Playing Hard: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (19 page)

Bryce might be trying hard to sound like he’s making a joke, but I can hear the malicious edge to his voice. Perhaps he
means
for me to hear it — when I turn to look at him, the expression on his face is mean and hard.

“Well, God forbid I should talk to, y’know, my
date
,” Riley says, leaning back in his chair, hanging one arm over the back. As if he’s deliberately
trying
to look like an uncouth slob.

Bryce’s eyes narrow. “I’m actually really surprised they let you in here, Riley,” he says. “Don’t they have rules about that sort of thing? No dogs at table?”

I barely manage to smother my gasp, glancing at Riley. I can’t believe Bryce would say something so rude — okay, well, actually, I absolutely can. Bryce has always believed his family’s money makes him above the little things in life, like manners and not being a complete and total asshole.

If Riley is angered by his words though, he’s not showing it. “Pretty hard to turn me away when I have an invitation,” he replies. “Dog or not.”

This conversation has become decidedly awkward. I glance around and see that waiters are beginning to make the rounds with the entree, and I can only hope they hurry, so we’ll all have something to focus on other than how much Riley and Bryce apparently hate each other.

“I haven’t seen you much since prep school, Bryce,” I say, desperate to latch onto a different topic of conversation. “What’re you studying for undergrad?”

Bryce laughs. “Who knows?” he asks. “I mean, it’s not like I
never
go to class, I just go to sleep when I do. There’s not much point. I learn everything I need to know with my dad.”

He takes a long drink of wine, swallowing down almost the whole glass in one go. I guess I know how he’s been spending his time, then.

“How about you? You’d be what, a graduate student now?” he asks.

I nod. “I’m studying chemical engineering.”

“An engineer who’s a girl?” Bryce laughs a little. “
Weird.
I mean, girls aren’t that great with numbers and stuff, right? I’m not being sexist — that’s just biology. You have to admit, it’s weird.”

Oh, that is it.
Forget what I said about not saying inappropriate things.

I force myself to smile serenely. “Not as weird as a pig sitting up and eating at a table, and yet.”

Bryce’s smirk becomes confused before turning into an angry scowl as he realizes I’m talking about him. At the same time, I hear Riley choking on his drink with laughter beside me.

“Well, aren’t you feisty,” Bryce mutters, just as the waiters finally arrive at our table, placing the entrees down in front of us. “Riley, you’ve got yourself a little firecracker there. You gotta keep a leash on her.”

I’m shocked at first that Bryce thinks he can turn around now and try to get Riley on his side in denigrating me, especially after he so obviously insulted him earlier. But then, he’s always done this kind of thing. He can be as rude as he likes to people, but thinks they’ll always be clamoring for his approval nonetheless. The problem is, he’s often right — he’d be abominably cruel to kids in school sometimes, just to see how far he could push them before they’d had enough and told him to go fuck himself for real. But almost no one ever did.

I look at Riley, wondering if he’ll be the same.

I’m shocked when I see the genuine anger simmering in his eyes.

“What did you say?” he asks, his voice hard. “Because it sounded like you were asking for a black eye.”

Okay.
  

This, just like everything else about Riley Knox, only fills my heart with a range of conflicting emotions.

On the one hand, I feel intense pleasure rushing through me. Riley’s isn’t fooled by Bryce, and, as much as I hate to admit it, he’s protecting me. I can feel my ears turning pink with both embarrassment and elation. No boy has ever stepped up for me that way. If I ever wanted anything done, I had to do it myself.

On the other… I mean, what is Riley, a caveman? Do you just go around threatening to punch people whenever they say things you don’t like? And in the middle of a
charity ball?

“That’s really fine. I didn’t hear Bryce say anything like that,” I cut in, my voice hard. “Did I, Bryce?”

Bryce just looks away angrily before picking up his fork and stabbing it into his entree.

I pick up my own fork, spearing a tiny piece of fried scallop on my plate. Usually I love scallops and I’m sure these ones are delicious, but I barely taste them in my mouth as I chew. My stomach is churning, and I can barely bring myself to swallow.

This is a total disaster.

Am I going to have to keep Bryce and Riley from each other’s throats all night? If I’d known, I would’ve mentioned it to my dad and asked if he couldn’t do something about the seating arrangement, and made sure they were across the room from each other. Or possibly somehow in different rooms. Different
buildings
, even.

“What is this? Like… fish?”

I turn to look at Riley, only to find he’s holding up his scallop on his fork, sniffing it cautiously. I quickly glance at the other people at the table. They’ve noticed. Laura O’Grady has one eyebrow just perceptibly raised.

“Scallop is a shellfish,” I inform him. “Try it, it’s good.” I add a hard edge to my voice. I’m hoping he’ll understand that it means to stop sniffing his food and just eat it. Right now.

Riley glances at me, unperturbed, before putting the scallop in his mouth.

“Not bad, I guess,” he says, talking while he chews.

I press my lips together. It’s like he’s
trying
to be as uncouth as possible. As if he’s trying to show that Bryce is right about him, and he can’t be seen in polite company.

“Is this all we’re having?” he asks.

“This is just the entree,” I hiss at him. “There’ll be more food.”

“Well, thank fu—” He must catch my look, because he catches himself, before smiling beatifically, as if he’s doing me a
favor.
“— Thank God for that. I’m seriously starving.”

I can’t stop myself from glancing across at Bryce. He’s sitting there with a smarmy look on his face, knowing I’m embarrassed. The thing is, I know that Bryce can be a far worse pig than Riley, but he can cover that up when he needs to with a veneer of sophistication.

And it’s not that Riley is actually all that bad-mannered. He was perfectly civilized at Balotelli’s — at least, when we were sitting together at the table. It’s just that now, for whatever reason, he’s decided to behave like a complete
ass.

“I can have them make a McDonald’s run if you like,” Bryce says, voice dripping with sarcasm. “I mean, just in case you aren’t familiar with the rest of tonight’s menu. That should be more your speed, right? I’m sure they can find you something nice on the dollar menu.”

“Sure.” Riley casually reaches into his pocket, taking out a five-dollar bill and tossing it across the table at Bryce. “If you’re going, you can pick me up something.”

Now everyone at the table is staring. Barry Alstergren is still droning on, but Barry Alstergren never pays attention to a single person other than himself. Laura O’Grady looks uncomfortable; Harold Lennox is leaning over to his son.

“Bryce, what’s going on?”

“Nothing, Dad,” Bryce snarls. “Riley’s just fooling around.”

“Bryce was just offering to go get McDonald’s,” Riley says, his smile wide. “I’m just chipping in my share.”

Harold’s eyes travel between Riley’s smiling face and Bryce’s slowly reddening one, narrowing as they go.

The tension in the air is thick enough to cut.

Finally, I can’t take it anymore. Raising my hand to my lips, I mimic a cough, before taking my napkin from my lap and dumping it on my plate.

“Excuse me,” I say. “I’m suddenly not feeling very well. In fact, I feel kind of dizzy. Riley, will you help me?”

I wind my arm around his as I stand, pulling him up with me. Of course, Riley is six foot two and made of pure muscle, and I can’t make him do anything he doesn’t want to do — but he rises with me easily, still smiling.

“Sure thing, honey,” he says, though in the next second he’s leaning over and snatching his five dollars back up off the table. “If you’re not going to Mickey D’s, I’ll just take this back. It’s my whole of next week’s groceries budget.”

He stuffs it back in his pocket as I lead him away. I’m surprised there’s not steam rising out of my ears by the time we reach the corridor. I can’t talk to him here though — there’s waiters and other staff moving past us, bustling on their way to and from the kitchen.

However, I’ve been in this hotel enough time to know my way around it. I pull Riley down the hall to a storage cupboard, twisting the handle. It’s not locked. Opening the door, I yank him inside — or rather, he
lets
me yank him inside.

He’s still got that stupid grin on his face when I turn to confront him.

“What the hell are you doing?” I demand, crossing my arms over my chest.

Riley leans back against the door, smirking. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do. Why were you provoking Bryce like that? Couldn’t you have just ignored him?”

Riley laughs, but it’s flat and humorless. “Ignore Bryce? No way. You know he just would have kept going ’til I said something. I mean, you’ve
met
him, right? He told me you went to school together.”

I swallow. There’s a cold look in Riley’s eyes, as if he’s accusing me of something, though I don’t know what it is.

“I do know him,” I say. “But not very well. It’s not like we’re friends. In fact, I can’t stand him. He’s a pig.”

“Well, at least we agree on
something.
I don’t know how you could sit there and let him talk to you like that, though.” 

I raise my eyebrows, a little shocked.

“I wasn’t,” I tell him. “I can take care of myself. What did you want me to do? Flip the table over?”

“Maybe.” Riley shrugs. “Would’ve been better than just sitting there pretending to be polite while he insulted you.”

“No, it wouldn’t have been,” I say. “You know I have responsibilities, right? I can’t just do whatever the fuck I feel like all the time.”

Riley shakes his head. “Yeah, and the rest of us just have it
so easy
,” he says. “I can’t even imagine what it must be like, having billions of dollars. It must be really hard for you. Truly, my heart bleeds.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” I snap, but my heart isn’t in it. Riley’s argument has taken the wind of out my sails a bit. “Just because my family has money doesn’t mean I don’t have problems.”

“Yeah, like getting embarrassed at swanky dinners by your uncivilized date.”

“Now you’re just being impossible!”

Riley’s eyes dart up to mine, and I can see the beginnings of a smirk tugging at his lips. “Yeah. But you love it.”

My mouth drops open. It takes me a moment to collect myself. “I do
not
,” I argue. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I just meant I could handle Bryce by myself. I don’t need you swooping in to protect me.”

Riley crosses his arms over his chest. “I never said you did,” he says more slowly. “But I couldn’t stand to hear him talk to you like that. He’s lucky I didn’t beat his face in.”  

“You’re not serious.”

That smirk is back. Riley’s eyes flash, and I feel my knees go a little weak. “Try me.”

I don’t know why he affects me this way. By rights,
I
should want to beat
his
face in.

But I don’t.

Instead, I just kind of… want to do the same thing I always want to do when I see Riley.

Which is grab his head and mash my lips onto his, and kiss him until I can’t see straight.

And I think he can tell.

No, I
know
he can tell.

I can see it in the way he’s smirking at me right now, his eyes running up and down my body.

“I didn’t tell you before,” he says. “You look beautiful tonight. And by beautiful, I mean smoking hot.”

“Riley,” I say, a warning tone in my voice. I realize now I’ve put myself in the one place I promised I wouldn’t: in a private space, alone with him. “You know what happened last time —”

“I sure do,” he says, eyes flashing. “And I remember you telling me to leave afterward. But you can’t tell me you didn’t enjoy it.”

I want to open my mouth and deny it, but how can I? “That’s not true,” I eventually manage to get out, but I know how weak it sounds. “I realized I’d —
we’d
— made a mistake right away. It can’t happen again.”

“Why?” Riley asks, his voice a little heated. “Because you’re embarrassed by me?”

“I am
not
embarrassed by you. I am embarrassed by the way you’re behaving tonight, which I know you were doing because… actually, I have no fucking idea what you were trying to do there.”