Rookie Move (Playing for Keeps #1)(13)

“All of them?” Ramsey squinted, then gave me the same narrow-eyed look. “I didn’t realize you had a thing for huge age gaps. Or orgies.”

“No, it’s…” I looked again at their table. Sometime between beer five and eleventy-three, the hot guys had been replaced by a trio of white-hairs. “Shit,” I muttered, then shrugged. “I’ll find someone. It won’t take long.”

Ramsey shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“I’m not going back to Houston’s, dude. Not tonight.”

I guess I said it so vehemently that I gave Ramsey pause because, after a couple of beats, he exhaled a long-suffering sigh and said, “You can crash at my place.”

My lips twisted in a smirk, but before I could say a word, he frowned sternly at me.

“Whatever you’re thinking? No. You’re not doing anything but going to sleep.”

“That doesn’t mean no action can happen.” I waggled my brows. “Pornhub says so, and I give you my explicit consent to have your way with me.”

“Jesus Christ.” He stood and gestured for me to do the same. “Don’t make me regret this.”

“Literally the same thing the last guy I took home said to me.” I grinned as Ramsey groaned. “He didn’t regret it, though.”

“I’m already regretting it. Get your ass to the car.”





“Damn,” I said, as we walked through the door of Ramsey’s Cedar Grove pad thirty-five minutes and multiple Journey and Gaga songs later—my request. “This is pretty sweet.” It was a mansion, no doubt, but not ostentatious. I noted lots of windows and a contemporary vibe. The muted colors gave it a lived-in feel I dug immediately. “It is lacking a floor compass to tell me where the bathrooms are.”

Ramsey shut the door behind me and locked it. “Down that hall and to the far left. That’s also where the guest room is.”

“Gotcha. Who’s staying in the guest room?”

He rolled his eyes at me. “I’m gonna grab you a couple of bottles of water and some vitamins.”

I waited for him to tack on, Don’t touch anything, but he just gave me another amused up and down, then turned and walked off.

I went down the hallway, used the bathroom, located the guest room, and then wandered a little farther, peeking in doorways. There was a staircase to the second floor, so I figured I should explore that too. I found what must have been the master and checked it out while I was at it. Bed neatly made. Did he have a housekeeper? I was betting he did.

I ran a hand over some furry throw at the end of the bed that was softer than anything I’d felt in my life. I wondered if Ramsey liked a soft or firm mattress. I should find out for myself. I lifted my arms and free-fell face-first onto the mattress. Fuck, it was perfect. Firm, but not too firm. Soft, but not too soft.

I closed my eyes, deciding I’d just rest there a second.

“Hey.”

I cracked one eye. Had a second passed, or had it been longer? “Sleeping. Go away,” I mumbled into the plush comforter.

“Yeah, in my bed. Get your ass up. I put some water bottles on the bedside table in the guest room, which is where you should be heading now.” Ramsey nudged the back of my leg, and I rolled over, offering him a bleary smile. Jesus, beer goggles just made him exponentially more attractive than his baseline smoking-hot status. Especially when he was standing over me at the end of the bed. Too bad he was still wearing all his clothes and staring at me sternly.

“Sure you don’t want me to just stay?”

It was a testament to how drunk I was that, for a second, I could’ve sworn Ramsey was considering it. Then he shook his head with a chuckle.

“You’re a hot fucking mess, G. Now get your ass out of my bed.”

“Fine.” I heaved myself upright and focused on moving toward the bedroom door with as much grace as I could manage, but slowly enough to give him time to change his mind.

He didn’t.





3





RAMSEY





I groaned when my cell rang. I worried it was someone I wouldn’t want to talk to. Scratch that. When it came to the phone, there was no one I wanted to talk to. In a world of texting, I didn’t get why anyone called unless it had to do with business.

Ignoring it, I continued grabbing clothes from my dresser. I was leaving in the morning for training camp, where I’d spend two weeks participating in constant practice and fitness testing, where rookies always ended up running so hard, they puked. Not me, because fuck that noise. I was too old for that shit. I knew how to prepare to make sure it didn’t happen. But for the rookies, it was a whole world away from college ball, and this would be their first introduction to that. Some might get cut from the team before it was over.

That immediately made me think of Garrett. “You’re hot. Ridiculously hot.” It wasn’t the first time those words had played through my head since he’d spoken them two weeks before. I’d heard them before, so there was no reason for me to be obsessed with the tone of Garrett’s voice when they’d slipped past his lips, or the way his eyes firmly held on to mine, like he couldn’t look away even if he’d tried.

And that was maybe one of the dumbest things I’d ever thought.