Dirty Player(42)

“Never,” I promised. “I’ll try my best, every single fucking day to never hurt you.”

I was a man of my word. Always had been.

I hoped like hell I’d prove it true with her.





Chapter TWENTY-THREE





SHANNON



It was official. I was completely freaking out.

“This is amazing,” Melissa said, bouncing up to me with two glasses of champagne in her hand.

We’d been busy since one o’clock with the official grand opening of Stamped. We had champagne and tiny cupcakes and bite-sized cookies brought in from a bakery just down the street, and we were almost out of the hundreds we’d ordered.

I’d made more money in one day than I had in almost six months.

My head hadn’t stopped spinning.

The last two weeks had completely flown by. I’d spent most nights with Oliver at my place or one of his. Sometimes we met at his hotel crash pad, and on weekends we went to his house. Other nights he came directly to Stamped and had to almost physically haul me out of my workroom.

I was in way over my head. My online sales had started booming after the street fair, from mostly local customers who had stopped by my booth. I’d had dozens of previous customers contact me wanting more jewelry after seeing my website had been updated with the information of my first physical store location.

My fingers were cut and callused and bandaged and worn down from all the work I’d been doing.

The first day had completely blown my mind and I owed it all to Beaux, his faith in me, and the marketing company he’d hired for me to help with the opening.

“I don’t know what to do with all this,” I said as I took another glass of champagne from her hand. It was only my third of the day. I’d been sipping it slowly despite wanting to chug bottle after bottle to assuage my nerves. “This is more than I imagined. I’m going to need help, I think, to keep up with the production.” I slid her a glance. “Know any jewelry designers who could help?”

She shot me a look that was clear. “Hell no. You’re the only person I know who’s this talented. I’m just glad you’re finally seeing it for yourself.”

I shook my head and looked around, awed at the amount of people in my store. It was packed full. Product was flying off the shelves faster than we could replace it.

I was going to have to do something if this wasn’t some rare Thursday fluke.

At least hire someone to help me work in the store so I could spend my time creating.

Needless to say, my time with Oliver had been helpful in more ways than one. He listened to me bitch, he supported me, he gave me ideas on advertising when I was stressed out, and then when I was super-stressed, he found multiple ways, almost nightly, to help me relax. I did the same for him, I knew it. He never hesitated to bounce ideas off me. Some nights we talked plays. Some nights we just hung out in front of the television, barely watching whatever was on and talking about our lives.

I had fallen in love with him quickly, painlessly. So easily that some days I wondered if it was all a dream.

If it was, I never wanted to wake up from it.

Especially not on this day.

I’d made other decisions in the past few weeks, too. While I’d told Oliver that I didn’t want to be in his shadow, with all the support I knew he was giving me, I wanted to do the same for him. Because of that, and partly still out of my fear of failing at this whole running-my-own-business thing, Stamped was only open four days a week. My marketing coordinator, Lacy, assured me we could use that to our advantage. I wanted it closed on Sundays so I could at least make sure I was able to attend home games. We were open from Wednesday through Saturday, when the arts district had its busiest foot traffic anyway.

Based on the day’s opening, it seemed to be working.

I walked around for a few minutes, speaking with customers, unable to keep the thrilled grin off my face before I moved back behind the counter to help Melissa ring up several sales.

“Thanks for being here, by the way.”

She rolled her eyes as she said goodbye to another customer, handing her the hot pink bag filled with purchases. “You’re so stupid. You’ve thanked me a thousand times, and where else would I be? Plus”—she turned to me and wiggled her brows—“I can’t wait for the game this weekend. All those hot, sexy men on the field. Me watching you be a nervous wreck around Oliver’s parents.”

“Don’t remind me,” I groaned and tossed back a large swallow of bubbly champagne.

“It’ll be fine.” She hip-checked me as she came close, wrapping one arm around my shoulder and waving the other out at the sea of people. “And so will this. You’ve done good, amazing things in a short amount of time, and I’m really proud of you.”

Emotion burned the backs of my eyes and I blinked it away. “This feels like a dream.”

“It is.” She turned to me, both of her hands on my shoulders, and stared directly into my eyes. “And it’s your dream, finally come true. Now you get to enjoy it.”

She winked and turned away when her eyes popped open and her mouth dropped. With the sudden quiet in the space, you could have heard a pin drop—and then it changed to quiet, quick murmurs and people reaching for their cell phones.

Oliver and Beaux and Kolby paid none of the women any attention as they pushed themselves into the doorway.

They headed straight for me, all wearing ball caps but clearly unable to hide who they were.

“Hey,” I said, breathless as Oliver sauntered directly to me on the other side of the counter. He didn’t care about the space between us as he reached out, cupped my neck with his hand, and pulled me toward him.

He kissed me quick and hard, pulling back with a large smile. “This place is packed. We had to park blocks away. Good day?”

“Amazing,” I said, breathless from the kiss and the surprise at seeing him. “What are you doing here?”

“You think we’d miss this?” He tilted his head, not giving me much space to back away.

In truth, I did. They had their first home game in a few days and their practices had been brutal. I figured they’d all be too tired to stop by, and I didn’t blame them.

He must have noticed I thought that because his grin faded and he shook his head. “Someday you’ll realize you’re not the only person who will do everything they can for the person they love. Until then, I’ll have to work harder to teach you.”

He kissed me again and pulled back.

I was quickly turned and twisted and pulled into Beaux’s arms. For a brief second, I saw and heard the clicks of flashes from phones.

“Hey, Sis!” Beaux boomed, I was guessing more for the crowd than me. “Congratulations on this! This place is the shit.”

I slapped his shoulder when he put me down and quickly turned away. I couldn’t let anyone see me cry now, not even happy tears.

“Thanks.” I sniffed and reached for my champagne. “How are you guys doing?”

“Sore as hell, more ready than anything for Sunday,” Beaux said, helping himself to a glass of champagne. Before giving me time to prepare, he raised his glass in the air and shouted for everyone to hear, “To my sister! And to the best damn jewelry shop in town!”

Dozens of women raised their glasses in their air, stars in their eyes as they looked at the men in front of me and next to me, as if they couldn’t believe what they were seeing.

“To Stamped!” Beaux shouted again.

“To Stamped!” the customers shouted back.

I glared at Beaux as he tossed back his champagne in one quick chug. “I’m going to kill you.”

He winked at me. “Think of this as more free publicity. Chicks think they can come here and see me and you’ll have a line wrapped around this place for months.”

“Your ego knows no bounds.”

He rolled his hips, eliciting more cheers for an entirely different reason. “Hey. If you got it, flaunt it.”

“You’re a dork.”

“And you’re my sister, who’s always supported me and cheered for me. Now it’s my turn. Get fucking used to it.”

With that parting shot, he grabbed another glass of champagne and walked out from behind the counter, pulling me with him.

Quickly, Beaux and Kolby were surrounded in a sea of women clamoring for their attention and autographs.

Oliver sidled up next to me, one arm wrapped around my back while other women asked him to sign anything they could find in their purses. Never once did he take his arm off me, indicating exactly who I was to him.

There was something about that—his desire to be honest and forthright, to not hide our relationship from anyone—that caused me to take another sip of champagne, lean into his side, and enjoy the hell out of the ride.

I looked up and caught Melissa’s gaze. Her light blue, happily shining eyes flickered from Oliver back to me, and then she winked. Dream, she mouthed. Love you.

She turned away to ring up another sale before I could respond, but I took her point.

This was my dream. All of it. And I was going to live it.



***



“Faster,” I whimpered into his throat as Oliver moved inside of me.

“Slow,” he responded, looking down at me. “I want to feel you.”

It was morning, three days after Stamped’s grand opening, and nothing had slowed down.