Under Pressure E-Book

K. A. Linde

• Herausgeber: K.A. LINDE
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Serie: Diamond Girls
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Seitenzahl: 403

Beschreibung

A stand alone, enemies-to-lovers, sports romance from USA Today bestselling author K.A. Linde…
Stacia Palmer has always wanted to be a NFL quarterback's wife.
But just as her boyfriend gets drafted, she has a change of heart and returns to Vegas empty handed. Unfortunately, her friends have all moved out of their shared apartment.
Which is how she finds herself roommates with her irresistible ex—Pace Larson.
He’s the new starting quarterback and determined to make her life miserable. But their chemistry has always been off the charts and living in close quarters sparks something anew.
She doesn’t know if they deserve a second chance. But she wants it—even if it leads to another broken heart.

Leseprobe

Under Pressure

K.A. Linde

Copyright © 2016 by K.A. Linde

All rights reserved.

Visit my website at

www.kalinde.com

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Cover Designer: Staci Hart, www.quirky-bird.com

Photography: ASjack, Adobe

Editor: Jovana Shirley, Unforeseen Editing,

www.unforeseenediting.com

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

ISBN-13: 978-1948427326

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Epilogue

Cruel Money

Acknowledgments

Also By K.A. Linde

About the Author

1

“This is the best day of my life.”

Stacia Palmer tried not to roll her eyes. Her boyfriend, Marshall Matthews, had been repeating that over and over and over again for hours on end throughout the past two days. So, not only was today the best day of his life, but yesterday had been the best day of his life as well. And if he didn’t get drafted into the NFL today during the second round, then she was sure tomorrow, he was going to repeat ad nauseum that was the best day of his life, too.

But today was not the best day of Stacia’s life.

Yesterday hadn’t been either.

It should have been.

This was what she had worked three long years for. To some, her dream of becoming an NFL quarterback’s wife had seemed outlandish. Back at Las Vegas State, people had painted her as a slutty jersey chaser. She never denied any of the claims. It was exactly what she wanted. Or at least she had thought so.

When did getting everything you’ve ever wanted become a bad thing?

Everyone stilled around her as the Commissioner for the NFL stepped onto the stage to announce the next pick. Marshall tightly gripped her hand in his own and reached for his mother’s, who was seated on the other side of him. His father ceased his pacing and stared up at the screen, waiting to have his son called onstage. It had been a long couple of days for everyone. Waiting had never been more difficult.

“With the fiftieth pick in the NFL draft, the Indianapolis Colts select…”

Marshall squeezed tighter, crushing her pinkie finger. She winced and tried to pull away, but Marshall was a star college quarterback. She stood no chance.

“Baison Truman, defensive end, Miami.”

Cheers erupted a section down from them. Stacia swiveled in her chair, thankful that Marshall had finally released her. She saw a tall African American man in a blue striped suit and bow tie hug his daughter who couldn’t have been older than four years old before hauling her up onto his hip and walking through the door to the main stage.

Marshall deflated next to her as another opportunity had passed by him. Not that he’d been in any talks with Indianapolis, but still, everyone had assured him that he would be drafted in the first round. Now, halfway through the second round, things were beginning to look dire.

It didn’t help that LV State hadn’t made it to the playoffs this year. They hadn’t even won their bowl game. They might have if the coach had decided to play to back up Pace instead of Marshall, but Marshall had more experience even if he didn’t have Pace’s talent.

She closed her eyes against the image of Baison Truman putting his Colts hat and jersey on his daughter.

Why am I thinking about Pace? Pace Larson was nothing to her. He had made it blatantly clear time and time again that she was nothing to him either. That was how she had ended up here, at the draft with Marshall, instead of back in Vegas, finishing out her junior year with Pace as the starting quarterback her senior year.

“Fuck, why am I even here? This is humiliating,” Marshall swore next to her.

“It’ll work out,” Stacia said. She was trying to be encouraging but finding it increasingly difficult.

She knew the amount of money he would make dropped significantly for every person who went ahead of him. This would make his career. And that should have mattered to her. Well, it always had. She’d thought she would marry a man drafted as a first pick and happily live off his money for the rest of her days. After all, that was what she knew. Her father had been an NFL quarterback and it all made sense for it to come full circle.

She wasn’t like her two best friends—Bryna Turner and Trihn Hamilton. Bryna had been a gold digger for a bit there, but even then, she had always had higher aspirations. Now, she was on her way to becoming a movie director, like her father. Trihn had already started a successful clothing line that sold designer clothes to New York boutiques. They were both killing it!

Stacia hadn’t ever wanted something more in her life. Until today.

Now, she wanted something else.

It stirred inside her.

This strange feeling she had never, ever encountered before. It choked her. Ate at her from the inside out. Crawled over her skin and into her stomach.

Guilt?

Or maybe regret?

Whatever it was, this moment wasn’t right.

“Don’t talk to me like you know shit, Stacia. This is my career on the line,” he spat.

He launched from his seat and started pacing by his father. His mother shot Stacia a sympathetic look and then joined them.

Stacia sat, seething.

She knew his motherfucking career was on the line. She knew what this meant to him. And, frankly, she did know shit.

She wasn’t just some dumb cheerleader. She really knew and understood the ins and outs of football. Her father was the head coach of the football team for the University of Southern California where her younger brother, Derek, now played as the starting quarterback. She knew football.

Stacia took a deep breath and tried to rein in her growing unease. Why was she having second thoughts? Did it have something to do with the fact that Marshall hadn’t been drafted yet? Was it because he wasn’t going in the first round, and that hadn’t been her dream?

She didn’t think so. She was just realizing that claiming to want this life was one big lie.

Stacia and Marshall hadn’t spent much time together since he had decided to enter the draft. As soon as he’d announced it, he’d gotten a sports agent, a slimy guy by the name of Jude Rose. Her best friend Bryna had dated Jude her senior year of high school and found out the hard way that he was married. The fact that Marshall had chosen Jude anyway, despite Stacia informing him how much of a prick he was, hadn’t helped anything.

Afterward, Marshall had started training. He’d worked his ass off in every facility he could get into. Then, he’d gone to the Scouting Combine in Indianapolis, which Stacia had known was the real deal. How he performed in front of scouts there would make or break his draft stock.

Now that they were sitting here, she was realizing that nothing he had done those last few months mattered. He was one-tenth of a second slower than average in the forty-yard dash for a quarterback, and that was holding him back now. One-tenth of a second, and he could have been a first-round pick.

“Why the long face?”

Stacia startled and looked up to find none other than Jude Rose himself standing in front of her. She had been so absorbed in her thoughts that she hadn’t been paying attention to anything. “What?”

He smirked down at her in that insufferably sexy way of his. She wanted to smack that shit right off his face. Not only had he hurt Bryna, but Stacia had known enough sports agents to know that they were awful people. That smile wouldn’t work on her.

“Your boyfriend is about to be worth millions. I would think you’d have a smile on your face for the cameras, sweetheart,” Jude said.

Stacia plastered on a fake smile that she’d used all her life and hopped to her feet. Not that it did much. She was only about five feet tall, and Jude towered over her, like all the players in attendance, but she didn’t care. “When?” she demanded. “When is he going to be drafted? You promised him the first round. I thought you were the best. Seems like nothing anyone has said about you is true, except that you’re a liar.”

Jude’s smile didn’t move for a second. But his eyes hardened. “A liar? That’s a bold statement.”

“A true statement.”

He looked ready to defend himself—or maybe not; maybe he was just an arrogant ass—but he was kept from it when Marshall barreled toward him.

“Rose, what’s going on?” Marshall asked.

They clasped hands and then released.

“I was just talking to your wonderful girlfriend. She’s a real gem.”

“You know all about real gems,” she murmured under her breath. Jude had been the one to turn Bryna into a gold digger after all. Though she didn’t think Jude knew the connection between her and Bryna.

“Yeah, ignore Stacia. She’s in a mood,” Marshall said. Stacia opened her mouth to object, but he cut her off, “Draft stock. Where am I falling? What’s happening?”

And then Jude dragged him away to have a more private conversation.

Apparently, whatever he had to say couldn’t be said in front of her. Or, maybe because she was in a mood, he didn’t want her to hear.

In. A. Mood.

He’d said she was in a mood. Like PMS was making her irritated with this entire thing. And not every single little thing that Marshall did.

Fuck, maybe she was in a mood.

But not the one Marshall thought she was in.

Everything had seemed crystal clear in the middle of the season last fall. Pace had slept with her best friend from high school, Madison, a freshman cheerleader at LV State. Marshall had gotten the starting spot as quarterback for the team, and then she and Marshall started dating.

But her heart still broke over Pace. Three years of on-again and off-again behavior didn’t just disappear. Especially not when she still had to see his gloating face. Especially not when she wasn’t sure who she would have chosen if Pace hadn’t slept with Madison. But he hadn’t given her that choice.

And the one she was making right now had nothing to do with him.

It had everything to do with the fact that she just didn’t love Marshall.

Stacia gasped, and a few people glanced her way. She quickly covered her mouth and looked away.

Oh, fuck.

She didn’t love him.

Now that she’d thought the treacherous words, they seemed to multiply and magnify in her mind, like a disease spreading through her system.

Every time he belittled her, it bugged the shit out of her. His obsession with ordering for her got on her very last nerve. Even the way he chewed gum annoyed her. Frankly, she hadn’t missed him while he was training all semester. She hadn’t wanted to answer his calls when he got time to talk to her. She hadn’t even wanted to come to the draft.

She—Stacia, the jersey-chasing gold digger, whose life aspiration had been to marry an NFL quarterback—didn’t want it.

It hit her with such clarity that she could walk out the door right at that moment, and she would have no regrets. She wouldn’t even glance back to see if Marshall had noticed.

But she couldn’t do that to Marshall right now. It was, after all, the best day of his life.

“Here it comes. Here it comes!” Jude said, pushing Marshall back into his seat.

Stacia sank down next to him with a resigned sigh. Jude glared at her, and she remembered to plaster on her fake smile.

She was happy.

She was confident.

She was beautiful.

She could do this.

The Commissioner reappeared onstage, and everyone tensed in anticipation once more. Every time he stood onstage, it was as if all the air had been sucked out of the room.

“With the fifty-first pick in the NFL draft, the Buffalo Bills select…”

Marshall squeezed her hand again, and she breathed out to ignore the pain.

“Marshall Matthews, quarterback, Las Vegas State.”

2

Cheers erupted all around her. Everyone sprang to their feet. Marshall straightened his suit, and for a second, he looked like he was going to cry. Then, he turned and scooped Stacia up in his arms. She clung to his suit for balance, and then he kissed her full on the mouth.

This was the moment. This was his defining greatness. The road he had been on his entire life had culminated into the here and now.

She was excited for him. Happy that he had been drafted. He deserved it even if LV State had suffered some tough losses with him as quarterback. But the strongest emotion was relief. Now, it was over.

Marshall finally released her, hugged his mom and dad, shook Jude’s hand, and then walked away from them. Stacia watched him make that momentous walk through the back room to the door that led to the stage. Then, all eyes were fixed on the screen that showed Marshall taking a hat and jersey and smiling for the cameras.

It was over practically before it’d started.

The clock started over.

Seven minutes.

Then, another lucky player would be drafted, and attention would shift once more.

Marshall was giving an interview to an ESPN reporter. The woman was pretty with dark hair and long eyelashes. Stacia recognized her as a sideline reporter during the football season. God, Stacia couldn’t imagine how amazing it would be to interview players, to watch and discuss football, to get paid to do what she loved. That girl had a dream job.

Marshall was still talking to the reporter when Stacia and his family were ushered away from their seats and escorted to a waiting room for when Marshall was finished.

The whole thing happened unbelievably fast. When Marshall returned to her side, he returned as an NFL quarterback. He let her know that he would have a few meetings to attend, and then the team was going to take him and his family out for dinner.

“So, just head back to the hotel, and get all dressed up for me,” Marshall said when they finally had a minute alone. “Go to the spa. Relax. Get your hair and makeup done. I want everyone to see that I have the hottest girlfriend here.”

Stacia opened her mouth to say something, anything, but Marshall just kissed her.

“Make sure you wear some of your sexy lingerie underneath,” he said suggestively against her mouth. “I want to celebrate.”

“Marshall…” she breathed.

Fuck. The last thing she was thinking about was celebrating.

“I’ll see you tonight,” he said.

And then he disappeared, leaving her alone with his parents, who frankly didn’t like her. They never said anything to her face, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t see the accusation pointed her way. She gave them a tight-lipped smile before agreeing to take a cab back to the hotel with them.

By the time she got back up to her and Marshall’s room, she was exhausted and irritated. She hadn’t wanted to be rude to his parents, so even though her phone had been vibrating more often than the fastest setting of her own toy back home, she hadn’t touched it to see who was messaging her.

Now, she finally could.

And she immediately wished she hadn’t.

She had a bunch of messages from Bryna, Trihn, and their friend Maya, a few from her brother, a handful from her father, and one from Pace. She ignored all the others and opened his first.

You looked hot as fuck on TV.

God, has he been drinking?

She didn’t know what other explanation there was for him to be messaging her. Unless he was just toying with her and being a dick, which were both his specialty.

Because she was in a particularly shitty place at the moment, she texted him back.

Thanks.

It’s too bad.

Stacia bit her lip. He was baiting her. She shouldn’t ask. That was what he wanted. But she couldn’t stop herself.

What is?

That you chose wrong, and you won’t be on TV for the #1 pick next year.

Dick.

Stacia fumed. Chose wrong? As if he’d let her choose. Then, out of anger, she jotted out another text.

You couldn’t even make the starting position this year. You have to prove yourself on the field before you can make such outlandish claims.

But he must have already been typing because, halfway through her message, another one came in. She sent hers and then opened the next text.

I remember you liked mine better.

Fuck off! I have no interest in your dick or otherwise after you slept with Madison!

And you were sleeping with Marshall.

Not true. She hadn’t started sleeping with Marshall until they began dating in the middle of last semester. But, even though she had been sleeping with Pace last semester, she hadn’t double-dipped. It just so happened…that she hadn’t told Pace that. Or told Marshall that she’d fucked Pace. Some things were best left unsaid.

I can’t deal with you right now.

That’s just us, Pink.

Stacia flopped back onto the bed and closed her eyes.

Pink.

Fuck, she hadn’t heard that in such a long time. Pace had given her that goddamn nickname all those years ago. The first time they’d officially met freshman year, she had been dressed in a hot-pink tube dress, despite the frigid temperature. He’d said it was adorable and brushed the tip of her nose like she was just the cutest thing he had ever seen. He’d called her Pink all night before she’d finally given him her name. And then she’d realized that he was Bryna’s stepbrother and totally, one hundred percent off-limits.

Don’t call me that.

Don’t tell me that I still affect you. I’m sure you’ll forget all about my little nickname for you when you’re giving some good head tonight. I’ll think about you while I get some, too.

Stacia ground her teeth together and tossed her phone aside. Prick.

Why?

Why had she answered his text messages? Now, she was pissed and wanted to throttle him. And she was horny. She hated that he was the best lay she had ever had. Hated it. Why couldn’t it have been someone who was less of a total asshole? Why couldn’t it have been Marshall? Maybe she could have put aside the other things if Marshall were phenomenal in bed. And he wasn’t bad, but once you’d had the best, it was hard not to compare.

Stacia hopped off the bed in frustration—sexual and otherwise—and headed to the shower. She needed to masturbate to clear her head and then get her thoughts in order, so she could figure out what in the actual fuck she was going to say to Marshall later.

By the time she had finished getting ready in a Trihn original dress, Marshall was collecting her for dinner. She slid into her Manolos and hurried after him to the elevator and then the waiting limo. It was a short drive to the luxurious steak house, and she was stuffed in a seat between Marshall and one of the team owners or managers. She never figured out which since they talked over her the entire night.

Apparently, Marshall had been completely serious about her being arm candy for the evening. So, she ate her dinner and remained silent.

Marshall didn’t seem to notice her unease on the drive back to the hotel. Whatever mood he’d thought she was in when he was waiting to get drafted had dissipated with his euphoria. He was practically whistling to himself in the car.

Stacia just chewed on her lip and watched Michigan Avenue disappear around the corner. The limo dropped them off in front of the hotel, and they walked through the historic hotel lobby before taking the elevator up to the suite.

Before the door was even fully closed, Marshall was on her. He grabbed her around the middle and crushed his lips down on hers.

“Oh, babe,” he growled against her lips. “I’ve been dreaming about this all afternoon.”

“Marshall,” she squeaked.

Fuck. She needed to talk to him. She hadn’t wanted to do this right after the draft. She wanted him to be happy and to celebrate this with him. She had figured she could just pretend with him for another day or two. The last thing she wanted was to ruin this big day for him. He was supposed to come back to campus to finish finals, and she’d planned to say something then.

But she hadn’t factored in that he would want to have sex with her. Of course she had known he would want to. What guy wouldn’t? Especially on a day like today? Normally, she would be a hundred percent on board, but after her revelation this afternoon, the thought of having sex with him made her nauseated. It made her feel…cheap.

She shoved against his chest, but he didn’t budge.

“Want to get inside you,” he muttered. “Need my prize pussy for getting drafted.”

“Prize?” she nearly gasped out as he walked her backward toward the bed.

“Fuck yeah, you’re my prize. Going to enjoy my present, too.”

“Marshall, stop,” she said. “Stop.”

“Feisty tonight,” he said, completely ignoring her comments. Grabbing her by the back of the legs, he hoisted her into the air.

“Marshall! Put me down!”

He laughed and tossed her back on the bed, as if she weighed nothing. She bounced once before landing in a heap on the downy mattress. Marshall crawled onto the bed after her, covering her tiny five-foot frame with his towering six-foot-four body. She squirmed to try to get out from under him, but it was no use. He had her pinned in seconds.

His broad grin made her nervous. She hated what she was about to do—that she was going to have to hurt him. This was her fault to begin with. But she couldn’t go on pretending.

He trailed his fingers down the side of her face and over her collarbone, edging lower, when she finally found her voice.

“I don’t want to have sex with you.”

“Yes, you do,” he said without skipping a beat. He just let his lips trail kisses where his fingers had just been.

She grabbed his hand before it reached the hem of her dress and tried to keep him from prying it up. “I’m sorry. I don’t.”

He looked up at her from where he had last laid a kiss on her shoulder and raised an eyebrow. “You always want to have sex. Since when do you not want to have sex?”

“Since today,” she said.

She tried to scoot up out from under him, but his lower half weighed her down, so she couldn’t move.

“It’s the best day of my life, Stacia. We’re having sex,” he told her more forcefully.

She shook her head, and a small tear leaked out of her right eye. She closed her eyes against the traitorous tear, sighing heavily. “I want to break up.”

That got him off her.

He jumped back, as if he’d just been tackled. As if she’d just doused him with burning oil. She opened her eyes to see the shock on his face. He looked beyond stunned. She was sure that he never thought he would hear that from her. Not after he’d just been drafted.

Truly, she wished she could have spared him this moment. She wished he had just listened and waited to have sex with her, and then she could have done this when it wouldn’t have caused him so much grief. But he hadn’t taken no for an answer. She hadn’t been able to figure out another option.

“Why?” he asked, flabbergasted.

“I don’t know,” she whispered, closing her eyes again.

“You don’t know? What the hell do you mean, you don’t know?”

“I don’t know!” she cried. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want this to go this way. I just don’t want…this,” she finished lamely.

“What is this?” he demanded. “Me? The NFL? You don’t want to be a quarterback’s wife?” He launched off the bed and paced furiously. She sputtered, but he cut her off, “Don’t even bother answering that. We both know this is exactly what you’ve always wanted.”

“Marshall,” she warbled. She straightened out her dress and slid off the bed. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry? Sorry for what, Stacia?”

“I don’t know. For hurting you.”

He shook his head and looked away from her. “I can’t fucking believe this. This is what you’ve wanted from day one.”

“I know. I can’t explain it.”

“Well, fucking try! This is what you’ve schemed and plotted for!” he yelled at her.

She raised her eyebrows.

“Oh, don’t look so surprised. I’m not stupid. I’ve heard the rumors. I knew what you were after.”

She wasn’t surprised that he knew. Everyone knew. She was surprised that he was bringing it up now. As if it was somehow justification for them to stay together. Shouldn’t it be the opposite?

“Why would you even want to be with someone who had schemed to be with you?” she managed to get out.

“Because I care about you Stacia. The scheming didn’t bother me if the end result was you and me together,” he admitted.

She bit her lip and looked away. “I’m just…not happy.”

“How can you not be happy. I gave you everything.”

“I don’t know. I wish I had a better explanation. This was what I was after,” she admitted, “but it’s not what I want anymore.”

“You’re ruining draft day,” he accused.

“I know.”

“You can’t go.”

“I have to,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”

Marshall took a step backward. Six foot four, two hundred twenty-five pounds of solid muscle, a god on LV State’s campus, and a soon-to-be NFL quarterback. And she had made him stumble.

“Stacia,” he pleaded, suddenly realizing she was serious.

“Please don’t. Don’t do that,” she told him.

She didn’t want him to beg her. It had been easier when he was yelling at her, telling her she was a schemer. Him pleading with her would make this impossible.

Marshall looked stricken before he turned and walked out of the hotel room, slamming the door shut behind him. The door shook in the frame, quivering and trembling with the ferocity of Marshall’s anger.

Stacia remained standing, shaking. She couldn’t believe what she had just done. It was the right thing. She knew it was. Maybe not the best timing, but she couldn’t continue to live a lie.

It didn’t make it easier. Facing Marshall had been like standing in a hurricane and hoping for the best.

With a resigned sigh, she packed up her suitcase, determined to be gone before Marshall reappeared. She had been strong once. She didn’t want to test her willpower to stand up to him a second time.

As she left the hotel room with her suitcase in tow, she frowned back at the closed door and then exited Marshall’s life forever.

3

Stacia landed back in Las Vegas at an ungodly early hour and took a cab back to her apartment near the university. She hauled her suitcase onto the elevator and up to the top floor and then wheeled it down the hall. Her exhaustion kept creeping in, and she managed to miss the lock three times with her key before getting it in the slot and opening the door.

When she entered, she stopped in her tracks, staring around at her apartment in shock. Three days ago, the apartment that she shared with Bryna and Trihn had been spotless with everything put away in its proper place and nothing out of order. They had a maid service after all. Somehow, in the span of those three days, it had turned into a war zone. Boxes were piled up with no rhyme or reason, and clothes were scattered everywhere.

“What the hell?” Stacia asked, eyes wide.

“S!” Trihn cried. She appeared in the living room with a bright smile on her face.

She was, of the three of them, the biggest morning person. If you disturbed Bryna before noon, you should expect a mouthful, but Trihn enjoyed her mornings, like a total freak of nature.

“Hey,” Stacia said. She deposited her suitcase next to the door since it didn’t seem to matter where anything went at the moment, and then she came to stand by Trihn. “What’s going on?”

Trihn picked up a half-full box and dropped it on top of another one. Her long brown-to-blonde ombre swished in her ponytail, and her green eyes lit up. “Oh! I just started packing.”

“Packing?”

“Yeah. Bryna insisted that she’d hire someone before hurting her manicure, but I figured I’d do it the old-fashioned way.”

“But why?” Stacia asked, unable to keep up.

“Because it just felt silly to hire someone. I mean, I can pack. I don’t have that much stuff. Mostly clothes and my sewing machine and, you know, the really important stuff,” Trihn rattled on. “Plus, I mean…how much space am I really going to have in Damon’s apartment? It’s a one-bedroom. It’s pretty small.”

A lightbulb went off in Stacia’s head. It must have been the early hour or the red-eye or what had happened with Marshall the previous night, but it had completely slipped her mind that her best friends were moving out. They had all assumed that Stacia would quit school and move to wherever Marshall ended up once he was drafted. So, Bryna had agreed to move in with her boyfriend and assistant football coach, Eric Wilkins, while Trihn had agreed to move in with her boyfriend and resident DJ/rock star, Damon Stone.

It all should have worked out for the trifecta of best friends paired with a hottie coach, mega rock star, and NFL quarterback. But, now, things weren’t going as planned, and she hadn’t even considered what she was going to do next year or where she was going to live.

“What the hell is going on out here?” Bryna called from the hallway. She appeared a minute later in some kind of barely there negligee. Her blonde hair was just-sex mussed, and she looked as stunning as ever.

“Oh no, we’ve awoken the beast,” Trihn whispered.

Stacia snort-laughed.

Then, in a more normal tone, Trihn said, “Morning, Bri. It’s a little early for you.”

“No one can sleep with you out here, slamming boxes around and talking at the top of your lungs.” Bryna leaned against the side of the couch and then slipped forward into a lying position. She looked like a Greek goddess without even trying.

Stacia wished her appearance were so effortless. She’d need a pound of makeup and a full blowout before she could achieve Bryna’s I-woke-up-like-this appearance.

It didn’t help matters that Trihn had once been a model for Gucci and a ballerina for a prestigious dance company in New York. Frankly, Stacia felt short and fat next to her two best friends. Thankfully, it was a thought they knew nothing about.

“Stacia just got back. She was asking about packing, which is something you should be doing, Bri,” Trihn told her.

“No,” Bryna said point-blank. “I’ll leave it to the peons.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Trihn said.

Bryna shrugged and closed her eyes. “Someone else will move my stuff into Eric’s house. I’m not going to worry about it. It’ll all be done by next weekend anyway.”

“So soon?” Stacia squeaked. “The lease doesn’t end for a few more weeks.”

“I want it over with,” Bryna said.

“Plus, you’ll be moving in with Marshall anyway!” Trihn cried. “Oh my God, we saw you on TV. Damon and I doubled with E and Bri to watch the draft. You looked so fucking hot on TV. You were definitely the hottest girlfriend.”

“Definitely,” Bryna agreed drowsily. She already seemed to be falling back asleep.

“Where is Marshall moving to again?” Trihn asked.

Of the three of them, Trihn was the least invested in football even though she would come to nearly all the games.

“Buffalo,” Stacia and Bryna said together.

“Right,” Trihn said. “Buffalo. Upstate New York is freezing. You’re going to need a whole new wardrobe.”

“Oh, here we go,” Bryna said.

“I can make you one! Let me design your winter wear! I’ve never done that.”

“Yeah, sure,” Stacia said absentmindedly.

“Seriously, we are so excited for you,” Trihn said.

Bryna propped herself up onto her elbows. “We are. It’s so awesome. It’s everything you’ve wanted. We all got everything we wanted. It’s like a Hallmark movie,” she said and then gagged.

“So, tell us everything!” Trihn said, ignoring Bryna. “She’s just grumpy. She wants to hear about the draft, too.”

Trihn sank down on the couch next to Bryna, and they both expectantly stared up at Stacia. They were probably thinking she would turn into the bubbly, buoyant, ridiculous friend they had always known. But she just didn’t have it in her today.

“It was fine,” she said. “Nothing really to say.”

Their faces dropped. Bryna’s eyes narrowed. Trihn looked concerned.

“What do you mean?” Trihn asked.

“Yeah. How could there be nothing to say?” Bryna asked.

“I mean…you guys watched it. You saw what happened. Nothing really to say.”

“Are you okay?” Bryna said.

“You know…I met Jude though.”

A wall dropped over Bryna’s features, and she searched for nonchalance. “Really? Was he a total douche?”

“Yeah. He called me sweetheart and said I should be happy that my boyfriend was about to be worth millions.”

Bryna grimaced. “Sounds just fucking like him.”

“I called him a liar to his face, but I don’t think he realized that I knew you. Or if he did, then he didn’t show it.”

“He wouldn’t. Prick.” Bryna’s anger seemed to wake her up. “I bet, if you’d been alone, he would have hit on you.”

Stacia shrugged. “All he did was glare and smirk at me.”

“Fucking asshole.”

Stacia was glad that she had her friends thoroughly distracted. The truth was…she wasn’t ready to tell them that she had broken up with Marshall. What would they say anyway? Nothing that would help right now.

Plus, they were already packing. They had agreed that they were going to move in with their boyfriends. She didn’t want them to feel bad that they would be leaving her behind or, worse, change their minds and stay in the apartment for her. They deserved their happiness. They’d both earned it.

No, she would wait a little while longer before divulging the details. Maybe next week after they had already moved out and were settled in with Eric and Damon. Marshall wouldn’t even be back until later this week, and she doubted he was going to tell people that they had broken up. Not after what a catastrophe it had been.

“So…nothing else to tell?” Trihn asked with concerned round eyes.

“You know, I’m actually super exhausted. I had to catch a red-eye and all…” Stacia trailed off.

“Wait…where is Marshall? What is he doing?” Trihn asked.

“They flew him to Buffalo to meet with the team,” she answered. “Papers to sign, people to meet. That sort of thing.”

“You couldn’t go with him?” Bryna asked.

“Finals,” Stacia said.

It wasn’t a lie. She had always planned to return to finish her finals for her junior year of college. Even though she hadn’t been planning on staying for her senior year and getting her all-important general studies degree, she still wanted the credits she had earned. Marshall had gotten approved to take his finals later because of the draft.

“Oh, okay,” Trihn said. “When will you move out there with him?”

“I don’t know,” Stacia said, squirming. “I don’t have all the details.”

That was the goddamn truth.

“All right. Well, get some rest. Fill us in on more of the details when you get them. I’m excited to hear about your new amazing life,” Trihn said.

Stacia smiled. “Yeah. Me, too.”

She left them out in the living room and proceeded into her bedroom. As soon as she let the door close behind her, she turned on some music, snuggled up under the covers, and let the tears fall.

She didn’t have a career in mind. She didn’t have a degree she loved pursuing. She didn’t have a boyfriend or a job or an apartment…or anything.

She didn’t want to marry Marshall and live out her life as a Stepford wife. That much, she knew. She wanted to be as happy and passionate as her two friends were about movies and fashion. To be as in love with a guy as they were with Eric and Damon. She wanted and deserved more than what she was shortchanging herself.

Truly, she had no clue what she was going to do with her life, and for the first time, that bothered her.

4

Stacia stepped out of her English 102 final, the last exam of her junior year. She had always been an okay writer, so she figured she’d scrape by with a B-minus. She should have taken the class last semester, but she had been taking as few classes as possible so that she could have an active social life.

College really hadn’t been a priority. She’d been coasting on Cs for most of her other classes. Her academic advisor had been concerned that she wouldn’t have enough credits to graduate next spring, but since graduation had never been in the cards, she had just been blowing it off.

Now, fear pricked at her.

She needed to graduate. She couldn’t rely on living off her husband’s salary. And her bullshit general studies major would leave her with no options. What the hell can I do with that?

It made her head throb.

She’d made another appointment with her academic advisor for next week. She hadn’t signed up for any classes for the fall term because she’d thought she wouldn’t be there. Change of plans.

Now, she needed a full load of classes for the fall, way more than she had taken in previous years. Plus, she would have to balance that with cheerleading, which was another complication. Cheerleading tryouts for the next school year had been held two weeks ago, and she stupidly hadn’t auditioned. Now, she was stuck without classes or an extracurricular that she adored. She needed to make an appointment with the coach to see if there was something she could do about it.

Without her friends or quarterback boyfriend or cheerleading…what was her life? Did she even have an identity beyond that?

“S, over here!” Bryna trilled from her spot in front of the sports complex, jogging Stacia out of her depressing thoughts. They both had cheer parking passes but usually traded who would drive to campus. Today, they were in Bryna’s Aston Martin. “How’d it go?”

“Piece of cake,” Stacia lied.

“My film final was a bitch,” Bryna told her, sinking into the driver’s seat.

Stacia tossed her bag into the back and then plopped down into the passenger’s side. Their finals had occurred at the last scheduled time for the entire school, so they only had an hour before they were supposed to meet everyone at their favorite local club, Posse.

“So, I heard Marshall was back on campus to finish finals,” Bryna said, fishing for information. “He’s actually going to graduate.”

“He had to come back. It’s a big controversy right now. If drafted players are still full-time students, they can’t miss that much school, or they could get disqualified,” she spouted off information she’d always thought was common knowledge but found most other people didn’t know. Product of growing up with a coach as a single father. Football had been her life from an early age.

Of course, that had nothing to do with Marshall at all. And it hadn’t answered the unasked question Bryna had thrown her way.

Stacia swore she was going to tell Bryna and Trihn what happened, but they had only just moved out. They still had stuff at the apartment and were in the habit of riding to classes together. Once things settled down, she’d do it.

“So, is he coming to Posse tonight then?”

“I don’t know,” Stacia said truthfully.

She hadn’t heard from Marshall once since the breakup. But she doubted he’d show. Before the breakup, he’d told her that he intended to leave school as soon as he reasonably could. If he’d finished finals, then she suspected he’d be on a flight, already out of the city.

“All right then,” Bryna said, letting the subject drop. It was clear she knew that Stacia wasn’t telling her something, but thankfully, she didn’t push it.

Forty-five minutes later, the girls were done up in fresh makeup and skimpy dresses that showed off their toned legs and athletic cheer bodies.

By the time Stacia had finished with her ritual of hair and makeup, she felt more like herself—the bubbly little cheer slut. No reason for anyone to think anything was different. Nothing had changed since the draft.

The pair took a cab to Posse, and they were ushered inside by the bouncer who knew each of them on a first-name basis. The club was one giant room with a massive bar on the entire right side. Stairs on the left led up to the exclusive VIP section that overlooked the main dance floor. Additionally, double doors off the back side of the room led to a swimming pool and patio with tons of pool chairs. On Sundays during the summer, Posse would host pool parties that rivaled the Strip. It was their favorite place by campus.

Trihn was already inside when they got there, and they were unsurprised to find Maya with her. However, it was surprising that Maya wasn’t on the other side of the bar, serving up drinks, like she’d been doing for the last three years.

“Maya!” Bryna cried as she wrapped her arms around the tall African American girl’s shoulders. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Drinking!” Maya said. She raised a glass of tequila in their direction and slipped her black hair over one shoulder where it was gathered in a tight braid.

“But you’re the bartender,” Stacia said.

“Not anymore. I quit!” Maya told them.

“Isn’t it awesome?” Trihn said. “Now, she can party with us all the time.”

“Who is going to make my dirty martinis?” Bryna pouted. “Or a Peppermint Posse?”

Maya shrugged. “Not me, hooker. We’ll become Tuck’s regulars now.” She leaned over the bar and snapped her fingers at the slightly flustered bartender.

Tuck was tall enough to be on the basketball team with a shaved head and determined dark eyes. He didn’t talk much, which Stacia always found odd for a bartender.

“Tuck! Get a round for my girls.”

He grunted and started pouring drinks without asking for instructions. Either Maya had prepped him for this moment, or he was just that good because, a few minutes later, Bryna had a dirty martini with three olives and Stacia had the fruitiest, most potent drink on the menu.

Delicious.

“So, why did you quit?” Stacia asked Maya.

“It’d be pretty impossible to work and start my master’s program in creative writing in the fall. I’ll need all that time for studying and classes. Decided I’d rather spend the summer backpacking through Europe than working behind a bar. I’ve never been, you know.”

Bryna nearly spit out her drink. “You’ve never been to Europe?”

“You know, most people haven’t, Bri,” Maya said, quirking an eyebrow. “We weren’t all rich kids.”

“Well, I’ll have to meet you somewhere then and show you how rich kids do Europe,” Bryna said.

“I heard Barcelona is nice this time of year,” Trihn said with a pointed grin.

“Bitch,” Bryna grumbled.

The summer after their freshman year, Bryna had gone to Barcelona with Hugh, the guy she had been digging at the time. Things had ended poorly, and Trihn liked to remind Bryna that she had turned down jewelry from Harry Winston. It still pained her.

“Anyway, Eric and I are planning to travel around Europe when he doesn’t have to be here for football. I thought I’d show him my world,” Bryna said with a grin.

“Damon is going on tour, but my manager wants me to open a boutique. So, I’ll be in New York for part of the summer and tour the other part,” Trihn said with a shrug. “I’m still not sure if I’m ready to have my own boutique. But she wants to go through logistics over the summer and try to increase branding. It’s really boring stuff. Just ignore me.”

All three girls turned to Stacia, as if waiting for her to chime in with her big summer plans. She opened her mouth and then closed it. She had no plans this summer. None.

But she couldn’t say that. Fuck.

She needed to defuse the situation. She went straight for the usual distraction. She tilted her head, widened her baby-blue eyes, and tossed her hair. “I’ll probably be sucking cock.”

Her friends vacillated between exasperation and laughter.

“Typical,” Maya mumbled.

Stacia’s cheeks heated, and she glanced away, sucking down her drink as if it were a cock. It was easier to let everyone think she had a one-track mind and was a total airhead than to speak the truth. Easier to be the cheer slut than to be held accountable for the last three years.

“Well, at that, I’m going to go find Damon,” Trihn said. “He’s probably in the DJ booth even though he can’t play here anymore.”

With Damon’s exclusive DJ contract on the Strip, he couldn’t play other Vegas clubs, including Posse. But he was a regular at the bar, so he knew all the rotating DJs and would frequently hang out upstairs. Stacia felt he did it so that he could have a bird’s-eye view and keep tabs on Trihn, even from afar.

Trihn vanished into the crowd just as Eric showed up with Drayton, Maya’s hottie wide-receiver boyfriend. Eric wrapped a possessive arm around Bryna’s shoulders.

He was tall, tan, and built. He’d taken LV State to a national championship when he was a star defensive end, but a career-ending knee injury had taken him out of the game and sent him into coaching.

“Come here, you,” Maya said, pulling Drayton into a kiss.

For how tall she was, Drayton towered over her. He made Stacia feel like a dwarf. But Stacia had always been more interested in Dray’s stats than the exact color of his brown skin or his gorgeous full lips or the size of his dick, which were all things Maya would rave about.

Stacia finished off her drink and flagged down Tuck for another. Getting shitfaced wasted seemed like a great idea right now. Being around all her friends and their impossibly happy love lives was making her drink.

Not to mention, she really, really needed to tell her friends about Marshall. Tonight. Yep, tonight would probably be best. She couldn’t keep this up. Even she was tired of the charade, and she had been living one for years, pretending to be the sexy, hot chick and not the mousy small girl who had been bullied her entire life.