A Perfect Ten (Forbidden Men #5)(19)

I was able to admit that.

Gamble snorted. “And you still don’t know who she was?”

I shook my head, not sure if I wanted to know. Yeah, I’m pretty sure I didn’t want to know. Because if it’d been who I wanted it to be, I’d be seriously f*cked. And if it hadn’t been who I wanted it to be, I’d be seriously...disappointed. “She lit out of there like her tail was on fire as soon as we finished. I’m telling you, she didn’t want me to know her identity.”

But that idea didn’t faze my friend. “Well, I don’t really blame the poor girl there,” he said with an obnoxious grin. “If I were a woman who had a thing for you, I’d be too humiliated to let anyone—even you—know about it.”

“Fucker.” It was my turn to kick him under the table.

He rolled his eyes as if he was way past such childish antics. “So, it was the best sex of your life, and you’ll never be able to get a repeat because you have no idea who to go to for night two. Nice, man. Way to f*ck yourself over.”

“Oh, shit.” I fell back in my chair, staring at him with my mouth open. “You’re right.”

I’d never get to f*ck that mystery woman again.

Not cool.

“Hey, guys.” A breathless Hamilton interrupted us by pulling out the free chair between us and slumping down with an exhausted pant.

Since he was only a sophomore, he still attended the team’s Saturday morning training sessions. Decked out in sweats and a T-shirt with his face shiny red with exertion and his hair wet from a recent shower, he’d obviously come straight from practice.

“What’d I miss?” he asked.

Gamble snickered, and I knew he was going to say something I’d have to beat his ass for a split second before he asked, “Hey, your woman didn’t get up in the middle of the night last night to, I don’t know...get a drink or go to the bathroom or anything, did she?”

“Jesus,” I muttered, tipping my head back and squeezing my eyes shut. He just had to go there, didn’t he?

“Uh...” Confusion clouded Ham’s voice as he glanced between the two of us. “I don’t think so. Why?” His gaze settled on me before moving back to Gam.

“Because Ten here had a midnight visitor in his room. Some chick came to him in the dark, f*cked his brains out, then ran out before he could get her name or even see her face, and he has no clue who it was.”

I ground my teeth at the vulgar way he put it. Which was strange, because on any other occasion, I would’ve phrased it pretty much the same way. But since I was picturing her with Caroline’s qualities, it suddenly didn’t seem so funny to say it like that.

Hamilton’s eyebrows crinkled in confusion before they shot straight up into his hairline. He whirled to me with an incredulous glance. “And you think it was Zoey?”

“No.” I lifted my hands in immediate surrender. I mean, I wasn’t puny by any stretch of the imagination. But Ham was huge, and I was pretty sure he could take me if I offended his woman in any way. “I know it wasn’t her. And I never thought it was. That asswipe over there came up with that idea all on his own.”

Ham zipped his stern glare to Gamble.

“Whoa,” Gamble said, lifting his hands too, but laughing as he did so. “I was just f*cking with you guys. Jesus. Who would’ve been your first guess?”

“Some football groupie,” Hamilton said immediately.

Caroline, I didn’t say at all.

I groaned into my hands before dropping them from my face. “The fact of the matter is, I have no idea who Miss Midnight Visitor was, and I’m sure I never will. So let’s just drop it already. Okay? Good.”

Knowing I was never going to dip my wick in that sweet honeypot was beginning to irritate me.

Jesus, why was everything irritating me today?

Ham and Gam glanced at me. Then they glanced at each other. When they gave one another a knowing grin, I rolled my eyes. But God...damn. I missed the days when all my friends had been as single and available as I was. Now that they were all * whipped, they seemed to think I should be too, like f*cking one woman for the rest of my life was such a grand, amazing thing.

Dear God. The horror. Unless maybe that one woman felt like the woman last night had felt. Then maybe—nah. I shuddered at the thought, and leaned forward to pay attention to my calculus book. “Coach still lining you up as the first-string quarterback next year?” I asked Ham.

He cleared his throat, glanced at Gam, and then nodded. “Yeah.”

Gamble had been the star QB of our team until he’d broken his collarbone on the second to last game this last year. So Hamilton had needed to step in and bring us the rest of the way to the national championships. We all knew it bothered Gamble because he hadn’t been able to play that last game, and he’d lost his shot to try out for the pros. Even though he said he was happy settling down here with his woman and taking care of his three younger siblings—whom he’d taken away from his mother after she practically abandoned them—we knew it bugged him.

“Aspen find a job yet?” Ham asked him, hopefully.

When Gam looked up, we knew she hadn’t from the tightening in his jaw. “No,” he muttered.

She’d been unemployed for going on a year now, ever since she’d been fired for starting a relationship with him. Which brought up another sore issue with Gamble. He felt like a personal failure every time she applied for a new job and wasn’t hired. But then he wouldn’t even let her apply for jobs that he found “beneath” her. If their money was as tight as I knew it had to be, you’d think he’d just suck it up and let her be...well, whatever, for a while. But nope. He stayed stubborn. And she knew how much it would bother him if she “lowered” herself, as he called it, so she stayed unemployed and they just kept scrimping along. And I kept pretending it was my turn to pay for all our Saturday morning drinks at the coffee shop. And Gamble just kept letting me.