“Sure, meet you at O’Malley’s.” He’d been dreading this moment, but now was the time to come clean.
A few minutes later, they were in a booth at O’Malley’s.
“No hot date?” Brett asked him.
“I’m flying solo tonight.” Bruiser tilted the beer to his mouth and drained half the bottle, generating a little liquid courage.
Brett squinted at him as if trying to see him in a different light. “I haven’t heard about you with any woman for a quite a while now. Going for a round of celibacy? Or did you run out of twenty-something heiresses and movie starlets?”
“Just taking a break. Reenergizing the sex drive.”
“Yeah, bullshit. Have you seen Mac lately?” Brett narrowed his eyes, his gaze taking Bruiser’s thin story apart.
Bruiser stiffened and measured his words carefully. “I see her mowing the practice field almost every day.”
“Yeah, me too.” Brett stared at his drink as if it were a crystal ball. “I wish I knew what I did to blow my chance with her.”
“Why do you think you did anything?” Guilt tied Bruiser’s stomach in knots. What a shit he was.
“Oh, she let me down nice and easy. She told me she didn’t want to date me and ruin a good friendship.”
“Oh.” Bruiser’s face heated. Thank God it was dark in the bar.
“I think she’s seeing someone else. Like Dante, that obnoxious ass. He’s been sniffing around her ever since she got her makeover. Didn’t give her a second look prior to that.”
The hard slap of jealousy fisted his hands. “Dante’s been harassing her?”
Brett pursed his lips and frowned at him. “Nothing she can’t handle. She ripped him a new one yesterday.”
“Good. That ass needs to keep his hands off.”
Brett regarded him with even more suspicion. “You wouldn’t be— Nah, you and Mac? Never.”
Bruiser opened his mouth to lie and deny everything, but he closed it.
“There’s something you’re not telling me.” Brett stared so hard at him that Bruiser wiped his mouth, certain some remnant of the chicken wings he’d been consuming at an alarming rate were on his chin or something.
Bruiser stared at his beer, knowing GUILTY might as well be tattooed on his forehead.
“You and Mac?” Brett’s face fell, as if he’d just been betrayed by his last friend in the world. Maybe he had.
“I— Uh, it just happened. Nothing we planned on.”
“You knew I had a thing for her, and you still went after her?” Brett leaned forward, his hands fisted.
“It didn’t happen like that.” Liar. No, he’d just pursued her, invited himself into her bed, and fucked her brains out. And not just once or twice.
“She’s always had a crush on you, and now you’re using it to get in her pants. Man, you really are a shallow, selfish asshole.” Brett’s disgust and disappointment were as loud and clear as the ferry’s foghorn on a zero-visibility day.
Bruiser shook his head. “It’s not like that.” Yeah, right, idiot, and what is it like?
“Bullshit. She doesn’t understand guys like you. You’re just toying with her. She’s a novelty to you, but you don’t give a shit about her.”
Bruiser tried one last time to salvage the best friendship he had. “Brett, I—I didn’t mean for it to happen. We’re just enjoying each other’s company. She knows the score. She’s fine with it. Please keep this private. It could jeopardize her chance at that scholarship if Veronica finds out. She wouldn’t approve of the two of us.”
“I doubt Mac does know the score. And don’t worry, I won’t tell a soul. Your dirty little secret is safe with me.”
“Look, man, I never planned for this to happen, especially for it to end our friendship.”
“I trusted you. Saw more in you than most people did. This is what I get for being an idiot. You couldn’t even tell me the truth. I bet the whole team knows you’ve been screwing Mac except me.”
“Seriously. No one knows. She hasn’t breathed a word to her girlfriends.”
“You’re a sorry ass. You don’t appreciate what you have. If I had a woman like Mac, I’d treat her with the respect she deserves and shout it to the heavens. You hide her and make sure no one knows because it makes it easier for you to move on down the road. And your roads are damn short.”
“Brett, I was wrong. I should’ve told you.”
“Yeah, you should have.” Brett rose to his feet, his face red and his jaw rigid. “I’d like to beat the crap out of you, but assaulting you isn’t worth going to jail.”
With that, his only true friend in the world threw a twenty on the table and stomped out of the bar, back stiff, head held high.
Bruiser stared at the door long after it closed behind Brett. He’d screwed up. Again. Every time he got close to someone, he hurt them. He couldn’t do a damn thing right except smile and play football. He was a fucking failure as a person, and Mac would be next on his Bruiser-fucked-up list, because that’s the way he rolled.
* * * * *
An hour later, Bruiser sat on a barstool in a different bar, doing his penance.
Trudy put up the CLOSED sign and locked the door of the bar. She’d been drinking behind the bar for the past hour and could barely walk, while he’d sipped on the same bottle of now-warm beer.
She came straight to him and didn’t waste a moment. Her fingernails dug painfully into his scalp, her mouth ground against his, while her body did its own grinding. Usually, a hot woman in this position got Bruiser in the mood, only tonight it didn’t work for him. His dick stayed completely uninvolved, like a disinterested bystander. He kissed the woman back, swallowing his revulsion.
She slid her hands down the back of his jeans and cupped his ass, smashing her hips into his crotch. It wasn’t erotic; in fact, it hurt like hell
