From behind him, I hear a laugh. “Sucking on those titties…”
My teeth gnash. But my guys are surrounding me.
“Save it for the play,” Ryder says at my side. “We will fuck them up.”
Someone gives me an encouraging slap to the helmet. I move back to the huddle, trying to concentrate. Finn gives me a quick look, but he’s calling the next play.
Breathe. Focus. Get it together.
I try. I really do. But I miss a beat, and when I snap the ball, a defensive end blows by me and sacks Finn.
“Shit.”
Norris is at my elbow again, snickering. “Fiona Mackenzie, eh? Sweet little honey, D. Looks like she’s a natural blonde—”
I don’t see anything but a haze and the whites of Norris’s eyes as I grab hold of his helmet and rip it from his head. Mine is off too. Not sure how. Don’t care. My fist connects with his face, smashing into it so hard I feel it in my spine.
Whistles blow. Yellow flags fly.
Guys pile on top of us. Mine. His. Blows hit my head, back. I don’t feel them. I’m pounding Norris, who is stuck beneath me.
And then I’m thrown on my back with a jarring thud. It clears my head enough for me to pop up. A ref struggles to step into my path. I duck around him as other guys scuffle.
“Cool it,” shouts a ref.
Finn is at my arm, pulling me back. “Easy, Dex.”
But then Norris is coming at me, blood pouring down his nose and in his teeth. “That’s why your girl took the money, cuz you’re a fucking *!”
I’m two steps into coming at him again, when his words hit me and I go ice cold.
Took the money?
Guys are getting into smaller fights again. Rolondo is now up in Norris’s face, calling him a punk-ass bitch—refs are plucking them apart.
Someone is walking me backward, pushing me toward the sidelines as shouts continue. But I’m numb, my ears ringing and all available blood rushing to the pit of my stomach.
Took the money?
The ref ejects me and Norris from the game, and the stadium erupts into a chorus of boos.
On the sidelines, my offensive coach is shouting at me that I fucked up while slapping my shoulder to say it’s okay I nearly tore Norris’s head off. My head coach is bellowing in my ear about being a dumbass. But I’m barely listening.
I find an assistant coordinator. “You got a phone?”
He glances around as if trying to find an escape.
“Give me your fucking phone,” I snap. Blood trickles in my eye, and a medic is trying to press a cloth to the cut on my forehead. I wave him off, grab the phone that’s offered to me with a shaking hand.
One glance around confirms that everyone’s been keeping something from me. I find out soon enough when the headlines pop up.
Fiona Mackenzie claims her million dollars
There’s a picture of Fi and me, fuzzy and taken from a distance. We’re laughing, my arm slung around her slim shoulders as we stroll through Jackson Square.
And under that, the confirmation that Fi called Bloom this morning, demanding her prize.
Chapter Forty-Four
Dex
I don’t go home. I can’t.
Rolondo takes me to his apartment. I head straight to his guest room and into the shower. I hadn’t bothered washing up at the stadium, just sat on a flimsy chair in front of my spot until the guys came back in and Rolondo hustled me out of there.
Now I stand beneath cold water, letting it pummel me. Images flash through my mind: Fi’s smile. Fi crying. Norris’s ugly grin, blood running down his nose. Fi arching beneath me as I take her. Fi and me laughing in a grainy picture. Fi telling me she wants to go to London.
She asked for the money.
Black rage, thick, hot, and choking, surges up my throat. My shout shatters the air as my fist smashes into the tiles. Pain explodes in my hand, but it takes me a moment to stop.