Talkin' Trash
Page 41

My guess it was likely the beer he’d been holding, but I hadn’t given it much time to look at as I’d made my way by him.
Once I was at the railing that separated the field from the front row seats, I looked around for Linc, finding him sitting on his ass at the fifteen-yard line as a couple of athletic trainers asked him questions.
He took his helmet off moments later and then shook his head as he held out his hand to a teammate and waited to be helped up.
It didn’t take long, and then he was standing.
The stadium around him roared at finding out that he was okay, and he walked gingerly off the field, slightly favoring his left foot.
He barely made it to the sideline before an irrational surge of anger surged through me.
“Linc!”
There was a one in a thousand chance that he’d hear me, but I wanted him to know that I was there.
I also wanted him to know that I was pissed at him.
Linc’s head snapped up as if he’d heard his name called and started to look around.
His eyes stopped on the empty seat that likely was where I was supposed to be sitting and then moved on.
His gaze roamed over me, passing me almost as if he didn’t see me, and then returned to me a split second later.
When he was staring at me in stunned silence, I raised my hand and flipped him off.
His mouth dropped open farther.
“Ma’am.” I heard from my right. “Gonna have to ask you to find your seat. You can’t stand here.”
I did so, ignoring the man on my right, and making my way down the row to my seat.
I had no clue who I’d passed on my way to the chair, but I felt their eyes on me as I moved.
I also felt somewhat exposed in what I was wearing. Especially with the way Linc’s eyes never once left me as I moved.
I pushed the seat’s bottom down and turned, placing my ass in it, only then realizing that the reason Linc had heard me was because we were less than ten yards away from the team.
I crossed my arms in front of me and offered him my best glare.
He looked at me worriedly.
But, what he did not look like, was unaffected like I’d seen him look so many times over the last couple of weeks when I’d watched his games.
Honestly, he looked like he’d like nothing better than to run up and hold his hands up for me to fall into his arms.
Something that, despite being mad at him, I wanted to do very badly.
God, I was so fucking furious with him.
Honestly, I could happily sock him straight in the face, and not feel the least bit bad about it at this point.
But what I also wanted to do was wrap my arms around him and tell him how sorry that I was for being such a selfish cow when he had no control of his situation. When he’d been so thoroughly violated.
I drew in a shaky breath and felt the first tear slip down my cheek.
He saw that tear fall, and he closed his eyes, looking like I’d just dropped a ten-ton boulder on his shoulder.
I hastily wiped away the tear and hoped that my being there wouldn’t affect his playing.
Then I decided that I didn’t care if he wanted me there or not, or whether he played like shit.
We had some things to talk about, and me being there, alone in a crowd as large as the particular one I was in, wouldn’t have gone unnoticed.
He wouldn’t leave me alone because there was no way in hell that I could be at his game, sitting in my current seat, and not garner the attention of plenty of reporters.
No, he wouldn’t leave me alone.
That I knew with certainty.
I crossed my leg over my opposite knee and felt my shorts ride up even higher.
It didn’t go unnoticed by Linc, either.
In fact, I think he became more alert.
His eyes swung to someone behind me, who I’d been paying zero attention to the entire time I’d been sitting there, and his eyes narrowed.
And suddenly he was stalking toward me with a towel in his hand and tossing it at me once he was close enough.
“Cover your thighs,” he ordered.
My brows rose. “How about you make me?”
His jaw clenched, and I noticed that the sweat that was plastering his hair to his skull was making him look like he had a Mohawk going on.
“Put it over your lap before your entire crotch is plastered on national television,” he growled.
I leaned forward then, getting down on my knees so that I could get my face as close to his as possible.
Unfortunately, seeing as I was in the stands and raised a few feet over him, the only thing I could really see was the top of his head with how close he was standing.
I leaned through the bars that were supposed to stop the fans from jumping out onto the field and reached forward until my hand was hooked into the V his jersey made with his shoulder pads. I yanked him to me.
“Unless you want the entire goddamn world to know that I’m really pissed off at you, I suggest you stop telling me what to do and go play your little game. Then, when you’re done, you come get me so I can chew your ass out in private.” I paused. “And I can’t believe you would keep your hospital stay so quiet. How could you do that to me?”
Linc’s eyes narrowed. “Who told you?”
I laughed and sat back, or I would have had he not caught me much the same way I’d been holding onto him.
And before I could so much as blast him with a protest, he slammed his mouth down onto mine.
“I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to get hurt,” he said. “We needed to figure shit out, and honestly, it was easier to have you think I was a piece of shit than to have you in the line of fire.”
Before I could condemn him for his overprotectiveness, he let me go and jogged backward, straight onto the field where he was up to play next.
I gracefully got back into my chair, but I did cover my lap with the towel he’d given me.
It still had his sweat on it, and I swear, I only brought it to my face once and smelled it.
Chapter 20
Telling her to calm down is child’s play. If you really want to see her eyes spit fire, tell her she’s acting like her mother.
-Linc’s secret thoughts
Linc
Elation poured through my veins as the game clock ticked down, and the final buzzer sounded, signaling the end of the game.
While everyone celebrated, I walked over to where Conleigh was still waiting, looking just as pissed as when she arrived over two hours ago.
Nodding at the security guard who was standing beside the barrier, ready to stop anyone trying to throw themselves onto the field, I held my hands up for Conleigh to come to me.
She didn’t hesitate.
Instead, she climbed over the railing, then jumped down to me almost before I was ready for her.
She hit me with an “oomph” of exhaled breath and tightened her arms around my neck.
Her arms were resting on my shoulder pads, and she was staring at me like I’d just broken her heart.
I might have.
Multiple times at that point.
“I’m going to kill you, stupid,” she whispered.
Her words weren’t nice, but the way she sounded saying them said more than the words themselves.
“I’m sorry,” I repeated.
I’d said that so many times at this point, it was probably not holding any meaning whatsoever.
But I’d say the words until I was blue in the face, because I was goddamn sorry.
The last two months had been sheer hell being away from her.
At first, it was because the paparazzi had a field day with the pictures.
Then, about two weeks ago when the media frenzy with the pictures died down, it was about the fact that Tantor had gone to ground and hadn’t been found since.
After setting me up, he seemed content with the havoc that he’d wrought.
So content, in fact, that he had seemingly dropped off the face of the earth, and he’d stayed out of sight since.
Hell, even Tyson hadn’t seen him. According to him, that was a big deal seeing as he loved to torture Tyson every chance he got.
My guess was that he was making other things happen, things we weren’t going to like all that much.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked.
I was worried that the things Tantor was working on were going to break me, and I was terrified that in doing so, he’d take Conleigh out, too.