Chapter 62: Maddox

What the hell am I doing? Hitting on my friend’s girl is not what I ever thought I would be doing, and yet I can’t seem to help myself. As soon as I saw her, I wanted to know more about her. There was this energy between us that I can’t explain, but it felt like I was standing near a live wire. All the hairs on my body stood up when her eyes locked on mine. I have never felt that sort of instant connection to a girl before. It felt…big. Then Sawyer came over and claimed her. I won’t lie and say my heart didn’t break a little bit.

She was so beautiful that I couldn’t stop thinking about her when the game started. I found myself looking for her in the crowd just to see her face again. I felt obsessed instantly. The need to talk to her and be near her was clouding my head. If I had been more focused on the game, I wouldn’t have taken such a hard hit from that beast of a guy on Sawyer’s team.

Asshole.

Anyway, when Bryn’s face appeared above me, I felt like I had gone to heaven and seen an angel. She looked so worried that I wanted to reach out and smooth out the lines on her forehead. Then her face turned angry, and I wanted to know why and who was responsible. I would have gladly kicked their ass for upsetting her. My head was swimming, and I didn’t feel quite right, which was why I started saying things I would normally ever say.

I wouldn’t talk to a married woman the way I spoke to her and, to make it worse, I had put my head on her belly. What sort of guy does that?

I have clearly lost my mind and now I’m horrified by how I’ve acted. Even though I apologized, I’m not sure if I’m sorry. That pull to her hasn’t changed and Sawyer is actually okay with me flirting with her. We joked about sharing a girl, but it had been a passing thing that we never delved too deep into. We might have thrown a few names around, but in the end, it didn’t work out for us. Now he’s caught himself an amazing girl and I can’t resist her either. Which is a huge problem that would have been fixed the second they went home.

She would be out of my sight and I would be able to let this go, but she’s still here. I can’t seem to stop myself from wanting to touch her and when we do touch it feels like my whole body catches fire. It’s too bizarre to fully explain, but it also feels like I’m flying.

“So what came from the call you made?” I ask Sawyer.

I can feel Bryn’s eyes narrowed on us still, but she’s moved around the bed to sit on the chair and burn a hole in both our heads. She thinks this was all planned, but I can assure her if I had known I’d meet her then I wouldn’t have been able to fake any of this. I wouldn’t have been able to wait this long before falling to her feet and begging for her to want me to.

“Well, I told Coach all about the team and how they’re treating you. He wasn’t happy and even said he would be talking to the school about the team’s behavior. I asked him about putting you on the team and he said he would let you show him what you’ve got. It’s still early in the semester, so transferring school shouldn’t be too hard. You just need to meet with the administrators at our school.”

“He needs someone to keep an eye on him while he recovers from the concussion. We can take him home and he can talk to the administrator once he’s feeling better.” Bryn says.

She’s still looking less than impressed with us, but I still smile her way. “Are you going to nurse me back to health, sweetheart?” I tease.
Then I imagine her in a sexy nurse costume and I have to look away before the images become too vivid. I glance at Sawyer, and he’s shaking his head at me. He knows exactly what I was thinking. Shit…

“I’m being a responsible person and making sure you don’t get any further brain damage.” She says sharply and I won’t lie…that only makes the results of the nurse images even worse.

“Down, boy,” Sawyer whispers, and I punch him in the stomach.

“Shut up, man.”

Bryn sighs and looks away from us with her arms crossed over her chest. I take the opportunity to just look at her, which is why I notice when her whole body goes ridged. Her eyes are focused on something and when I follow her eyes to the doctor, who was here earlier, my hackles start to rise. What’s with this guy? He keeps looking at her weird and Sawyer doesn’t seem to like him.

“So your CT looked okay. No severe brain injury, but you do have a concussion. You will need to be woken periodically through the night to make sure you’re okay, but if that goes smoothly, then you’ll be fine. Do you have someone who can stay with you tonight?” The doctor asks, sounding like he’d rather be anywhere else.

By the way he’s looking at Bryn, he wants to be alone with her. What the fuck? I glance over at Sawyer and find him glaring daggers at the guy.

“We got him. Is there anything else, or can we take him home?” He snaps, getting the doctor’s attention back to him.

“No. You guys can go. I’ll have the nurse get you set up to leave. See you around, Bryn.” The doctor says, giving her a sly smile and walking away like a cocky bastard.

“Okay, what the fuck is that about?” I hiss at Sawyer.

“The guy has been stalking Bryn, but there isn’t much we can do about it. I asked. Unless he makes a direct threat to her, then no one can do anything. I reported him to the school, but that didn’t get him fired like I thought. I’m going to have to speak to the dean again about that.”

“Let it go Sawyer.” Bryn says, sounding exhausted. “He hasn’t shown up at our house or spoken to me until today. Whatever he thinks is going on is in his head. Can we just go home?”

Sawyer is still fuming, but when he sees how tired Bryn looks, suddenly his whole body deflates.

“Yeah baby. Let’s go home. We have a patient to take care of.” Sawyer slaps my shoulder hard and I try to punch him again, but he moves out of the way before I can.

I flip him off instead.

“Boys.” Bryn says before she stands and walks over to where the nurse is sitting.

“What are you thinking, bro?” Sawyer asks.

“I think I’m in trouble.” I admit.

He laughs. “I knew I was the second I saw her, too. She has that effect on people and she doesn’t even know it. All eyes are always drawn to her, and she’s completely oblivious to it. She’s also sweet as candy, which draws all sorts of assholes her way. I’ve had to threaten more than a few people from going near her.”

“I bet.”

We watch her silently for a couple of minutes before I look at him. “So about me flirting with her- “

He reaches over and smacks me on the shoulder again. “It’s cool, man. I saw you two. There’s something there and if there was anyone I would trust with her besides me, it’s you. I know you’ll take care of her when I can’t. She deserves people to love her the way she loves everyone else. He heart is big enough for a hundred assholes.”

I laugh. “Let’s hope that’s an exaggeration and a bunch of guys don’t show up at our door asking to date her.”

Sawyer scoffs. “Like hell. I’m only not kicking your ass because she actually seems to like you.”

We both laugh until Bryn comes back and sends a warning glare our way.

“I got the discharge papers and called a ride for us.” She says.

“Let’s take you home, man.” Sawyer says and I feel a warmth in my chest at the thought of home.

I never really had one place to call home. My mom was a traveling nurse and a single parent, so that meant I was homeschooled and traveled with her wherever she was assigned. College is the first place where I’ve stayed longer than a couple months. Well, until now. I’m going to be moving on to a new place again, but this time feels different. Maybe being with Sawyer and Bryn will feel like home.