Backfield in Motion Read Online Free Page B

misinterpreting Bruiser’s attitude as not
wanting to take Mac out.
    Feeling oddly weary, Bruiser leaned his
elbows on the table, rested his chin in his palms, and looked up.
“Not as much as you do. Why don’t you ask her out?” Maybe that’d
solve his current preoccupation. He didn’t mess with another man’s
woman. Ever. If he could get these two damaged souls together, he
could go back to his normal life of meaningless, recreational sex
and superficial friendships.
    “I don’t know. She probably wouldn’t go.”
Brett took a big gulp of his beer.
    “How the hell do you know? You’ve never
asked her.”
    “I might.”
    Bruiser stared at his friend and shook his
head. “You’re a piece of work, Brett, you know that?”
    “Takes one to know one.”
    “Sure does,” Bruiser chuckled.
    Brett stared at his beer as if it held the
answers to world peace. “I wish I could take her.”
    “I wish you could, too. Cancel your
plans.”
    “I can’t. I’m in Portland judging a pet
parade fundraiser to benefit to an animal shelter. Remember? I
asked you, and you said no. Said you had commitments.”
    “Uh, yeah, that. My plans got cancelled.”
Bruiser had been outed. “I’m not good with animals.” Pets reminded
him too much of his own crappy upbringing with his barfly mother
and crazy-wild sister and their unattended menagerie of dogs and
cats. “Hey, I gave you a big check to help with expenses.”
    “You think money replaces people,
Bruce?”
    He didn’t have an answer for that. His
ex-wife, CeCe, would say money solved everything. She took half of
his rookie-year signing bonus and hooked up with a New York
quarterback so she could bask in the limelight of the Big Apple.
Bruiser had really loved that woman. Adored her, actually. They’d
been together since high school, dated all through college, and
married as soon as the Jacks drafted him in the first round. Less
than a year later, she left him with a broken heart and empty bank
account. She’d been one in a handful of people in his life who’d
deserted him, and after that Bruiser tore a page from his family’s
playbook and kept his relationships superficial. A guy didn’t get
fucked over that way.
    He had one simple rule when it came to
women: His one-week rule. Most didn’t last one entire night, but
none of them lasted a week. Not since CeCe. At least he hadn’t
confided his secret guilt to her. If she’d known the depth of his
private pain, she’d have used it and turned it back around on
him.
    She’d been his biggest fucking mistake.
Being betrayed by someone you loved and trusted sucked worse than
losing the Super Bowl in the last second of the game.
    He kept his relationships so superficial, he
didn’t even know much about Brett, his best friend, and he didn’t
ask, even though he suspected his buddy had similar scars from his
own past. Brett had interrupted his college education to become a
paratrooper. Sometimes Bruiser caught the tragic sadness in Brett’s
eyes and worried like hell about his friend, but he kept his
concerns to himself, holding the world at arm’s length and
concentrating on football and his foundation.
    Except lately he’d been concentrating on
Mac, which was fucking weird. Hell, he didn’t even know if she
cleaned up well—or cleaned up at all. A new image crashed into his
brain: Mac wrestling with him in a pit of warm, thick, gooey mud.
Her body covered with wet, soft dirt and her nipples standing out
against the material of a thin T-shirt and nothing else.
    Oh, hell. He smacked the flat of his palm
against his forehead.
    “What is wrong with you?” Brett narrowed his
eyes and studied Bruiser with a gaze that pierced way too deep.
    “Nothing, just got a headache. I’ll flip you
for the next round of drinks.”
    “Nah, I’m done for the night. Gotta get back
to the kids.” Brett’s kids consisted of a shitload of animal
rejects, which was why Bruiser never went to Brett’s place.
    “Catch ya later