The Red Zone: An Enemies with Benefits Sports Romance (The League Book 2)

SHE THINKS WE SHOULD FUCK.

I was ashamed at how many times that sentence had slipped through my mind throughout the night. Thankfully, we were almost back to shore and I could hardly wait to get off this cramped boat long enough to clear my head. The constant stream of chatter buzzing through the air was giving me a headache.

Somehow, I got stuck in a painfully boring conversation with a couple of old teammates from high school who I hadn’t seen in years. They reminisced about their glory days of being on varsity football together while exchanging well-rehearsed excuses about which injury prevented them from playing professionally.

It was always the same song and dance with these kinds of guys.

Maybe I was bitter about being stuck on this boat for too long without a place to escape—or maybe it was the fact that I’d been walking around barefoot for hours—but their excuses all seemed a little pathetic and repetitive. A hollow wish for the life they’d wanted to have, but deep down knew they never had the chance of obtaining.

Yet, I still stood there nodding tightly, silently forcing myself to remain in their presence while suppressing reminders that they never had scout visits, let alone a single offer to play college ball.

God, I needed to get out of here before I said something I’d later regret.

Carefully controlling my tone, I excused myself from the group, giving back pats and handshakes before stalking off to the bar area.

“Bar’s closed, sorry.” The black-haired bartender with a pointy nose called over her shoulder with a courteous smile.

Any other time, I would’ve leaned against the bar with a seductive smile while charming chatter spilled from my lips until she inadvertently made me a drink. Any other time, I would’ve left her a nice tip in the jar and scribbled my number onto a cocktail napkin. She’d text me something flirtatious from the back room behind the bar. And inevitably, we’d find some closet or an open bathroom stall to hook-up in. Then, once it was all said and done, I’d never see her again, and she’d have a juicy story to share with her friends over Sunday brunch.

But tonight, the haze clogging my brain wanted nothing to do with that. The reminder of my seasonal celibacy hit me like a wave, and my jaw clenched on instinct. The season hadn’t even started yet, and I was already contemplating breaking my vow.

Shit. This was going to be a long six months.

The cute bartender bent at the hips to pick up a crate of wine bottles from the floor and hoisted it upward. She gave me a closed-mouth smile as she turned and pushed the door to the backroom open with the side of her hip.

Once the door swished shut, I surveyed the remaining bottles behind the bar, settling for the half empty bottle of whiskey. I pulled out my wallet from my back pocket and dished out all the cash I had before plucking the bottle off of the counter. A tip for her troubles in case she got in trouble with her boss for a bottle going missing.

Twisting off the cap, I chucked it in the trash, then headed down the quiet hallway to my left. A circular staircase at the furthest end caught my eye, and I paused in my tracks, turning my head to check my surroundings before trudging up the steps.

As I rounded the last spiral of the stairs, a cool breeze rolled off the water and brushed against my cheeks. I took a long swig from the rim of the bottle as I strolled to the opposite end of the rooftop deck to look out at the water. Sunset had passed a couple hours ago, so there wasn’t much of a view, well, unless you enjoyed staring at seemingly never-ending blackness. Might not have been the most stunning, but it sure was peaceful.

Up here, the chatter from the party was drowned out by the sound of waves crashing against each other. It was serene. Calm. For the first time all night, the haze clouding my mind was beginning to fade away.

I continued staring over the ledge at the dark nothingness, collecting my thoughts for a moment, when the sound of one person’s rich belly laugh carried through the air to my ears. My focus was instantly drawn to the opposite side of the rooftop, which had a glass railing that overlooked the deck beneath it.

With the bottle of Jack pressed to my lips, and the warmth of its contents sliding down the back of my throat, I crossed the space in a few strides until the party goers below came into view.

There she was, doubled over in a fit of laughter with her hand over her heart, cutting up like the guy standing in front of her had just told the funniest joke in the damn world. Mae’s long blonde hair no longer held the same bouncy curls as it did earlier in the evening. Instead, the ringlets framing her face had fallen into waves from the salt filled air.

I poked my tongue lightly into the corner of my cheek and expelled a long breath.

It pissed me off. She pissed me off.

Seeing her happy, giggling and smiling all night, made my blood pressure sky rocket.

What annoyed me most, though, was the tiny micro-aggressions she sported anytime we inadvertently made eye contact or the way she’d blatantly ignored me if we somehow got caught in the same group chatting.

A few minutes passed of me reigning in my emotions, before another long pull of amber colored liquid slid down my throat and the sound of footsteps making their way up the stairs caught my attention.

Mae stood at the top step running her fingers through her blonde waves, bunching the strands together at the top of her crown, then slipping the hair tie from her wrist and looping it around until her hair was secure. She jerked backward and drew in a breath at the sight of me across the rooftop. “Sorry, you scared me. I didn’t think anyone was up here.”

“Birthday girl not enjoying her party?” My words came out more slurred than I expected.

“No sex during the season, but drinking yourself silly is fine?” She bit back. “Makes sense.”

“What are you doing up here, Mae?” I leaned against the railing, trying to school my voice enough that my simmered rage wouldn’t show.

Was I drunk? Certainly getting there.

Were my words going to get ruthless and unrefined like they tended to when I was intoxicated?

“If I have to fake a smile while listening to another story about someone’s kids’ first play date or their painfully boring nine to five corporate job, I’m going to internally combust.” Mae came and stood right next to me, resting her forearms on the railing.

I studied her face as she observed the crowd, then pressed my lips against the rim, taking a long pull before extending the bottle in her direction. “Jack?”

She shook her head side to side, giving me a soft, closed lip expression with her rejection.

Good. More for me.

“You know what annoys me?” I started, feeling the warmth from the liquor taking root in my bloodstream.

She rolled her eyes. “If you say me, I swear to—”

“Yes, you,” I cut her off before she continued on with some line about how it was ill mannered to insult someone on their birthday. Too bad for her, because I was too intoxicated to give a shit. “And the fact that you’ve walked around here all night with a grin from ear to ear while you chit-chatted with other people. But the minute, the second, you lay eyes on me, your smile falls.” I took the last pull of whiskey from the bottle before lowering it down to my side. “Why is that, huh?”

“Why do you care? I thought you didn’t like me.”

“That’s the least of my concerns right now. I want you to tell me what I did,” I prodded, peering down at her. “What did I do that’s so bad that you can’t even look at me when I’m around, hmm?”

One might consider this conversation to be exercising the pillar of “conflict” as far as “The Three C’s” were concerned. Maybe there was one too many shots of alcohol in my system, or maybe it was the decades of pent-up angst threatening to break free, but I was done wasting energy trying to justify our feud with some stupid ass framework.

Until now I’d been under the assumption Mae and I’s feud was juvenile with no real inciting incident, but after watching her tonight, my stance on that changed.

There was something I was missing. And I wanted answers.

“Where is this coming from?”

I repeated her idiotic question, blood boiling beneath my skin. “I think this conversation is long overdue. Twenty years overdue, in fact.”

“You’re an idiot, you know that?” Her voice was calm. Not a drop of poison coated her tone like usual. If anything, there was a hint of gloom that had taken its place. “Five seconds ago, I sat there telling you how fake all of that was. Those smiles? Fake. The giggles? Rehearsed. But if that’s what you want, then sure, I’ll give it to you.” She stuck out her hand and an easygoing smile transformed over her face. “Hi, October. How was your night? And the family… how are they? Oh, they’re doing good? Great, great. So glad to fucking hear it.” The sarcasm in her last sentence was thick.

“Hilarious.”

As much as I hated to admit it, I saw her point, though.

Anyone looking up at us would’ve seen her smile, or comfortable posture, and assume we were making cordial conversation. Little did they know she hated me to her core. Although she might’ve had a point—fuck, I hated saying that— it still didn’t answer my question. If she could fake it with everyone else, why wouldn’t she do the same with me?

Something was missing. And I wouldn’t rest until I got to the bottom of it.

“I’m considering a career in comedy.”

“Stick to your day job.”

She shrugged, mumbling something to herself I couldn’t quite decipher.

“This thing between us is toxic, you know.” My tone was sharp and my breathing grew heavier.

“You’re telling me.”

But did it have to be like this? Did it have to stay like this?

Maybe it was the alcohol talking, but what if there was some alternate universe out there where we didn’t act like we despised each other? Where we had gotten along from the start. What would our lives look like now if that had been our reality instead?

“Then why don’t you just tell me what I did so we can move past it.” I followed behind her as she took a seat on one of the white couches at the opposite end of the deck. “I did something, didn’t I? All this time I thought I didn’t… but something inside me is telling me I’m wrong.”

Mae’s posture stiffened as she sat, looking up at me with her mouth open like she was going to speak, but the words she wanted to say wouldn’t come out.

“Tell me I’m right.”

A moment passed before she sighed, slumping back against the cushions with crossed arms. “You’re right.”

“I knew it.” I took a step back, running my free hand through my hair. “I fucking knew it. What was it?”

“Nothing. Let’s stop talking about it.”

“Tell. Me.” I argued, flinging my arm holding the empty whiskey bottle recklessly at my side.

“I can’t.”

“Why?”

She hesitated, dropping her gaze to her hands as she twiddled her thumbs. A knot formed in my chest as I waited for her words to come. “Because I’ll cry.” Her lower lip trembled at the last word.

Fucking shit.

That knot? Yeah, it had dropped to the pit of my stomach.

Any ounce of alcohol that had been in my system felt like it had completely evaporated from my body. All that was left was to face the hollow, sobering reality I’d commanded her to give me.

“I hurt you that badly?” My voice broke and everything in me fought not to drop to my knees and cup my hands around her face. Any traces of anger and resentment from earlier had dissolved with the alcohol. What the fuck had I done? “Mae, please. I need to know.”

She nodded up and down with closed eyes before gulping. “Do you remember the time our classes got paired up to trade Valentine’s in elementary school? And we both got each other?”

“Yeah, I made you a giant Dum-Dum bouquet.” I reminisced on the memory I’d long since forgotten. “My mom and I spent the entire night before the party sorting through the jumbo-sized bag to pick out your favorite flavors.”

“What are you talking about?” Her tone was uncertain as she pursed her lips together.

“What are you talking about? Didn’t you notice there were only sour apple and cotton candy flavors?”

Mae ignored the question. “Wait, so, you’re telling me you spent an entire night sorting through suckers to pick out my favorite flavors…”

“That’s what I just said, right?”

“But…”

“But what?”

She sucked in a long, steadying breath and expelled it from her lungs. “I’m just confused… because right after the Valentine’s party, we all went outside to play because it was like seventy-five degrees or something, remember?”

I nodded, recalling the vague memory. “I was pissed because Oscar had a cast on his leg and couldn’t go out, so he and Chester stayed inside. Mrs. Lowry wouldn’t let me stay with them.”

“Exactly.” She threw her hands in the air. “And while they were inside, one of them had accidentally pressed their elbow to the button for the outdoor intercom or something…”

I racked my brain trying to remember what was said between the two of them, but nothing came to mind. All I remembered was doing backflips on the monkey bars because I was an eight-year-old little shit head, and there weren’t any teachers monitoring the back of the playground to stop me.

“Everyone outside on the playground listened as Oscar said something about you giving me a ‘pity valentine’,” she raised her hands into air quotes. “Because, ‘Mae Garten is the meanest, ugliest girl in second-grade, and the only reason October got stuck with her was because he was the last person who got to choose’.” Her face remained impassive. “Then, Chester followed up with some remark about how he’d wished you’d gotten Molly Goldberg instead since she was your crush.”

“Everyone on the playground heard him say that?” I raised a brow. If so, why hadn’t I remembered it?

The blank stare Mae gave me in response was answer enough.

Shit. What was even worse was that they hadn’t been lying about what they said. All of third grade, I had a massive crush on Molly Goldberg. That same year, Mae had a permanent bad attitude, a unibrow, and a choppy bob haircut.

It took her a while to grow into herself, but by the time middle school rolled around… her looks had changed drastically. Everyone else might as well have been invisible compared to her by that point. By the time she was a freshman, she’d gotten signed with a modeling agency and spent more time being whisked around the world than she did at school.

“All of this bullshit was because of something stupid someone said over a valentine?”

She sniffled, with a small laugh that made something buried deep in my chest clench tightly. “Don’t belittle me. I was seven years old and humiliated because my first crush called me ugly in front of half the school.”

“You don’t believe that’s still true, do you? Mae, you were one of the highest paid supermodels in the world. Didn’t you get named ‘most beautiful woman of the year’ once?”

“Twice.” She corrected me with an ornery smile. “And it wasn’t just them talking about valentines, though. That might’ve been the starting point of my hatred, but we both know there was more to this than just that. Not to mention, we’ve been at each other’s throats from the beginning. While I might’ve hated you a bit less without the humiliation factor, it wouldn’t have changed the fact that I still would’ve hated you regardless.”

I guess I couldn’t disagree with that.

“Why don’t I remember any of this? And why hasn’t Scarlett ever said anything about it?”

“You were playing on the back of the playground, so you probably didn’t hear it. And Scar was home sick with the flu that week, remember? You got it right after…” she trailed off.

Shit. I had forgotten about that too. Valentine’s fell on a Friday and I missed the entire week after because I was sick. “So, by the time we got back in school, everyone had already moved on to something else.” I finished the sentence for her.

She nodded with an eye roll. “Well, except for Molly Goldberg.”

“What’d she do?”

“You don’t remember?” The hurt in her voice made my chest ache.

Mae closed her eyes. Not speaking for a long time as she did what appeared to do a few box breaths. When she finally opened them, her eyes were glossy and the urge to cry was written all over her face.

I started to speak, unsure of what to even say, but she held out her hand to stop me.

“When we were heading back inside, you guys were walking a few feet in front of me with Jenna Colligan, talking and you were telling her all about how you wished you had her as a valentine instead of me then she turned to you both and said…”

She paused, looking up at the night sky as she gathered herself enough to finish. She wasn’t hyperventilating, but it was almost as if she wasn’t able to fill her lungs completely.

The heaviness in my chest felt unbearable. I dropped to my knees in front of her, putting the empty bottle on the ground, and placing my hands over hers. “Please, Mae. I need to know what she said.”

“She said, ‘Mae’s birth parents didn’t want her, so it’s only right that nobody else does’.”

Fuck.

Just fuck.

My head fell forward, and I pinched the bridge of my nose.

“And then you laughed—laughed.” She blinked, and one singular tear skated down her cheek. “I’ve had broken bones, and I’ve been called awful things by some of the most beautiful and powerful people in the world… but nothing, nothing, has hurt me as badly as hearing her say those words.”

“Hey, hey, hey. Please don’t cry.” I wiped a thumb underneath her eye to get rid of a tear that was threatening to break.

I hadn’t been the one to say those words, but if I hadn’t been an idiot telling Molly how much I wished I’d chosen her in the first place… fuck. It might’ve been an accident, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t inadvertently responsible for the worst, most heartbreaking pain of her life.

With two fingers under her chin, I tilted her face up so she could see the remorse in my eyes as I spoke my next words. “Mae… I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. If I had known, I never would have—”

She shook her head, tearing her eyes away from mine. “I know.”

I rose to my feet, taking a step back to feel the breeze against my face as I ran my hands down my cheeks. I didn’t know what to say, do, or think at the moment. Everything that came to mind felt wrong, and I didn’t want to screw things up more than I already had.

“Mae! Are you up there?” Scar’s voice traveled up the stairs from the deck below. “We’re about to enter the no wake zone, so we need to start saying goodbyes.”

“Just a minute.” She twisted her neck to call down to Scarlett before turning her attention back to me. “This changes nothing between us. You know that, right?”

“That’s not true,” I replied curtly. “You can continue making me the villain in your story all you want, but you’re done being the villain in mine.”

Mae sat there for a moment, eyeing me carefully before giving me a clipped nod. I watched as she rose from her seat, smoothing down her dress with her palms before giving me a small weak smile and turning away from me.

It was only after she disappeared down the steps that I sat in the seat she’d just gotten up from and hung my head into my hands.

Those answers I thought I needed? I wished I’d never gotten them.