Ballsy

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  COPYRIGHT

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  ALSO BY TEAGAN KADE:

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  EPILOGUE

  BALLSY

  Teagan Kade

  * * * * *

  Published by Teagan Kade

  Edited by Sennah Tate

  Copyright © 2019 by Teagan Kade

  COPYRIGHT

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

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  ALSO BY TEAGAN KADE:

  HOT PANTS

  SAVAGE

  VICE

  RECKLESS

  PUCK BUDDIES

  FERAL

  WINTER MIRACLE

  ADAGIO

  BRUTE

  BLAZE

  HUSTLE

  LAWLESS

  LONG GAME

  DIRTY DEBT

  LOADED

  AMPED

  DRILLED

  DIRTY BRAWLER

  WRECKED

  SLAMMED

  STROKER

  STRIKER

  THROTTLE

  ROYALLY WRONG

  HITCHED

  CHASING STORM

  DEDICATION

  For all my Kaders. Thank you for your support.

  CHAPTER ONE

  JOEY

  I close the fridge and stare at the spread in front of me. Plenty of greens? Check. Protein? And lots of it. Carbs? Nowhere to be seen.

  Looks like lunch to me. I nod and smile to myself, biting my lip as I do so. It’s a nervous habit I developed as a teenager, checking over my work then doing my bite-smile to myself when I crossed an item off my to-do list. I once overheard Kieran telling Baylor I looked rather sexy doing it, which earned him a smack from Baylor and one hell of a blush from me. Well, accompanied with the smile-and-bite to boot. He never saw me, of course. Any time he was over after that, or I saw him out and about, I made a conscious effort to bite my lip.

  I never managed to elicit a reaction from him aside from a couple of stares here and there (mostly when Baylor wasn’t looking), but I succeeded in hard-wiring the once-occasional tic and making it into one of my signature habits.

  God, why am I thinking about all of this?

  If I’m being truthful with myself, it’s because thinking about Kieran is one of those things I’ve become a pro at.

  As if on cue, Kieran scuttles into the kitchen without noticing me. There’s a rag wrapped around his left hand he’s holding in an almost cradling-like fashion. I barely notice because I’m too busy holding my breath, same as I always do when I see him. Especially when he’s wearing the team jersey… and is glistening-with-sweat-but-not-too-much… and there are strands of his hair stuck to his forehead… and his cheeks are red and flushed from exertion.

  My thoughts head south. Mmm, cheeks.

  My life would be so much easier if my brother’s best friend wasn’t such an absolute babe, I’ll tell you that much.

  “Hey,” I say, breaking the silence. It’s still unclear if he’s even aware I’m here. “If you’re here for lunch, you’re still a little early.” I look at the clock and frown in response. “A lot early, actually. Did Coach finish early today? I’m going to need a few more—”

  “Hey, Joey,” Kieran says, interrupting me. He’s sounding just a touch out of breath. “Do you know where the first-aid kit is?” He stares at me, and the first thing I notice is the green of his irises. The second thing is that he looks pale, like, Edward Cullen levels of pale.

  “Is everything okay?” My frown lines deepen. I scan the kitchen, trying to gather my thoughts.

  The first aid kit should be… Hmm…

  “Joey?” Kieran says, waving his rag-clad hand at me. “Earth to Joey?”

  “Sorry, I was just trying to remember where my last assistant kept it. She liked to rearrange everything.” I think for another second and then fix my gaze on him again, and his hand. “Why do you need it? Did you get hurt?”

  “Oh, it’s nothing.” As if on instinct, he retracts his arm, flattening it against his body. He flinches, which tells me that yup, he’s hurt alright.

  “Tsk.” I click my tongue. “Lying to your nutritionist like that is grounds to eat nothing but coleslaw for a week. Come on, let me see it.”

  Kieran does that full-body sigh of his, the one that telegraphs his frustration. At what? I wonder. Finally, he offers his hand. I take it, gingerly, feeling this energy surround us, the sort of electricity I’m sure would crackle and pop if it were to make any noise. It takes every last ounce of willpower I have to not lose my train of thought, because even when he’s distracted and hurt, Kieran St. James is nothing short of dazzling.

  Yes, I un-ironically used that word. Dazzling.

  I would die if he could hear my thoughts, I think, unwrapping the rag. One roll. Two. Three. That’s when I see the crimson—fresh blood.

  “Kieran!” I exclaim, tearing it off.

  A gash stretches from just under his index finger and across the palm of his hand, nearly reaching his wrist, oozing blood.

  “It looks worse than it is.” But he takes a peek at it, gulps, and throws the rag over the wound. Is it just me or did he get a shade whiter?

  Forget Twilight. He’s going full snowman on me.

  “I don’t think that’s possible,” I retort, immediately jumping to action.

  My last assistant may have been a pain in the ass, but she had a system. She also liked to narrate her every movement, so whenever I need to locate something that had been displaced during her tenure, I imagine her thought process. It’s been pretty handy, actually, especially when my new assistant needs to find something I haven’t yet thought to track down and put back according to the old system.

  I’m a bit of a neat freak. That should go without saying. Marie Kondo eat your heart out.

  “Thinking about Tina?” Kieran asks.

  He knows about my little process for finding lost items.

  “Yeah.”

  He nods but doesn’t say anything else, which I appreciate, because it allows me to focus. I remember her finding the tin box where we keep all sorts of bandages and disinfectants, and wrinkl
ing her nose.

  ‘A first aid? In the kitchen? That’s just unsanitary. This should be in your office,’ she’d said.

  I hadn’t been paying attention to her because Kieran ‘Super Bowl of Sexiness’ had strolled into the kitchen shirtless. He had been drinking a glass of water at the time… half full… beads of moisture on the rim.

  Damn.

  It’s not a bad memory.

  Down girl, I warn myself. Back to the first-aid kit.

  “A-ha!” I run over to the room adjacent to the kitchen, a glorified closet with barely enough space to put a desk and a chair while still being able to close the door. I yank the first drawer open and rummage through it pretty minimally until I find the tin, buried under a pile of paper. My neat freak tendencies don’t extend to my desk or its drawers. It’s a touchy subject, that.

  “Got it?” Kieran calls.

  “Yeah,” I shout, pulling the box out and nudging the drawer closed with my butt. I hurry back out, place the box on the kitchen counter, and reach for Kieran’s hand.

  “Oh, no, Joey, let me do that—”

  “Nope.” I shake my head. “How on earth are you going to clean your left hand? You’re not a righty.”

  “That is… a good point,” he concedes.

  We exchange a smile, and I’m glad to see his shoulders relax and a little color return to his complexion.

  You can moon at him later, Jo. Chop chop.

  I take his hand in mine and examine the damage. I love touching him. It would be awesome to have it happen under different circumstances, sure, but I’ll take what I can get.

  The blood has started to clot in the interim since I last saw the cut, but it hasn’t fully ceased flowing just yet. I examine his flesh, thankful I’m not as queasy around blood as he seems to be. I dig into the first aid kit, looking for supplies.

  It’s almost adorable seeing such a hulky hunk of a man brought down by a drop of blood.

  “First, let’s get this cleaned up…” I start, even though I haven’t had to play nurse for a good long while—long enough for the kit to nearly go missing, anyway. I move in a quick, systematic manner. “Heads up, this might sting a bit.”

  Kieran jerks up and inhales sharply, but that’s it. I work as quickly as I can, dabbing as gingerly as possible. The used gauze piles up next to us. For the next several minutes, it’s quiet. Peaceful.

  “You’re really good at that,” Kieran comments.

  And just like that the tension I always feel when I’m around him builds. It thickens the air around us and makes it nearly impossible for me to concentrate without stealing a few glances at him. Every time I do, we make eye contact because, hell, he’s staring at me, too.

  Tingles rain down my spine. My toes flex in my flats.

  “I used to do this for Baylor a lot when we were kids,” I confess, thankful to have something to fill the silence. “He’s gotten better about not getting all cut up during practice, though.”

  “Ouch,” Kieran says. I startle, thinking it’s something I did, but then I notice the smile playing at his lips, the hint of a dimple on his cheek. “Way to kick a man when he’s down,” he adds with a laugh.

  A mischievous smirk materializes on my face. “Oh? But seriously, Baylor has managed to play football for years without, you know, coming this close,” I gesture with my fingers, “to needing a blood transfusion.”

  Kieran laughs.

  “How did this happen?” I query.

  “I dove on the field to get the football and managed to grab onto the spikes on Leroy’s shoes instead,” he says sheepishly. “Not my finest moment.”

  I squint at the wound. “This looks pretty deep. Even if you came into the direct contact with a blade…”

  “He might have fallen and put his weight behind it,” he admits.

  Oof. Leroy is what you might call ‘heavyset.’

  That throws me into a loop as I try to picture just what the hell kind of drill they must have been running out there in order for something like this to happen.

  “All jokes aside, this looks really, really deep.” I take a solid breath. “I’m not sure I have any bandages that will do the trick. Maybe we should go to the ER?”

  “Use one of the butterfly bandages,” Kieran says. “That’s if Tina didn’t use all of them with those cooking injuries she managed to fall victim to like every damn day.”

  I roll my eyes at the memory of Tina and her disastrous performance in the kitchen. I proceed to pull the box close with my free hand. The other is pressing gauze to Kieran’s cut. I leaf through several wrappers of pressure bandages.

  “Hmm… You joke, but she might have done just that.” I lean in to take a closer look.

  “Here, let me help,” Kieran offers, reaching for the first-aid kit.

  Our heads knock together.

  “Ow. Jesus,” Kieran groans and rubs his forehead with his right hand. “Has anyone ever told you that you have a sharp-ass headbutt?”

  I chuckle. “Today really isn’t your lucky day.” I glance at the box, spotting the corner of a bandage the same color as the butterfly ones we had. “Or maybe it is. Look what I’ve found.”

  “I’d say it’s my lucky day because I’ve got you here to make sure I don’t die,” Kieran quips, that dimple making an encore.

  His gaze lingers on mine. I’m caught off-guard because this isn’t the way Kieran normally talks to me. I flash him a smile, a shy one, then bite my lip, tear the bandage open, and busy myself with applying it.

  What do I say what do I say what do I say?

  The weight of Kieran’s eyes on me is disorienting. I’m too aware of his breathing, of his proximity, of him, his delicious scent and heat—and it’s just such a mindfuck. I’m attracted to him, that’s plain as day, but the more he feeds this frenzy dwelling between us, the harder it is for me to deny it, even if only to myself, I want him.

  I wonder what he is thinking.

  “Ahem,” comes the sound of someone clearing their throat by the door. Both of us turn to look. To my dismay, it’s Baylor, scrutinizing us with his sharp, perceptive blue eyes. His expression is inscrutable, but I sense he’s not too happy about the scene he’s walked into.

  “Tea time during practice, Kieran? Really?” Baylor tries to play it off like a joke, but I know better.

  Instinctively, I lean away from Kieran, putting a few inches of distance between us. I finish putting the bandage on as quickly as I can.

  “Sorry for holding him up,” I say before Kieran can answer. “Getting this cut cleaned up was a real bitch. We’re all done, though.”

  For a moment there Baylor’s expression turned to one of concern. He clearly missed Kieran’s hand. “Is he okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah, Joey’s a miracle worker.” Kieran looks briefly at me and offers a smile. “I’ll be back to kicking ass in no time.”

  I want to return his smile, but I also don’t want to annoy Baylor. He’s got this overprotective streak and I just… don’t want to make any waves or make things awkward for them. The team would suffer for it and…

  I don’t know how to explain it. It’s just not. A. Good. Idea.

  “You coming back out there?” Baylor asks Kieran.

  “Yeah, let me get some water first. Go on without me.”

  Baylor looks like he wants to say something but thinks better of it. “Okay, see you out there.” He retreats out the door and turns to leave before spinning back to face us. “Before I forget, you two free for dinner?”

  Us two? As in a unit? A couple? What’s Baylor insinuating?

  “Uh…” I exchange a look with Kieran. “You mean are we getting dinner together or…?”

  Baylor shakes his head. “No. Like, do either of you have any plans for dinner tonight?”

  “I don’t,” Kieran says with a shrug.

  “Me neither.”

  That brightens Baylor’s mood. “Good. Save it for me, then, will you? I have some big news I want to share.”

  I
call out, “But where—”

  But Baylor’s gone.

  An awkward silence descends over Kieran and me. He examines his newly bandaged hand, says nothing, and goes to fetch the water he told Baylor he was going to get before returning.

  I occupy my thoughts with speculation about what this ‘big news’ of Baylor’s might be. It isn’t his style to dramatize things, so whatever it is, it must be big. A knot forms in the pit of my stomach as I consider the most likely scenario: announcing he’s going to get married.

  To Rachel.

  Ugh.

  “I hope whatever news he’s got doesn’t involve imminent plans to tie the knot with Rachel,” Kieran says, reading my thoughts.

  I look up, startled.

  “I don’t know if you like her or not,” Kieran says carefully. “It’s just—”

  “I was actually just thinking the same thing,” I admit.

  “Not a fan of Mademoiselle Canne, are you?” Kieran flashes a megawatt smile at me, complete with dimples on both cheeks blazing.

  Swoon check, aisle three.

  “I tried to give her a chance but even Mother Teresa would have a hard time finding the good in that one.”

  My quip gets a laugh out of Kieran, causing my cheeks to burn.

  “I know what you mean. She’s a big flirt when Baylor’s not around.” He ponders for a minute before adding, “And sometimes when he is.”

  I nod. “There’s that, and the fact she treats me like crap when he isn’t there.”

  “Your brother sure knows how to pick ’em, huh?” Kieran places the glass by the sink, sending a shrill ring reverberating through the kitchen. “I should really get back out there.”

  “Yeah, yeah, go,” I wave, as casually as possible. “If you need any more help with your hand or whatever, you know where to find me.”

  ‘Or whatever’? Seriously?

  He flashes me one last smile before he’s gone too, and it’s just me and my thoughts as I put the finishing touches on the team’s lunch. There’s so much to go over in my mind, but I can’t think about anything other than the possibility of my brother and Rachel. Forever. That I’ll have to endure her at family gatherings and the holidays, and if they have kids… God help us all.