in front of me to open the door. I was tempted to roll my eyes at the move, but it would have been a betrayal to the soft spot inside me that actually found it sweet.
We were carded at the entrance, and once we were inside, I couldn’t help but smile at the sight of the team that had completely taken over the place. It was just a dive bar close to the South Hartford University campus, but it was covered in our colors, from the pool tables and dart boards in the back to the throbbing dance floor.
“Julep!”
I turned to find Giana waving me over to a table near the dance floor where she, Riley, Zeke, and Clay all were. Leo was there, too, along with a cheerleader I recognized but didn’t know personally.
I felt Holden following behind me, felt the humming buzz of his nearness just as loud as the music vibrating through my bones. When we made it to the table, though, he moved to the other side, socking Leo on the arm as Clay handed him a beer.
I tore my gaze away from him, focusing on Giana who had just slid me a pink, fruity-looking shot. I didn’t even know if shot was the right word, considering it was a big enough glass to be a cocktail.
I groaned. “Oh, God.”
“It’s just one,” she said sweetly.
Riley gave me a look that said don’t believe her.
I stared at the shot warily. I knew I’d be fine with just one, maybe a drink or two after. But I also knew I had to cut it off after that. Otherwise, my light, happy buzz would go south, tipping me over the line that thinly separated that kind of drunk and the kind that had me making bad decisions.
The kind I’d made for too long after Abby died, that had nearly driven my father to his breaking point.
Not that Mom had been particularly thrilled, either, but she’d long since given up on me. When I acted out, when I ended up in the back of a police car in front of their house or vomiting in their guest bathroom or doing the walk of shame from a guy’s house whose name I couldn’t even recall — she didn’t get upset the way Dad did. She’d just let out a spurt of a laugh, shake her head, and go back to drinking her chardonnay like she was better than me.
She blamed me for Abby, and I couldn’t even hold it against her.
Because I blamed me, too.
“To the team,” Giana said, holding up her shot. “And to the championship title that’s yours for the taking.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Zeke said, tilting his cup of water toward us.
We all threw back a drink or shot, depending on what we had in hand, and then Clay pulled Giana into him and said, “Ours. You’re a part of this team, too, you know.”
She smiled on a blush, and I looked away a little uncomfortable when they started kissing.
“I want to dance,” Riley said, but instead of pulling Zeke out onto the floor, she hooked my elbow.
I was tugged away before I had the option to decline.
The dance floor was packed, and Riley dragged me through the crowd right up to the front of the DJ. The music was so loud this close to the speakers that I felt it like a heartbeat.
Giana joined us, and together we made a tight little circle. Riley danced without a care in the world, winding her hips and rolling her body to the beat. Giana seemed a bit shy at first, but she closed her eyes, and then slowly, she began to move, too.
I wished I had my pole. I wished I had something strong and sturdy to hold onto, to hold me steady. I loved dancing when I had that chrome partner, but without it? I felt uneasy, like a new baby giraffe figuring out its impossibly long legs.
The neon lights flashed across our faces, fog machine sending a cloud cascading over us in time with the deep bass. It was so dark that with those elements combined, I couldn’t see much other than the DJ above us and the girls where they danced right in front of me.
And I knew that meant that, likely, no one else could see me, either.
I let out a long exhale at that, and then I ran my hands up my sides, over my head, and held them there as my body began to move. I took cues from the beat, which was tapering down from a high-energy house song to one that was smoother, slower, the beat heavier somehow.
I felt it in my soul as I moved, and I surrendered, letting myself be taken by the music.
I didn’t notice when Riley was pulled into Zeke, or when Giana was peeled off the floor by Clay.
But I did notice the precise moment Holden came up behind me.
He didn’t touch me, didn’t put a hand on my hip or pull me flush against him. He just stood there, right behind me, one inch of distance between us.
He was putting the power in my hands.
It felt like a challenge, like a dare, and that one shot had me feeling just brave enough to take it.
I was still rolling my hips as I took a tiny step back, and it was just enough to connect us, for my ass to meet the zipper of his jeans. My head went light at the touch, my next breath shallow as I waited to see what he’d do next. It was just a small touch, one he could easily pull away from.
But he leaned in, instead.
No, he swooped in, like that one point of connection had been the permission he was desperately seeking.
One hand found my waist while the other swept my hair off my neck, and he cradled his chin there, his breath warming my skin as he lined his hips up with mine. I arched my back, leaning my head against his chest and closing my eyes as I let the music take control.
The dress I wore was a gun-metal, metallic gray. It was spaghetti strapped and lined with lace. I’d found it at a thrift store over the summer, and it was far too thin to be wearing on a cool fall night like this one. But I’d suffered the cold outside because I knew it’d be hot in here.
Holden must have been warm, too, because he’d shed his sweater, and he wore a button-up now that had the sleeves shoved up to his elbows. I crawled my fingertips over one of his forearms, digging my nails into the flesh just enough to bite.
He hissed a groan, the sound like the birth of an addiction as it reverberated over my neck and met the shell of my ear. Holden angled his head down, the tip of his nose in my hair as he rasped, “I saw you dancing last night.”
I arched my back, grabbing his hands and moving them a little lower, to my hips. His fingers bunched the fabric there, feeling how thin it was, how little separated us.
I feigned innocence. “Did you now?”
“You know I did,” he challenged, his voice low in my ear as we moved together. Another blast of the fog machine covered us, and I felt his fingers bunch the fabric of my dress a bit more. “And you know I loved it, too.”
I reveled in the admission, in hearing him say it, in knowing he’d seen me and hadn’t been able to look away.
“Was it the heels you loved most?”
“No,” he answered immediately, and he held me tighter to him, letting me feel the hardening length of him against my backside as he lowered his lips closer to my ear. “What I loved most was seeing you down on your knees.”
Chills fell like a waterfall over me, from the point where his breath warmed my skin all the way down to my toes. He smirked against the skin behind my ear as his fingers followed the chills, running down the length of my arm, up over my rib cage until he found my hip again. I knew from his vantage point, from how thin my dress was that he could see my nipples hard and aching against the fabric.
I couldn’t hide how he affected me, not even in the dark.
I licked my lips. “Well, too bad for you, I don’t get on my knees for anyone other than my pole.”
I rolled my ass hard up the length of him before dropping it back down, and he let out a throaty laugh.
“We’ll see about that.”
Another blast of the fog machine covered us, and I knew I couldn’t blame that fruity pink shot — no matter how big it was — for what I did next. I grabbed one of his hands, sliding it up my waist, over my ribs to rest just below my breast. I let him feel the bottom swell of it, let him understand that only the thin, shiny fabric of this dress kept me covered.
Holden nipped at my earlobe, making my eyelids flutter shut. “Someone needs to punish you for being such a tease.”
“You wish,” I shot back.
Without warning, the hand he had on my hip shot lower, splaying my thigh before he ran it up, up, up. I gasped when he slid that hand so confidently between my legs, my entire body quivering as he shoved my lace thong to the side and ran the length of his middle and forefinger along my center. It happened so quickly, only as long as his heavy exhale into my ear, but the searing magnitude of it lingered as he withdrew and lifted his fingers to rest in front of me.
I shivered at the loss, at the fact that it had happened at all, my breath ragged as Holden rubbed his fingers together before spreading them apart, evidence of how wet I was shining on his skin under the brief flash of neon lights.
He smiled against the back of my neck, pressing a soft, feather-like kiss there before he whispered, “Apparently, you wish.”
My eyelids fluttered, knees weakening, and then all at once, Holden broke contact from me. He released my hips, his chest breaking from where it was against my back and letting a cold rush of air sweep in. I didn’t realize why he’d done it until we were swarmed by more members of the team, and slowly, without another word, Holden made his way off the dance floor.
I just stood there, frozen in place.
Burning from the inside out.
