Rowdy. Jay Crownover

You were a running back. I remember everyone saying that you had a boatload of potential. I remember thinking the coaches had some serious balls putting you in first string. You were fast, fast enough to help them get to the Sugar Bowl that year. Rowland something . . . right?”

      I reached up and rubbed the back of my neck. The rest of the superfan’s cohorts had fallen quiet and were now looking at me in an entirely new way. Nothing like football to soothe the raging blue-collar beast.

      “Rowdy St. James.”

      He nodded. “Right. Rowdy, because you were wild and unpredictable. No one could ever tell what kind of pattern you were going to run. Something happened, though. I don’t remember what but I remember you didn’t play in the bowl game or the following season. I remember them taking about you on ESPN. You just vanished and everyone wondered why.”

      That was not something I wanted to discuss, especially not with a group of guys that had been all too eager to start shit a second ago.

      I shrugged and forced a sheepish grin. “Well, you know, the pressure got to me. I wasn’t ready for the big show. It just wasn’t meant to be.”

      A professional football career really wasn’t in the cards for me, but it had nothing to do with the pressure and everything to do with me not being invested in it. But I wasn’t about to share that with these guys.

      “You were a talented kid. It’s a shame you didn’t follow through.”

      I gritted my back teeth and offered a shrug. It had nothing to do with follow-through and everything to do with the fact I nearly beat the starting quarterback to death with my bare hands a few weeks before the bowl game. Man, what was it with the ugly past rearing its head and refusing to stay in the dark where I left it?

      There was only one way we were getting out of here. I reached out and clapped the superfan on the shoulder and hollered as loud as I could, “ROLL TIDE!”

      It was immediately followed by an answering holler from the guy that recognized me and that of course started an epic debate about college football and the Big Ten, which of course transitioned into talk of the Broncos and their tragic loss in the Super Bowl earlier in the year. Before the guys had noticed, Jet and I managed to slip out the front door, leaving the sounds of arguing male voices and clinking beer bottles echoing behind us.

      In the parking lot Jet doubled over in laughter and I couldn’t help but smack him on the back of his head as we made our way to the flashy Dodge Challenger he drove.

      “Shut it.”

      “What the fuck does ‘Roll Tide’ even mean?”

      He popped the locks on the car and we got in.

      “How about, ‘Thanks for saving us from having to fight our way out of there, Rowdy’?”

      The car started with a sexy purr and I had to cringe when thundering guitars and screaming vocals assaulted my eardrums. I dug what Jet did for a living and there was no doubt that he was a very talented dude, but that metal music he liked and played was not my favorite. I reached out to turn it down without asking, which made him laugh again.

      “It’s a football thing. Something you musicians wouldn’t understand.”

      “Hey, I watch football when it’s on.”

      “I’ve watched games with you. You watch for five minutes then check out and either get falling-down drunk or go find something to write with and end up writing twenty new songs by half time. That is not watching the game, my friend.”

      He didn’t argue with me. “Still, I had no idea you were seriously famous for throwing a ball around. I mean I knew you played when you were younger, but not that you were like on ESPN and shit.”

      I groaned and leaned back in the seat. “I didn’t throw a ball. I caught a ball and ran with it, and the only reason anyone cared one way or the other was because I walked away from all of it without an explanation.”

      He looked at me out of the corner of his eye and I purposely looked away.

      “I don’t suppose you want to explain it now?”

      “You suppose right.”

      “Well, hell. I thought my old lady was the master of keeping the past a secret. Turns out she don’t got nothing on you.”

      I just grunted in response.

      The truth was I never really thought about my past. I had put my heart on the line after I followed Poppy to college, watched it get shredded, and had decided then and there I was never going to invest myself anything or anyone like that ever again. I dropped out of school, not like I really had a choice after the incident with the quarterback anyway, and ended up doing the same thing Salem did, packed a bag and hit the road, leaving everything behind.

      I left Texas—all the memories she held, football, college, and Poppy Cruz in the dust, where they had stayed until a few weeks ago when Salem sauntered back into my life like she had never left it.

      Jet was right. I was twisted about Salem being in Denver. So twisted that I wasn’t sure how I was ever going to get myself straight again as long as she was around. That girl had ruined me once when I was young. I would never forget the way I felt when she walked away. I didn’t want Salem anywhere near me. I couldn’t trust myself not to fall back into caring about her, trusting her, being captivated by her, only to have her move on once again, leaving me empty and alone.

       CHAPTER 2

       Salem

      I looked at the very pretty blond woman standing across the desk from me. She was obviously nervous. Noticeably out of her element . . . the tailored pantsuit and the Gucci purse on her arm were a dead giveaway that this was probably the first time in her life that she had stepped foot in a tattoo parlor. I gave her my most welcoming smile and cocked a brow at her as she put her manicured hands on the desk in front of me. It was my job to manage the traffic, to make sure clients knew what they were getting and that they were matched with the right artist. It was also my job to make sure I didn’t let someone make a mistake that they would be stuck with on their skin forever.

      The woman was probably the same age as me, around twenty-eight or twenty-nine, but she had that vibe about her that broadcast that she wasn’t really sure what she was doing at the Saints of Denver. This was the new shop Nash had opened after his dad had passed. It was right in the heart of the trendy, more upscale part of LoDo and far more modern and slick than the shop that was on Capitol off of Colfax. The artists that worked here had been handpicked by Rule and Nash. They were skilled and pretty awesome, and since this was a brand-new shop, and Nash wanted to build a reputation for it as well as have it double as a retail space for clothes and other tattoo-themed merchandise, I was spending more of my time here than at the shop where the guys were based. They rotated days so that one of them was always at the new shop to help drive traffic in through the doors.

      Today was Rowdy’s day at the shop and normally that would thrill me—if he hadn’t been determined to pretend like we didn’t know each other and that I didn’t exist. It was going on a month, and every time those sky-blue eyes landed on me he looked away a second later and his jaw ticked in aggravation. I tried to corner him, tried to get him alone more than once so we could talk it all out, but the boy was good at evading me and I had never had to chase a man before, so I wasn’t really sure how to go about it and not seem desperate.

      I saw the blonde gulp and she shifted nervously and I asked her, “How are you doing, doll?”

      She snapped her gaze to me and her lips parted a little. She really was stunning in a very refined and country-club kind of way. Her eyes were the color of the ocean and looked terrified as she blinked at me.

      “I . . .” She paused and I saw her gaze dart up to somewhere over the top of my head as I could literally