“Excuse me, but let’s get back to the topic at hand!” Adil raised his voice. “Anyway, as I was saying, I have a team bonding idea. We should create a Blackcastle book club where—”
More jeers drowned out his voice.
“Where we read a different erotic book every month!” he shouted. “It’ll be fun!”
A book club? That was my idea! Granted, I’d been joking at the time, but still. Let it be known that I thought of it first.
However, the rest of the team was not onboard.
“Fun?”
“You have a strange idea of fun.”
“No bloody way!”
“You don’t have to join if you don’t want to,” Adil said with great dignity. “But it will be fun, and you’ll miss out on some great books. Now, who’s in?” He looked around.
Silence.
“Come on, guys,” he wheedled. “This is way more interesting than partying every weekend.”
“That’s because you don’t drink,” Stevens said.
“Exactly.” Adil’s smile wilted as the team remained silent. “Seriously? No one wants to join?”
Bloody hell. I was going to regret this later, but… “I’m in.”
I was the one who inadvertently got us into the mess. I might as well see it through.
His face brightened again, and he shot me a grateful look.
“Me too,” Vincent said, surprising the shit out of me. “I’m the captain. Team morale is part of my job.”
“Great!” Adil’s smile returned to full wattage. “I always knew you two had a good taste. Who else is interested?”
There was another beat of silence.
“I’ll observe.” Noah’s quiet rumble shocked me even more than Vincent’s participation. “But I’m not reading about dinosaur threesomes.”
“Fine.” Adil sounded delighted. “You can be our mascot and bring snacks.”
Noah’s scowl expressed how not delighted he was with the assignment. However, his participation, combined with my and Vincent’s approval, led the rest of the team to join in trickles and then a wave.
Soon, almost every person agreed to join the book club, though I could tell some didn’t think we were seriously going to read dino erotica every month.
We grabbed our drinks and crowded around various tables and booths. The atmosphere was the most relaxed I’d felt since I joined Blackcastle. Everyone was less on edge now that Vincent and I had called a truce, and our victory that afternoon added an extra lift to our spirits.
This was what I’d missed. I loved the sport, but I loved the camaraderie and brotherhood of being part of a team too.
It’s nice…until you fuck it up, a voice sang inside my head.
The revelation about my relationship with Scarlett was a guillotine waiting to fall. At this point, I was deep in denial and taking my interactions with Vincent day by day.
Who knows? Maybe we could keep our secret from him until Vincent and I were both retired and I invited him to our wedding. He couldn’t kill us at our own wedding, could he?
“You good?” Noah asked while half the team left to argue over what song to play next at the jukebox.
“Yeah.” I flashed a quick smile. “Just thinking about the Holchester match coming up.”
He didn’t look convinced.
The gruff goalie was the quietest, most subdued member of the team, but he was also the most observant. He had to be, considering he was raising an eleven-year-old on his own. That couldn’t be easy.
“I’m glad you and DuBois made up,” he said. “I guess Coach’s summer plan worked, even if you only had two weeks of training together.”
The beer turned sour at the back of my tongue.
“I guess so.” I avoided Noah’s eyes. “I was the one who messed up last season. I don’t want that to happen again.”
The jangle of bells above the door cut our conversation short, and a noticeable hush fell over the pub when several members of Holchester’s team walked in.
I stiffened, my fingers curling tight around my pint glass. Noah straightened as well while the other Blackcastle players glared at the newcomers like they were intruding on our turf—which, in my mind, they were.
The Angry Boar was open to the public, but London was our city (yes, I only moved here at the beginning of the year, but I already thought of it as home). Holchester was only here because they had a match against Arsenal earlier that day.
Tension brewed into a toxic storm. Even the other patrons were on high alert.
Mac and his triplet bouncers looked like they were ready to throw fists at the first sign of trouble, but that didn’t stop Bocci, Lyle, and the other Holchester players from approaching me.
