Stupid Boys Read online

  Stupid Boys

  Stupid Boys, #1

  C.R. Jane

  Rebecca Royce

  Contents

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  Preface

  Prologue

  I. Steven Wolf

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  II. Graham Kempner

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  III. Charlie Dorfman

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  IV. Jamie Rawlings

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Part V

  Chapter 23

  Remember Us This Way

  Chapter 1

  Hard Truths

  Preface

  Chapter 1

  About C.R Jane

  Other Books by C.R. Jane

  About Rebecca Royce

  Other books by Rebecca Royce…

  Stupid Boys by C. R. Jane and Rebecca Royce

  Copyright © 2019 by C. R. Jane and Rebecca Royce

  All rights reserved.

  No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review, and except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

  For permissions contact:

  [email protected]

  [email protected]

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

 

  For all the girls who are sweet…but a little bit psycho.

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  Hey.

  You. That’s right, you. I’m talking to you. Can you hear me?

  Before we get started, I just want you to know that you’re going to hate me. Digest that for a second.

  It’s okay. You should hate me.

  I’m a bad, bad person.

  I lie. I cheat. I steal. I use people. And if I had the chance to meet you in person, if I stood in your house right now, with your family around, your cat, your dog, your whatever… I’d do it to you, too.

  Don’t try to make me out to be better than I am. For this moment, just this one second, I’m telling you the truth.

  Don’t believe a word I say.

  I can be anyone, become anyone. And with the funding of a powerful man with an agenda behind me, you’ll never see me coming.

  You’re going to want to know why and I’m not going to tell you. Ever.

  I’ve warned you. Don’t like me.

  Except you are, aren’t you. Already, you want to.

  That’s such a shame.

  Prologue

  Now

  Well… the shit had finally hit the fan. I’d had a good run, but my nefarious life had finally caught up to me. I leaned my back against the bar and stared at four faces I’d hoped to never see again. Barney’s had been a fun spot for me to hang out while I’d been here in Atlanta, but now it was going to be the scene of the first time in my life I’d face an accounting for what I’d done.

  I sipped my martini, crossing my legs on the stool, and stared at them. I’d lay money on the table that Claire, the current bartender, had put cheap gin in there instead of my usual order, which was always higher end stuff. I looked over my shoulder at her, and she wouldn’t make eye contact with me. Yep, she’d done it. And she’d probably confirmed to the four in front of me that I visited this place every night for an hour when they’d come looking.

  She’d never liked me. I was pretty sure she’d had a thing for The Chef—gag—before I’d taken him. That was too bad. Snooze ya loose, as my Gran would have said on her third G&T. She drank the low-end stuff, like the shit in this drink.

  So here they were and not one of them had spoken yet. Not me, either. What would happen if I got up and just left? Would they physically keep me here?

  Probably not. I never dealt with violent douchebags. Why bother, when there were so many tender-hearted schmucks available to screw over, practically for a living? See how I used the word schmuck in my head now? I’d picked up that word somewhere. That wasn’t one I’d heard during my childhood.

  I set down my drink. Okay. They’d shown up, this was actually happening. It wasn’t some vast delusion. Not that I had those. Or, at least, I hadn’t yet. It was time to set all of my cards on the table and deal with this. “Well, look who it is.” I smiled at them.

  For some of them, this would be the first time they heard my real accent. I’d perfected sounding different depending on who I was getting ready to rob.

  “The four of you,” I continued, tilting my head to look at them. There were some noticeable changes since the last time I’d seen any of them. Not that I cared. They could dress or work out as they liked. “The Quarterback. The Politician. The Surgeon. The Artist. You’re not the four I would have bet money would have found me.” I pointed at the would-be politician. They were all mostly labels to me. “Well, maybe you. You don’t seem to let things go. The rest of you? How did you manage to work up enough gumption to bother?”

  If I was going down, I would do so in flames. I looked over my shoulder. This could sour very fast if he noticed that they were here. I needed to get them gone, fast. Go big or go home. That’s what my Gran used to say. She stole her expressions from other people, but that was what we did in the James family. We stole. We cheated. We ate people’s hearts out for breakfast and then ordered the leftovers to go.

  Or, at least, that’s what the women in my family did. We were bad, bad girls, and the men made us that way. But in the end, I was responsible for the shit I did. It was my fault. And if this was my reckoning, so fucking be it.

  Part I

  Steven Wolf

  “The Quarterback”

  Chapter 1

  Steven

  In the past…

  My knee ached something fierce, but it always did. I woke up in pain, I went to bed that way. In between, I stayed in agony and tried to smile through it. The pills they gave me didn’t relieve the pain—they just made my head foggy and my decision making shitty. Still, I never said no to taking them. Why shouldn’t I go down like so many in the NFL had before me? In a blazing pit of despair made up of pills and booze. We were all adrenaline junkies when it came down to it, and if we couldn’t have that, we numbed ourselves to the rest of the bullshit.

  Steven “The Flame” Wolf. Star Quarterback. Superbowl Champion. Done at thirty years old. I snorted and drank some more water. This was probably the first time in weeks I wasn’t fucked up on both pills and
booze. The sweat all over my body was probably my liver not knowing what to do with itself. Detoxing in public. A brand new low.

  “You have to try,” my agent said again. He’d repeated the same mantra fifteen times this morning.

  “I’m here aren’t I?” I shrugged like it didn’t matter. It did. There was nothing I’d ever wanted more than to be a quarterback in the NFL. Nothing my father and mother had wanted more. They’d groomed me for it. Small-town Texas, and I was the star. What else was there in life, besides football and pussy?

  The latter had been a bit dull lately, too. If I’d seen one, I’d seen them all. I snorted, and Rick, my agent, rolled his eyes. He didn’t even know what I was thinking, and he didn’t like it.

  With the slightest click, the door opened and a woman walked in. She wasn’t too tall or too short, right in the middle in the height range for women. She wore all white, the uniform for this doctor’s office, and it accentuated her black hair, a stark contrast to the bland uniform she had on. Yet, it was her near violet eyes that caught my attention. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen blue that color before. Wow. I must really be more fucked up than I thought. Had I downed vodka with my Percocet that morning?

  What did it say of me that I couldn’t remember?

  “Well,” she pointed at me, “you’re my patient. And you are…” Her voice trailed off while she spoke to Rick.

  He rose, extending his hand which she didn’t take. “I’m Rick Grunes. I’m his agent.”

  “Okay, Rick Grunes, Agent, time for you to get out please.” She winked at him. “I don’t allow non-family in the room with my patients. Call it… personal preference. You’re welcome to take it up with my boss if you’d like. He’s rather busy. Takes most people months to get an appointment.” She winked at him again, and my mouth fell open. What was she doing? “Out.”

  Rick obviously didn’t know what to make of this woman, either. He rose from his chair. “We need him to play in the fall. It’s imperative he play in the fall.”

  She opened the door, ignoring what he had just said, and he walked through it. With a click, she let it shut behind him.

  She looked at me for a long moment. “Steven Wolf. NFL quarterback. This is quite a conundrum you’ve gotten yourself into.”

  I swallowed. Why was my mouth dry? It couldn’t be because she was so… pretty, right? “Um…” Yeah, I sounded pretty fucking stupid right then. “Right. I got hurt. There was a…”

  She held up her hand. “I saw the highlights. Over and over again. There was little else on the sports networks for a while there. You managed to tear your ACL, MCL, and PCL in your left knee. Ouch.” She sat down in front of me in the chair Rick had vacated. “Pretty bad. Culpepper never came back, not really, from the same injury. Well, he came back, but the stardom was gone. He just looked… done.”

  A muscle ticked in my jaw. “Is that supposed to be… motivating?”

  “No. I get paid whether you get motivated or not.” She tilted her head, catching me with those hot violet eyes. I’d never been a guy who got off on women being shitty to him. So why was this bitch attitude working for me right now? I didn’t even know what to call her.

  “What’s your name?” If I could have moved without hurting, I would have gotten in her personal space like I did any outside linebacker that came at me. I was six foot six and two hundred and fifty pounds of muscle. I didn’t get scared, not of the big guys coming at me, and not of this woman and her shit attitude. Fuck. My cock chose that moment to come back to life. I adjusted slightly, hoping she didn’t notice, but with my luck, she probably did.

  As she smiled at me, it was like a light exploded in my soul. I blinked. What was the matter with me?

  “I’m Holland James. Most people call me Holly.”

  “Holly.” Okay, I had to breathe. “I don’t need any reverse psychology bullshit. Tell me what I need to do here, and I’ll do it.”

  She shook her head. “You have three choices, Steven.”

  “Steve.” Everyone called me Steve. My father was Steven. My grandfather had been Steven. I was Steve, always had been.

  The light above our heads buzzed. She paused. “Listen, Steven, I think we both need to be realistic about what can happen here.”

  This woman had entirely not listened to me. “Okay.”

  “You’ve had a very successful surgery. The swelling is going down. You’re going to need—the surgeon will tell you three but trust me it’s four—surgeries still. You’re young, fit. You’re going to come through them just fine. Then the question will be what to do next.” She scooted forward, grabbing onto my foot and pressing on it before she raised it slightly. I groaned. Sudden movements I couldn’t prep for had really sucked lately. Holly nodded like she answered a question in her own head.

  “And?” I wanted to hear what else she had to say.

  “Then it’ll be a question of what happens next. Do you rehab enough to get through a normal day without pain, but no more? Do you rehab enough to go back to the NFL, but suck and have everyone say you should have retired? Or do you go back to play? Frankly, it’s all up to you.”

  I threw my hands in the air and this time, managed to get to my feet. “Tell you what, I’ve had better motivational speeches.”

  She laughed. “I really don’t care which of the three happen. I’m not here for that. I get paid either way. My job is to get you healed as best I can and send you on your way. I’m not sure you can do more than the first choice. I think you’ll be okay to get on with normal life.”

  “Oh yeah?” I’d had doubters before. Fuck all of them. “Why is that?”

  “Because you’re stoned right now. Maybe drunk. That’s fine. I’m not here to judge. Take whatever you want. But don’t expect to be playing next fall if you do.”

  Steven

  Now

  I stared at Holly. She looked so completely different than the last time I’d seen her. As fast as I could manage, I categorized the differences. The biggest one was that she was blonde. I forced my mouth to stay closed. I hated the blonde on her. She was supposed to be a brunette, her hair so dark that it was practically black. The kind of dark that made her violet eyes pop. The kind of dark that made every pillow her long hair draped over a study in contrast. I wasn’t even an artist. I’d leave that to Jamie, who stood to my left. That was just the sort of bullshit Holly made me think about. She’d changed me, and in my opinion, it wasn’t for the better.

  The length of her hair had changed, too. When I’d known Holly, her hair was down past her rear end. She’d kept it up in a messy bun most of the time. This Holly, with her blonde locks and her white tank top that showed off her shapely arms and shoulder, she was a stranger.

  Her gaze caught mine. She’d called me The Quarterback. Like I had some kind of label she kept on a check list. Like I was nothing. As though we hadn’t lain together in bed and laughed, hadn’t made love over and over until I’d actually fallen asleep inside of her.

  All this time since Graham stormed into my life, all of the searching, the plotting, the listening to the others talk about what to expect, what we would find, I hadn’t really believed until this moment that it hadn’t all been a mistake. A misunderstanding that might be cleared up.

  It really, really was what Charlie had called it—a con she’d played on all of us.

  “Steven.” She smiled at me. “You had a pretty shitty season. I’m surprised they renewed your contract, except that it’s going to take Preston Miles another season to gain enough muscle to replace you. Maybe not a full season. Maybe you should expect to be done in November.” She touched her stomach. “If it were me, I’d have you doing lots and lots of core strengthening exercises. You’re weak. I can see it.”

  There was something terribly wrong with me that two thoughts warred in my mind. The first was to tell her to fuck off. That was a normal reaction. The second was to be truly thrilled that she’d watched me. She’d clearly viewed the whole of last season.

  I
was doomed.

  Chapter 2

  Steven

  Past

  “You look better today.” Holly, with her beautiful all-seeing eyes, stared at me. She’d left me on the leg extension weight machine, and I was like a baby trying to do it. There was a time that I could have done ten times this much weight and not broken a sweat. Now, every single movement on what was—ten pounds, fuck me—made me want to cry.

  I wouldn’t. But I wanted to.

  Because I’d spent three days off the booze, and I wasn’t going to blow whatever gains I’d made in the direction by acting like a baby now. That wouldn’t be at all hot.

  And for the first time in years, I wanted the attention of a woman who wasn’t giving me anything but remote professional courtesy.

  I smiled at her. “I feel better today. Lots of clean eating. Green drinks.”