ROMANCE: SPORTS ROMANCE: Bad Boys of Sports: A Complete Collection (Alpha Male, Football, Hockey Secret Baby Romance) (Contemporary Sports Romance) Read Free Page B

me? The memory of the yearbook out on my coffee table sent a shiver through me. There was not a chance that he was even remotely interested in me. Not now. He was famous. Maybe he just wanted a small town hookup, I wondered.  Just like the last time.
    “Someone told me,” he said slowly. “I heard that you’ve been working here for a while…” My stomach dropped.
    A silent tension rose between us. I sucked in a deep breath.
    “School didn’t work out. I missed home,” I said as casually as I could as if it were no big deal. Saying it out loud didn’t sound as bad as it had when I rehearsed it over and over again in my mind. I’d always imagined that it would’ve sounded more dramatic, more depressing.
    But it was hard to think about anything when I was staring at him. His eyes were colder than I remembered, but they sparked with something – something that made a person want to know about.
    “I miss this place sometimes,” he said with a growing smile, a hint of wickedness at the corner. “Well, not everything about this place, but certain people. Like you.”
    His gaze was melting me. My body flushed with heat. Was Blaze Hadley flirting with me? Not that he hadn’t before, and it had the same effect as before.
    His face from that night, the sound of his voice, the feeling of his hands… The way we’d talked in stolen moments for a month leading up to that party. Nobody knew he liked to read. Or that I laughed harder with him than with anyone else. He liked my violin, and I liked his sweet voice.
    A vision of a tabloid threw cold water on my rising nostalgia. I bit my lip. The headlines were always clear. I’d seen the pictures, and I pushed them away because that wasn’t an idea I could entertain.
    “I need to go home now, Blaze. I’m sorry.”
    Fame changes people. He used to wear a smile, but it’s a smirk now.
     

Chapter Six
     
     
     
     
     
    Blaze
     
    I never thought I could be jealous of a shirt.
    But, I’d sacrifice my soul to be the fabric that’s hugging her. Shit. Caroline said Emma looked good. The hint of dark circles underneath her eye made her even better somehow. Her sweetness had a biting edge. I’d come storming in and dragged her out using my celebrity prowess.
    “I need to go home now, Blaze. I’m sorry.”
    Shit. What I wouldn’t do to just get her to have a beer with me. She has walls up; that’s for sure. I can feel them almost tangibly as I stood next to her. Her eyes darted to the bus stop behind me. It’s clear to me that those gorgeous baby blues don’t want a thing to do with me.
    Why the fuck am I standing here then? Move, Blaze. Leave her be. If she’s not interested, then I should just leave.
    “I’ve got to catch the bus,” she said with and a sharpness in voice. I hear embarrassment in her voice too, and it infuriates me. She should be taken around in a damn carriage. God, I must be a masochist for chasing this.
    She moved to go, but I’ve gotten too far to let her slip past me.
    “Let me drive you home.”
    Her mouth twists. I curse myself for never fully appreciating those lips.
    “I don’t know…”
    “I insist. It’ll be quicker.” Maybe it’s dark circles from a lack of sleep.
    She nods, giving in. “Okay, Blaze.” A real smile creeps up on my face.
    My truck is at the end of the street. I grab the door for her, watch her lean away from me as she climbs in. When I circle to my side, I sigh then, so she doesn’t hear my disappointment.
    The steady hum of my truck makes up a bulk of the conversation for the first two minutes. She leaned up against the window, eyelashes fluttering as she stared out at the passing terrain. A few unfamiliar faces waved when they saw me pass, but I can’t bother to cater to them just now.
    “Everyone loves you here,” she said.
    “People like football. A lot.”
    She snorted softly. “Don’t downplay it. Where’s that famous ego I’ve read about?”
    My smirk was automatic. “I’m not that bad. I