Everyone who works within the New York Warriors organization knows that star player August Fletcher refuses to talk to most people...and especially team reporters. All except Quinn Castle, that is.
Quinn doesn't know why the broody football player...
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IT TOOK ABOUT twenty-four hours for the Warriors to get back to me.
It was a tense twenty-four hours.
Because even though I felt this sort of freedom and peace from submitting my resignation, I worried about their response. I worried about their reaction, and how it would be hard to separate my feelings from it. How it might change the way my freedom felt.
August tried to distract me the best he could. We eventually left the harbor on the mainland and returned to Evergreen Isle and the beach house. August grilled dinner on the patio and refilled my wine glass more times than he probably should before carrying me off to take a bath.
It was definitely the best bath I'd ever taken.
For more than one reason.
Feeling full, pampered, and glowing in post-orgasmic bliss, I passed out in his bed shortly after and slept until nearly noon the next day.
And when I woke, it was to an email that was shockingly...nice.
Cordial.
I was thanked for my time with the organization.
I was wished the best.
Thanked.
Wished.
I'd half-wondered if I'd entered another dimension after August had set me off to sleep last night. Or maybe he'd fucked me so good that I lost my mind.
But he just chuckled and shook his head when I brought it up. He told me not to look a gift horse in the mouth, and he was right. I didn't need to know what their intentions were; I just needed to be grateful for the outcome.
In the week that followed, August fully transformed into someone who I likely wouldn't have recognized if I hadn't known it was him. Mostly, August looked happy.
I wished I could go back in time to all those interviews I'd had with him prior to his retirement, knowing what I knew now about his background—knowing how his own team had treated him in the wake of his mom's death. His attitude and standoffish demeanor would have come across a lot differently if I'd been more aware of the full picture.
Mostly, all I really wanted was to be able to go back in time and give him a hug.
But luckily, I got to do it now.
I'd barely stopped hugging him for the last week. Being with him on the island almost felt too good and too perfect to be real, but I was trying to soak it up while it lasted. I knew I'd have to make a more long-term plan soon, but for now, I was just enjoying being here with him for no other reason than just to be here with him.
"Did you think if you guys hid over here, Sunny won't give you more work to do?"
Finny seemed to appear out of thin air next to our table, looking at us with something akin to nervousness.
