Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 82543 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 413(@200wpm)___ 330(@250wpm)___ 275(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82543 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 413(@200wpm)___ 330(@250wpm)___ 275(@300wpm)
In the next second, he’s gone, and the final buzzer sounds a couple of minutes later. Though it feels like another twenty. This whole stop-start nature of football is both exhilarating and annoying. When you think the game is going to end, the clock stops, and we have to wait.
“You okay on your own?” Felix asks, and it’s sweet of him to care.
“I’m a big boy.” Even if I’m shitting myself at having to be the one to break this silence Peyton’s been throwing at me all week. Then again, it’s not like I have to see him. Brady didn’t specifically ask me to go tell Peyton anything. Just said if Peyton asks. If I don’t see Peyton, then I don’t have to lie to him.
Felix stands to leave, but then he sits right back down.
“What are you—”
“I have to watch this.”
“Watch what?”
He nods toward the field, where the visiting team is filing out to go toward the locker rooms, but Peyton’s team is still celebrating on the field and waving to the crowd. That’s not what Felix is looking at, though.
Peyton is walking toward us. His helmet is off, his hair covered in sweat and plastered to his head. He looks so good in his purple-and-gold jersey, his tight gold pants showing off his powerful legs.
The last game I went to, they were wearing the same purple color, but when I saw a game on TV last year when I was contemplating coming here, they were wearing a white jersey with purple pants. There must be significance to the uniforms—like, they wear one for home games and the other for away or something, but it doesn’t matter because Peyton looks mouthwatering in both.
Peyton picks up pace as he gets closer to the stands and jumps the barricade with his laser-focused gaze on me.
Oh shit, oh fuck, oh damn my stupid heart skipping a beat. My mouth is dry. I try to move, but my legs don’t work, and I can’t make myself stand as the clacking of his cleats on cement echoes in my ears.
He said he wants to cool it, and now he’s charging up the steps to do what? Kick me out? Pull me out in front of everyone and embarrass me so I hate him and really will leave him alone?
Peyton climbs the steps and towers above me. He holds out his hand to help me up while wearing the sexiest smile I’ve ever seen on him. And that’s saying something because Peyton Miller can be sexy by just breathing. His smile? It’s damn breathtaking. And right now, it’s trained on me.
I accept his help with a shaky hand, still unsure of what he’s doing, and he pulls me up.
And then, in front of thousands of people and ESPN, he does the last thing I expect. Peyton leans in and presses his lips against mine.
I’m taken aback and almost stumble—real fucking graceful, Levi—but Peyton’s there to hold me close to him. His strong arms close around me, and with his pads on, he’s twice my size.
His gloved hand cups my cheek, and my lips part, letting his tongue slip inside my mouth, but when hollering and deafening screams fill the arena, I pull back.
My cheeks are warm, and I’m sure they’re bright red.
“Meet me after I shower and change?” Peyton murmurs.
All I can do is nod, my entire body numb from shock.
It’s all over as fast as it began, and Peyton bounds back down the steps of the stadium and back onto the field to follow his teammates down the tunnel to the locker rooms.
A loud sigh comes from Felix beside me. “Seriously, why does Peyton work this out for himself after I’ve become a taken man? When I think of all the sexperimentation I could’ve done with him the last couple of years—”
“It’s nothing,” I say without thinking. Though I don’t know why. Because that? It was anything but meaningless.
The people surrounding us stare blankly at me, as if waiting for an explanation to come pouring out my mouth.
“Let’s get out of here before we go viral.”
Felix pats my shoulder. “Yeah, good luck with that. There were about a hundred phones pointed in your direction when it happened.”
Well, fuck.
Peyton takes a long time to meet me by the players’ entrance of the stadium, and with each passing moment I’m left waiting, the deeper the paranoia becomes.
I end up sending him a text to come to my house when he’s free.
That ends up being worse because the pit of doubt in my gut only grows when minutes tick by one after the other with no word from him. I thought it was the thousands of eyes on me making me edgy, but it has nothing to do with that and everything to do with Peyton making a great big grand gesture and then possibly not following through.