2. Storm

2

STORM

"Storm," Zeke said to me as I walked into the tattoo studio. "Never thought I'd see you around here again after our last session."

I grinned at him and gave him a fist bump and a hug. "I swear I won't cry this time. The last one hurt like hell, but this one will be easy. I hope."

"What are you looking for?"

"If you've got the time, just this," I said, holding out the small printed-out line art of the Denver Ferals claw symbol. "For the back of my right shoulder."

"Always have time for you," Zeke said, already reaching over to his supplies to begin tracing the art. "How are you, man?"

"Living life, loving life, and ready to play football," I said, meaning every word of it. "So hyped for this new season."

"I keep seeing you in the news," Zeke said, casting me a glance from above his thick-rimmed glasses. Zeke was old, greying, and had always treated me like he was my tough-guy tattoo artist grandpa.

I rolled my eyes. "They never leave me alone. Did you see the headlines from earlier this week?"

He shook his head as he traced out my tattoo art. "Something bad happen?"

I grabbed my phone, navigating to one of the dumb, sensational news articles that had been published about me a few days ago.

"Bunch of bullshit," I said, showing him the phone. " Police Called on Storm Rosling Again—Badass or Menace to Society? How am I a menace to society?"

He scanned the headline. "Wow, police actually came down," he said quietly.

"The headlines make it seem like I was causing a scene. But the other asshole was the one trying to start something."

Zeke chuckled. "That's what they all say."

"Fair. But it's actually the truth."

He nodded. I turned around as he started to place the tattoo stencil onto my back shoulder, and I checked it out in the mirror and approved.

"So what happened?" he asked as he finalized the placement.

"Well, I was at the bar down in Denver with Kace Tomlin," I said.

"God, that guy's a good player," Zeke said. "You're the best player, of course, but Tomlin is a beast."

"Oh, he's beyond my level, no doubt," I said. "Best thing about being part of the Ferals is that I get to play alongside a QB like Kace. But this meathead in the bar called Kace something that I couldn't tolerate."

Zeke frowned at me. "What did he say?"

"The kind of thing that a fucking homophobe calls an openly gay guy like Kace," I said. "I've only known Kace personally for a couple of months, but I'm not letting anyone call him that. So, I threatened to sock the guy in the jaw."

"But you didn't actually punch him?"

"Got close," I said. "But the police got called, and because I'm the media's favorite darling these days, the headlines end up making me look like a ragehead."

Zeke whistled. "You're not a ragehead. You are a badass, though. They got that right."

I gave him a little wink. "You know it."

"Sit back," he said. "This claw ain't going to tattoo itself."

I pulled in a long breath, lying back down face-first on the tattoo bench. I groaned. "I'm not ready."

"You never are."

The buzzing of the tattoo gun began, and I groaned as Zeke put the tattoo needle to the skin above my shoulder. I winced, breathing deep.

The upper back wasn't even the most painful place to get a tattoo. If anything, it should have been relaxing. Most people didn't bat an eyelash at upper back tattoos, but even the small claw I was getting today hurt like a bitch.

I'd been knocked out on the football field, had broken bones, and gotten into plenty of fights back when I was a teenager, but tattoos were still the one thing that made me feel like a little baby.

But I was getting the little claw, no matter how much it hurt.

Because I was proud as fuck to be a member of the Denver Ferals.

The team that had always been my team, growing up. When I was poorer than dirt, made fun of, and told I was trash as a kid in school, I'd come home and watch recorded Ferals games over and over, wishing I could be one of them.

I thought it could never happen.

But I was one of them, now.

I'd now been a pro football player for six years, after starting out as a late-round draft pick for Texas who nobody cared about. Over the years, I'd become better and better. A whole fucking lot better. A wide receiver good enough to be picked for the Ferals.

My Ferals.

That was why I was going to get their signature claw tattoo alongside the others on my back. And why I wasn't going to let anyone talk shit about my new friend and teammate Kace. I wasn't gay, but I'd always hated homophobes. Who the hell cared if a guy wanted other guys, anyway?

I white-knuckled my way through the rest of the tattoo. Afterward, Zeke showed me what it looked like in the mirror. A fierce Ferals claw, just above the long-stem rose for my mom and my grandpop's initials.

"You're the best, Zeke," I said after the session was over. "Got to get back home for this renovation meeting, otherwise I'd ask if you wanted lunch."

"You're redoing your new place?"

I nodded. "First nice place I've ever bought. I want to make it my own. The house has fucking killer bones, but it was an old rich guy's third vacation home, and he really didn't take good care of the place. When it's all done, I'll invite you to the housewarming party, don't even worry."

"Hey," Zeke said, patting my back. "Try to stay out of the headlines, okay?"

"I don't change myself for anyone, and I don't hold back," I said. "But I never fight just to fight. People who really know me always know that."

"That's why we love you," Zeke said. "I'll be watching the games!"

A few minutes later, I was back in my Bronco and taking off up toward the mountain. All around me, I could just see the leaves starting to change from green to yellow, and the air that blew in from the open windows was… cold.

Fucking cold . Already. It made my heart ache.

I hated fall.

The worst fucking season.

I knew that as a pro football player, I should have loved the start of a season. But what I loved was football , not fall.

Fall reminded me of school. The start of a school year was always like an omen from hell, for me. Back when I was a kid and teenager, school meant dealing with the kids who treated me like dirt, and eventually, the fights I'd always get in when they made fun of me endlessly.

Trailer Trash was just one of the nicknames I'd had. It stuck around even when Mom got us an apartment instead of the old trailer, because by then, it's what the whole school knew me by.

Even now, as an adult, fall just meant that summer—the best season—was over. Fewer cookouts, fewer parties. The only good thing about fall was football, actually. What I'd dedicated my life to. I loved my mom first, football second. Just about everything else I could take or leave.

The Bronco's engine roared as I climbed the mountain roads up and out of Denver toward the edge of Jade River, where I'd purchased my home.

It still felt strange calling it my own. I wasn't joking when I'd told Zeke it was the first place that really felt like mine . I'd been pro for years now, and logically I had known I had tons of money even in my first year being pro.

But the idea of having money— real money—hadn't even sunk in until this year, when the Ferals had signed me.

Somewhere inside me was a little kid that still felt like trailer trash.

And until this year, I'd still lived in an apartment. A nice enough one, but still. I didn't know how to process that I was rich, and the only things I'd done with my money until now were buying the Bronco and always making sure my mom was taken care of.

And I still hated rich pricks. Like the old guy who'd owned my house before me and apparently didn't even give a damn to take care of it properly.

I finally pulled up along my driveway, glancing over toward my neighbor's house along the way.

He was probably the kind of rich prick I hated. I hadn't met him yet, but I'd seen his stupid red Porsche driving down his driveway at different times of day, and his stupider red Ferrari on the weekends.

Goddamn flashy cars.

Hell, I still felt weird about driving my nice Bronco, even though it wasn't anything compared to a Ferrari.

"Hello, boys," I said out the window as I pulled up in front of my house and saw Nathan and Shawn from the Fixer Brothers, already waiting out front. "Sorry I'm a little late. Grabbed a tattoo down in Denver. Wait, Oreo, how are you already out? Rascal."

"Her name's Oreo?" Shawn asked, crouching low to pet my little mutt dog. "She's been playful here out front since we got here."

I hopped out of the Bronco, nodding as I walked over the gravel toward the house. "The wooden fence in the backyard is just one of many things the previous owner didn't take care of," I said. "Oreo keeps managing to escape, but luckily she never runs more than twenty steps away in any direction. Get over here, you munchkin."

Oreo bounded over toward me and I scooped her up, covering her soft hair in little kisses.

"We can make this house stunning with some simple restorations and small renovations," Nathan said, glancing across the house. "You weren't kidding when you told us it has good bones."

"Ready for the walk-through?" I asked. "Didn't you guys say your new marketing guy was joining today?"

Nathan squinted down toward the street. "He's usually always early to meetings, but I haven't seen his car pull up."

I set Oreo down, expecting her to saunter back toward the front door as usual, but her ears perked up, looking over toward my neighbor's house.

"What have you got, girl?" I asked her. "Is it another fox?"

Oreo trotted off toward the cluster of pines that dotted the border between my property and the neighbor's. A few moments later I heard the crunch of gravel coming from that direction, and Nathan made a noise of recognition.

"Oh! There he is. Emmett!" Nathan said, leaning to look through a clearing in the pine trees. "You're at the wrong house. It's this one, over here."

A man ducked through the pine tree clearing.

…A man dressed like he was about to go to a seven-course dinner at a freaking English royal castle.

Oreo bounded over toward him and jumped up on his leg, begging for attention like she always did.

"Oreo. Hey," I said in a commanding tone, noticing the dusty pawprints she was leaving on suit pants that were likely thousands of dollars. "Down. Get down. Sorry, haven't taught her not to jump on people's nice suits yet."

"Don't worry about the pawprints," he said, reaching down to ruffle a hand through Oreo's hair and dust off the pawprints. "I've got plenty of other custom suits in my closet."

"Got a custom suit for each day of the week?" I joked.

"More than that."

I looked back up at him expecting him to laugh or wink or at least crack a smile—but it turned out he was being completely serious.

Fuck. He was strikingly handsome, like a movie star, but he apparently didn't have a sense of humor to save his life.

Rich guy and no sense of humor?

Not a good combo.

"Storm, this is Emmett," Shawn said. "We're going to be working closely with him for marketing the Fixer Brothers brand going forward."

Emmett gave me a look, his shrewd green eyes scanning over my body. Was he already judging my clothes—my simple athletic shorts and a loose tank top to give my new tattoo room to breathe?

He looked like Leonardo DiCaprio in the Great Gatsby movie, or something. The kind of guy that should have a blonde supermodel on his arm and a martini glass in his hand. Handsome, probably Ivy League educated, and most likely soulless.

Exactly the type of person that had always looked right through me, back in the day.

Like I was nothing.

"Nice to finally meet you, Storm," Emmett said, holding out a hand to shake mine. "Regardless of whether or not you end up ultimately working with the Fixer Brothers, I'm glad to finally meet my new neighbor."

Double fuck.

I had an inkling that the guy might be my neighbor, judging by the suit and that he'd walked over rather than driven. And what the hell did he mean by whether or not I ended up working with the Fixer Brothers? I was excited to be their client, and thought it was all but a done deal.

"Nice to meet you," I said, shaking his hand. "I've tried to come over to your house a couple of times this week with a gift of a fancy bottle of tequila, but you don't seem to be home much."

"I do keep busy," he said. "Your little fluffball's been in my yard almost every day this week, though."

"Oreo's been over there, too?" I said. "Shit. I thought she just kept escaping to the front."

"Something needs to be done about the fence," Emmett said, glaring over toward the backyard.

"Yes," I said pointedly glancing over his stupid fancy suit again. "I'm aware of that. That's why I'm enlisting the help of the Fixer Brothers."

"I'll be damned," Nathan interjected, grinning wide as he stepped up beside us. "You two are neighbors! Well, this will be fun."

" If you end up taking on Storm's house as a renovation project," Emmett clarified.

Nathan threw out his arms, looking back at my house. "I don't see why we wouldn't. This place is going to shine up beautifully with some TLC and a few sledgehammers."

I cut a glance at Emmett, wondering what the hell his deal was.

He was already acting like he was somehow better than me, in that classic rich-prickish way, and I'd barely met the guy.

"Well, should we head in?" Shawn said, clapping his hands together.

"So long as Storm doesn't push us out through his front door," Emmett said, smiling slightly as he looked at me.

A flash of anger flared through me.

He was referencing a time when I'd pushed someone out of my front door, and the media had gone wild covering the story.

Okay.

So he did have a sense of humor—just an undeniably prickish one.

And it was clear he had seen some of my less-flattering news headlines from last year.

"Hey, Fancy Pants," I said to him, "when I pushed that guy out of my house, I wasn't trying to hurt him. And you don't have the whole story. Nobody in the media did."

Emmett's jade-green eyes landed on me. "I read that he broke a wrist trying to break his fall."

I set my jaw. "Well, what you didn't get to read is the whole story. And that the reason he was in my apartment is because he entered uninvited," I said. "And that he was drunk, belligerent, and was the abusive ex-husband of my friend Sarah. She was at my house looking for a place to escape him, so yeah, I fucking tossed him out the front door."

Anger had stirred up inside my chest, but I was glad to have a reason to put Mr. Fucking Fancy Pants in his place.

"Holy shit," Shawn said quietly from beside us. "I'd seen those headlines, but I had no idea, either."

Emmett was silent.

Finally I'd gotten the pretty-boy prince to shut up.

"I didn't expect him to slip and break a wrist, of course, but I wasn't going to let him come in and hurt Sarah. Not for anything."

"It was a bad joke to make," Emmett said, pulling in a breath and smoothing out his suit. "I apologize. And sure, let's take the house tour now. See if it could potentially be a fit for the Fixer Brothers show."

Man, this guy was going to get under my skin.

My house could "potentially" be a fit? What the hell?

My spidey-senses were tingling, and I puzzled out the stick up Emmett's ass from a mile away.

He was a marketing guy.

A rich, greedy, marketing guy, who saw nothing but dollar signs with the Fixer Brothers—and nothing but trouble with me. It clicked inside me like stadium lights turning on all at once, pouring light out onto a field.

Emmett didn't want me to be the next client on the Fixer Brothers' TV show.

And that was exactly why I was going to make sure I was.