Talkin’ Trash Blurb
Linc has two very important things on his mind—professional football and his motorcycle club.
What he does not have on his mind is the woman that drives him crazy and makes him want to do stupid things, like throw caution to the wind.
Nope, not Linc.
At least, that’s the lie he tells everyone.
In reality, every time Conleigh’s name is mentioned, he squirms.
She’s everything that he wants, wrapped up in a cute little package that is stamped ‘hands freakin’ off.’
She’s four years younger than him, in school to be a doctor, and thinks football is stupid.
Even more, Linc and Conleigh get along like oil and water.
There’s not a single second that they’re in each other’s presence that they’re not at each other’s throats.
But all it takes is hearing that she’s in trouble for Linc to drop every single thing—football and MC duties alike—and head to her side.
A side that he’ll remain at until they either kill each other or finally give in to the heat between them.
Either way you look at it, he’s well and truly screwed.
Chapter 1
Life is just a series of obstacles preventing you from taking a nap.
-T-shirt
Conleigh
I watched with my heart in my throat as the ball was released from Lincoln James’, star quarterback of the Longview Liners, hand.
The ball went into a flawless spiral, the absolute most perfect pass there ever was, only to stop short when the man who was supposed to catch it was slammed to the ground seconds before it hit his hands.
Everyone everywhere who loved the Longview Liners like I did collectively groaned.
“Noooo!” I cried out, pissed off and outraged that the man didn’t catch the ball. “How could you do that?”
Then the buzzer sounded, and the season was over, just like that.
I prayed that they’d pan over to Linc so I could see him, make sure that he was all right, but the stupid cameraman panned to the coach, who looked mad as hell. Then to the little pissant who they called Joe Blow, but was really named Joe Hoyt, who looked even epically pissed off that he was tackled.
I immediately felt horrible for calling him a pissant, because he really was a great guy. And catching that ball really was impossible, especially with half of their team hurt and Joe the only logical choice to throw to since he’d been the only one to make actual plays tonight instead of fumble the damn ball.
I watched with avid fascination as the world went on around them, waiting for a glimpse or two of Linc.
However, none ever came, and I only realized when they were filming post-game interviews that Linc had straight up gone to the locker room and avoided all contact with everyone.
Not that I blamed him.
Linc was always a sore loser, and he’d told me before that he was forced to put on a happy face and play nice when he least wanted to.
My phone chimed on the chair beside me, and I smiled when I saw my mom’s name on the screen.
She’d put a sad face with huge fat tears on it, and I knew that she and my stepfather, Steel, had been watching the game just as closely as I had been.
A couple of years ago, my mother wouldn’t be caught dead watching a football game—they reminded her too much of my former stepfather—but now, she’d cuddle on the couch with her big, bad biker president and stay there for hours watching a game with him.
Me? I’d always loved the game of football. I loved it even more now that I got to watch Linc’s tight ass running around on the field. Though, he thought I hated it, and I allowed him to think I hated it because me and Linc had a weird relationship.
Another text came in while I was replying with my own sad smiley face to my mother, and my heart started to pound.
Other things in my body started to act weird, too.
Like my vagina.
That thing was always betraying me.
Especially when it came to Linc James, my one-time not-so-much boyfriend.
I say ‘one-time’ loosely, though. At one point, we’d discussed being more than friends, but then he’d gotten too big for his britches, so to speak, and had forgotten all about little old me.
Sure, he still texted every now and then, like right now, but it wasn’t like how it used to be when we’d talk every single night.
I always made it a point to reply to him.
Always.
But I was never overly friendly.
I had to protect my heart, because I’d had it broken by one too many men over my life—my father, my first stepfather, and then finally, Linc.
It couldn’t handle being broken again, especially a second time by Linc James, professional football player, and owner of many hearts—including my own.
Linc: You up?
I swallowed past the lump in my throat and replied.
Conleigh: Yep. Lots of homework to do. I’m not sure this master’s degree thing is for me.
I really was thinking that. The more that I studied, and the more I got away from the actual nursing part of nursing, the more I realized that maybe I’d made the wrong decision.
Originally my goal had been to become a doctor, but that would take way too long for me to accomplish, and on top of that, the required schooling was so intense that you couldn’t really work or do anything else while in school. In the end, I’d changed my major to nurse practitioner with a plan to possibly explore the option of becoming a doctor once I had established myself financially.
A long time ago, my mother, brother, and I had been poor. And when I say poor, I meant the kind of poor where eating ramen noodles once a week was a treat, and I was stealing shoes from the store for my baby brother. That kind of poor.
My mother wasn’t the one to do that, though.
Nope, it’d all been me.
But, as I got my bachelor’s degree in nursing and then pursued my nurse practitioner’s license, I only had one goal in mind—to never be poor again.
I didn’t want to be poor. I couldn’t handle being poor.
And the one thing I could do to ensure that I wasn’t was to educate myself and find a very well-paying job.
Linc: Then quit.
I rolled my eyes.
He’d told me that before.
Conleigh: I can’t just quit. Not everyone gets multi-million-dollar contracts to play football, you know. I have to pay my bills and my school loans.
School loans were scary to me. For someone who feared being in debt, putting thousands of dollars on credit to be paid after I finished my degree would be downright debilitating if I let myself think about it too hard.
Like right now.
Linc: You have a degree from what I remember. You also have a job utilizing said degree where you make pretty good money. Or so my dad tells me. Why don’t you just keep doing that job? Your mom said that you liked it the last time I was over there.
I felt my stomach drop.
Linc still thought that my ultimate goal was to continue in school to become a doctor.
He hadn’t realized that I’d changed my degree path and he’d gotten the wrong profession and hadn’t taken the time to learn the right one because he was too busy trying to “save my soul” by staying away from me.
At least, that was what I got from my mom. Mom was never one to pull punches with me, and from what her husband had told her, Linc thought he would hurt me, and in order not to do that, he stayed away even though he supposedly didn’t want to.
I called bullshit, but it wasn’t like I could force someone to be with me who didn’t want to be.
Just thinking about it made me angry, which was why I did what I did next.
Conleigh: Sorry you lost.
Linc: Night.
I chuckled at that.
Linc really didn’t like to lose. Even more, he hated being reminded of that loss.
Well, I didn’t like being reminded that he didn’t want to have anything to do with me, so there was that.
Instead of dwelling on it like I usually did, I turned my focus to studying for my exam tomorrow and tried not to think about how much I hated this class, as well as the subject that I was studying in general.
The next day dawned bright and early, and wouldn’t you know it, Linc’s face was the first thing I saw as I turned on Sports Center.
I immediately turned it off, and skipped my normal morning routine, knowing that if I saw Linc’s face again, I’d likely lose my shit.