The Slider (Boys of Summer Book 5) Read online

  The Slider

  Boys of Summer Book 5

  A.M. Williams

  Contents

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  Somerville Spartans

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Epilogue

  Also by A.M. Williams

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2021 A.M. Williams

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This novel’s story and characters are fictitious.

  Certain long-standing institutions, agencies,

  and public offices are mentioned, but the

  characters involved are wholly imaginary.

  Print ISBN: 9798543957981

  Cover by: Bailey Cover Boutique

  Edited by: Melissa Simmons

  To my seventh grade teacher. While working on this book, I found out she’d passed away. Her name was Mrs. Atkinson. Thank you for teaching me and my peers to do everything with love, even when it’s hard to love the person you’re with.

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  1

  Zoe

  It was rude to stare. I knew that.

  I knew that, and I didn’t care.

  Want to know why?

  The hottest man I’d ever seen in my entire life had just walked into The Splinter.

  It felt cliche to say that it was like that slow-mo entrance you see in the movies, but it really was.

  A group of guys came in before him and he trailed them. It was like God smiled down on me when he did.

  It was raining, so his hair was wet. Once inside, he reached up to run his hands through it, shaking the water out of it.

  And his hair was gorgeous. This thick, lush brown color that was begging for me to go over and help him shake the rest of that water out.

  I didn’t because that would be weird. Much weirder than me being a creep from across the bar as I watched him join his friends at the table they’d claimed near the pool tables.

  Those same pool tables I was sitting at with my friend and her friends. Though I wasn’t sure how good of a friend she was with them because there was something off about some of them.

  They were nice, but catty. I’d never had many female friends growing up because I was a little awkward and lived in my head. I also wasn’t the best at reading people.

  Maybe my read was wrong.

  But I didn’t think so.

  They smiled when Cass introduced me, and they tried to include me in conversation initially. But then I was quickly forgotten by everyone except for Cass.

  I was okay with that. I liked people watching.

  Hence me noticing Mr. Good Looks when he walked in.

  And I wasn’t the only one to notice him, either. The Cat Pack had, as well.

  “Did you see who just walked in?” one girl, a redhead, breathed.

  “I did. I’ve never known him to come out before,” a brunette responded.

  Cass sent me a look, nibbling her bottom lip, before looking back at her friends.

  What was that about?

  I sucked on my straw, and it made the awful slurping sound to tell me my drink was empty. That was my cue.

  While the women were caught up in discussing Mr. Good Looking and his hot friends, I slipped away. Instead of going right for the bar, I veered toward the jukebox. I wasn’t too interested in picking a song to play, but I wanted some time away from Cass’s friends.

  I flicked through the selections before digging a dollar from my pocket and feeding it to the machine and picking my songs.

  Knowing I’d have to wait awhile, I turned toward the bar.

  As I wound through the thickening crowd, I couldn’t help looking toward Mr. Good Looking to get another fix.

  I caught sight of him and did a quick scan before forcing myself to look in front of me and not at him.

  He would star in my fantasies later tonight.

  I bellied up to the bar and leaned on it, trying to catch the eye of the bartender.

  I couldn’t, so I sighed and resigned myself to waiting for a few minutes before my order was taken, which was fine.

  I pulled my phone out to check for messages. My parents had Noah tonight, and I knew he’d be fine, as would they, but I couldn’t help worrying. I never went out drinking with friends or anything that I couldn’t bring Noah to normally.

  It was weird being out without him.

  But I needed the night out badly, something my parents seemed to know when they practically forced me out with Noah’s help.

  “Hey there, pretty lady.”

  My nose wrinkled at the voice. I felt sorry for whoever he was hitting on.

  I clicked on Facebook, pulling it up to scroll through while waiting when the voice spoke again.

  “Hey! I’m talking to you!”

  I glanced up, trying to locate it, and blanched when I realized where he was standing and who he was talking to.

  Right next to me. And he was definitely hitting on me.

  “I’m sorry?” I said, not sure why he was talking to me.

  He smirked. Or he tried to. His eyes were glazed, and he was swaying, so his smirk looked more like a grimace.

  “Hey. How are you?”

  I blinked at him and looked on either side of me, wanting to edge away, but the crowd at the bar had thickened to the point that I was effectively trapped unless I wanted to push people out of the way.

  “Uh… fine,” I responded, looking over my shoulder. The bartender was closer to me, but not close enough I could use ordering as an excuse.

  “Aren’t you going to ask me how I am?” the guy asked.

  I was too far gone to stop the look of horror I knew swept across my face.

  The guy noticed it too, and his smirk-grimace turned into a scowl. There was no mistaking it.

  “You think you’re too good for me, bitch?”

  I froze. I didn’t know what to do. I stared at this guy, people pushing against me. It was like I was on an island with no way to escape.

  “I think you should move on,” a deep voice said to my right.

  I looked that way and met dark brown eyes. They were the only thing I noticed at first. They reminded me of dark chocolate.

  That weird thought snapped me out of whatever weird trance I’d fallen into and I looked back at the first guy, who was now gaping at
Mr. Good Looking.

  That whole movie thought from earlier seemed to be coming true because stuff like this didn’t happen outside of my movies, right?

  “She’s not interested. I think you should move on.”

  The first guy glared at Mr. Good Looking, but said nothing as he turned and stalked off.

  I watched him go, relief flowing through me at being left alone.

  “You good?” Mr. Good Looking asked, pulling my attention back to him.

  I nodded. “Yeah. Thanks.”

  He shrugged. “No problem. You looked like you could use some help.”

  I smiled faintly. “Yeah. I didn’t even realize he was talking to me at first.”

  I shook my head as I realized how out of it I’d been. Yeah, it was The Splinter and pretty nice, all things considered. And I’d never heard of anything happening here, but that didn’t mean things couldn’t happen.

  What if I’d been too far in my head to realize that someone had slipped something into my drink, or worse? I needed to pay better attention.

  “What do you want to drink?” he asked.

  “Oh, uh, I don’t know…” I hedged, not sure what to think of him asking me about my drink.

  Was he hitting on me? Was he going to buy it?

  He grinned at me and turned to the bartender, who was now waiting behind me. With him not looking at me, I took the chance to study him up close, completely missing what he ordered for me.

  But I didn’t care because his hair looked like it was perfect for running your fingers through—just like I thought—and he smelled good. Like really good.

  Minus the stench that Noah put off on a daily basis, I realized men cared more about hygiene and how they smelled the older they got. So it wasn’t like I expected him to smell like a locker room, but it was surprising for me to realize that he smelled good enough to eat.

  I didn’t know what he was wearing, but I wanted to smell it for the rest of my life.

  “Here you go,” Mr. Good Looking said, turning to press a small glass into my hand.

  I blinked and snapped out of my olfactory fog to look at the glass I was now holding. It was something frozen, which told me it would probably be delicious.

  I reached for my wallet, but a hand on mine stopped me and I looked up to see Mr. Good Looking smirking as he shook his head. “I already took care of it.”

  “Thanks,” I said softly, my cheeks heating.

  I took a small sip of my drink and found I was right. It was delicious.

  I cleared my throat and wiped one of my hand on my shorts before saying, “I’m Zoe.”

  He looked me up and down briefly before grinning. “I’m Jacob.”

  2

  Jacob

  Walking away from Zoe was difficult. Much more difficult than I thought it would be considering I’d just met her. I could have talked to her for hours and never gotten bored.

  She was interesting and funny. Down to Earth. I enjoyed being near her.

  And she was hot as fuck.

  She had gray hair that was cut short and the way she’d styled it made it look like I’d just finished messing it up.

  Paired with her green eyes and a pale complexion, I decided I could get on board with talking to her longer.

  But she’d wanted to return to her friends, and I couldn’t think of a good enough reason to tell her to stick with me for a little while longer.

  I watched as she walked to her group of friends by the pool tables, my eyes pinned on her ass, swaying back and forth in her tight pants.

  Once she rejoined her friends, I ordered another beer and then returned to my friends.

  “You couldn’t close the deal?” Alvarez said with a snicker.

  I didn’t respond and just sipped my beer.

  “I thought for sure you’d be going home with her,” he continued, wiggling his eyebrows.

  “Are you trying to piss me off?” I asked him.

  He grinned and chuckled. “Nah. But I am trying to get you to talk. I mean, dude, you just finalized your divorce to the she-witch, and this is the first time we’ve been able to convince you to come out with us.”

  He paused and looked at the other guys before continuing. “I mean, dude. You’ve never wanted to come out before, so we want you to have a successful night.”

  “You’re disgusting sometimes, you know that?” Derek said from Alvarez’s left, his gaze pinned to the television above the bar.

  Alvarez shrugged. “Yeah, I know. But Preston doesn’t complain, so you can’t, either.”

  “That’s because you’re banging her. I don’t think she will,” King drawled from where he was sprawled out next to me.

  Alvarez and King started bickering back and forth, and I sat back to listen and observe.

  I got what Alvarez was saying. I hadn’t been out in ages, not without Lexi at least. And that had stopped several years ago for reasons I didn’t understand.

  I hadn’t been single since college, so even though Lexi and I separated over a year ago and our divorce was made final four weeks before, I didn’t know how to date or pick up a woman.

  Alvarez thought I needed to get back out there and find a one-night stand. Derek thought I should take some time. I didn’t know what King thought. It seemed like he came out tonight just to contradict Alvarez and rile him up.

  “I have to wonder how you satisfy Charlotte with your stick-in-the-mud personality,” Alvarez said.

  King arched a brow and smirked. “If we’re talking about asses—“ he started, but Derek cut him off.

  “If you’re talking about my sister, I don’t want to hear shit about asses.”

  King grimaced while Alvarez shot him a triumphant look.

  “And leave King and Vaughn alone. Seriously. He’s here. Let him decide if he wants to find someone or not.”

  Alvarez glared at Derek, who still wasn’t paying him any mind.

  Alvarez looked back at me. “So that girl… she nice?”

  I nodded and took a long pull from my beer.

  “She’s sitting with the bunnies, but I don’t recognize her. She might be a new one. Getting a bunny for the night wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing,” he continued.

  I looked back toward Zoe and saw the group Alvarez was referring to. Some of them were all over some of my teammates who were playing pool while others were huddled around some of the tables, giggling over something or other.

  Zoe was a little separate, talking to one girl in particular. She looked nothing like the other ones.

  Where the bunnies dressed to entice with low-cut shirts, short shorts, and enough body glitter to fuel a strip club, Zoe was almost Puritanical in contrast.

  Her shirt showed a hint of cleavage, but not so much that she was popping out.

  I definitely preferred her look to the others.

  But she was a bunny? I wouldn’t have pegged that, but I was out of the single scene and had never been in it in the minors before.

  I shouldn’t judge that she was a bunny.

  But it saddened me to think about her being a bunny. Did that mean she was just here for the dick? Or was she genuinely interested in me?

  “If you stare at her any harder, her clothes are going to combust,” King muttered next to me.

  I jerked at his words and glanced toward him, catching his smirk.

  “If you’re interested, go over and talk to her again before someone else snatches her up.”

  I shook my head. “Nah, I’m good. I don’t think I’m ready for anything with a woman after Lexi.”

  King nodded and was quiet for a moment before saying, “I know we don’t talk all that much, but if you ever want to talk about anything, you can come to me.”

  I studied King for a few moments before nodding.

  “Thanks, man. That means a lot.”

  And it did. When I’d been traded to the Spartans a few years ago, Lexi and I were already rocky, so I distanced myself from my teammates in a bid to work on our marriage.
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  That had backfired when she left me a year ago and I didn’t have a single person I felt I could talk to here.

  I had some great teammates, though, because once it got out that I was getting a divorce, the guys rallied around me and slowly included me in things outside of practice and the games.

  I hadn’t accepted at first, but then took dinner invitations.

  Tonight was the first night I’d accepted an invitation for a night out. And I was glad I had because it helped prove to myself that I was okay without Lexi. I was moving on.

  As much as it sucked, I was better off without her. Of that, I was certain.

  So now I was working on getting back to myself and putting myself out there more before getting back in the dating game.

  I drained my beer and stood. “I’m heading to the bathroom, then the bar. Anyone need another one?”

  They all shook their heads, and I left.

  When I came out, I bumped into someone who was coming out of the ladies and reached out a hand to steady her.

  “I’m so sorry!” Zoe said.

  I grinned as I stared down at her. “No worries. Close quarters.”

  She looked at me and blushed. “I didn’t realize it was you.”

  I smirked. “If you’d known it was me, would it have mattered?”