Spinning Out (The Blackhawk Boy #1) Read online

  Spinning Out

  The Blackhawk Boys, Book 1

  Lexi Ryan

  Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  About SPINNING OUT

  Prologue—Mia

  Part I. After

  Mia

  Arrow

  Mia

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  Mia

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  Mia

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  Mia

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  Part II. Before

  Mia

  Arrow

  Mia

  Part III: After

  Mia

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  Mia

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  Mia

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  Part IV: Before

  Arrow

  Mia

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  Mia

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  PART V: After

  Arrow

  Mia

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  Mia

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  Mia

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  Part VI: Before

  Mia

  Arrow

  Mia

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  Mia

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  Part VII: After

  Mia

  Arrow

  Mia

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  Mia

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  Mia

  Part VIII: Before

  Arrow

  Mia

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  Mia

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  Part IX: After

  Arrow

  Mia

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  Mia

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  Mia

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  Mia

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  Mia

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  Mia

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  Spinning Out Playlist

  Other Books by Lexi Ryan

  About the Author

  Spinning Out © 2016 by Lexi Ryan

  All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this book. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from the author except by reviewers who may quote brief excerpts in connection with a review. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to institutions or persons, living or dead, is used fictitiously or purely coincidental.

  Cover © 2016 Sarah Hansen, Okay Creations

  Created with Vellum

  For Kai

  Acknowledgments

  I’m so grateful to have a supportive husband who believes in me and my work, who understands why my stories mean so much to me, and who makes the sacrifices necessary when I need to work sixty hours a week to get a book done.

  I’m surrounded by family who supports me every day. To my kids, Jack and Mary, thank you for making me laugh and giving me a reason to work hard. I am so proud to be your mommy. To my mom, brothers, and sisters, thank you for cheering me on—each in your own way. I’m so grateful to have been born into this crazy crew of seven kids.

  This book is for my nephew Kai, whose absolute passion for football made me fall in love with the sport so many years ago. Kai, you might notice I stole some of your friends’ names randomly for the book. As the characters are obviously not based on your old friends, this is merely a nod to the bond you all formed playing ball together. That kind of friendship isn’t easy to come by, but it’s the kind I like to give my characters before I drag them through hell. I’m proud of you, kid. Even if you did try to break my nose with your mom’s cell phone when you were three.

  I don’t think I’d be able to keep my sanity if it weren’t for my friends. You encourage me, you believe in me, and, when necessary, you pass the vodka. A special shout-out to Mira, whose calls save me from meltdowns and who understands that #livingthedream comes with really effing stressful moments. To Kylie and the entire CrossFit Terre Haute crew, for teaching me to love picking up heavy things, which is, incidentally, a much healthier stress management tool than ice cream. To Annie for believing in me since I was seventeen and wore the identity “writer” like a badge of honor.

  To everyone who provided me feedback on Arrow’s story along the way—especially Annie Swanberg, Heather Carver, Mira Lyn Kelly, and Samantha Leighton—you’re all awesome. Thank you for believing in my ability to tell this story when I was having doubts.

  Thank you to the Terre Haute Police Department for answering my questions. I know they seemed weird and you didn’t buy for one second that it was research for a book, but four call transfers later, you gave me the information I needed. Thanks for that and for the chuckle.

  Thank you to the team that helped me package this book and promote it. Sarah Hansen at Okay Creations designed my beautiful cover and did a lovely job branding the series. Rhonda Stapleton and Lauren McKellar, thank you for the insightful line edits. Thanks to Arran McNicol at Editing720 for proofreading. A shout-out to all of the bloggers and reviewers who help spread the word about my books. I am humbled by the time you take out of your busy lives for my stories. You’re the best.

  To my agent, Dan Mandel, for believing in this book years ago and staying by my side through tough career decisions. Thanks to you and Stefanie Diaz for getting my books into the hands of readers all over the world. Thank you for being part of my team.

  To my NWBs—Sawyer Bennett, Lauren Blakely, Violet Duke, Jessie Evans, Melody Grace, Monica Murphy, and Kendall Ryan—y’all rock my world. I’m inspired by your tireless work and always encouraged by your friendship. Thank you for being a part of this journey.

  To all my writer friends on Twitter, Facebook, and my various writer loops—especially to the Fast Draft Club and the All Awesome group—thank you for keeping me company during those fourteen-hour work days.

  And last but certainly not least, a big thank-you to my fans—the coolest, smartest, best readers in the world. I owe my career to you. You’re the reason I get to do this every day and the reason I want to. I appreciate each and every one of you. You’re the best!

  ~Lexi

  About SPINNING OUT

  Once, the only thing that mattered to me was football—training, playing, and earning my place on the best team at every level. I had it all, and I threw it away with a semester of drugs, alcohol, and pissing off anyone who tried to stop me. Now I’m suspended from the team, on house arrest, and forced to spend six months at home to get my shit together. The cherry on top of my fuckup sundae? Sleeping in the room next to mine is my best friend’s girl, Mia Mendez—the only woman I’ve ever loved and a reminder of everything I regret.

  I’m not sure if having Mia so close will be heaven or hell. She’s off-limits—and not just because she’s working for my dad. Her heart belongs to someone else. But since the accident that killed her brother and changed everything, she walks around like a zombie, shutting out her friends and ignoring her dreams. We’re both broken, numb, and stuck in limbo.

  Until I break my own rules and touch her.

  Until she saves me from my nightmares by climbing into my bed.

  Until the only thing I want more than having Mia for myself is to protect her from the truth.

  I can’t rewrite the past, but I refuse to leave her heart in the hands of fate. For this girl, I’d climb into the sky and rearrange the stars.

  THE BLACKHAWK BOYS, an edgy, sexy sports romance series from New York Times bestseller Lexi Ryan. Football. Secrets. Lies. Passion. These boys don’t play fair. Whic
h Blackhawk Boy will steal your heart?

  Book 1 - SPINNING OUT - Coming May 3rd (Arrow’s story)

  Book 2 - RUSHING IN - Coming mid-2016 (Christopher’s story)

  Book 3 - GOING UNDER - Coming late 2016 (Sebastian’s story)

  Prologue—Mia

  Before midnight. New Year’s Eve. Black sky. Black clouds. Headlights. New moon.

  My mother always told us that change happens at the new moon.

  They’re arguing. Brogan’s drunk—not himself. Nic’s pissed—too much himself.

  “Nobody raises his hand to my sister.” Nic spits in Brogan’s face, and Brogan swings. Then the sickening sound of fists connecting with flesh. My brother’s fists. My boyfriend’s. They’re going to kill each other.

  “Stop!” I beg, my voice like breaking glass. “Nic, just take me home.” Sleet pelts my face, coming at me the way the guys go at each other. I pace, my arms wrapped around myself, my fingers numb. It’s so dark out here, and the only light comes from the headlights of the boys’ cars, facing each other on the side of the road.

  “Get in the car,” Nic growls at me without taking his eyes from Brogan. It’s the third time he’s given the order, and I refused, as if my presence could keep them from hurting each other. This time I obey, climbing in and shutting the door behind me. It’s warmer in here without the sleet and relentless wind, but I can’t stop shaking. Cold. Scared. Fucking night from hell. I wait for my brother, but he doesn’t follow. He shoves Brogan into the street, and Brogan falls, then scrambles. Nic kicks him before he can get up.

  “Just take me home!” I scream. My stomach cramps, folds, convulses around itself. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

  I turn the key in the ignition and look at the clock as if it might be ticking down to the end of their ugly shouts and angry punches. 11:59. How is it still 11:59? Will this night never end?

  As if answering my mental plea, the clock ticks over, and I hear screeching tires.

  Black sky. Black clouds. Headlights. New moon.

  My mother always told us that change happens at the new moon. She was right.

  Part I. After

  April, three and a half months after the accident

  Mia

  “What is she doing here?” Arrow’s words are spoken in a hard whisper that crawls up the walls and under the wooden nursery door. They creep into my sanctuary and claw at my heart. The murmurs of his stepmother’s reply float up behind the hate, but I can’t make them out.

  “You couldn’t find any-fucking-body else to play mom to your baby?” No more whispering. Words directed like knives intended to hurt us both—her for being an unfit mother by hiring a nanny, me because he wants me to know how unwelcome I am.

  The dull thud of toppled furniture—maybe a dining room chair, maybe an end table. Heavy footsteps. The echoing, house-shaking boom of a slamming door.

  I shift baby Katie in my arms and cross to the window. Between the slats of the wooden blinds, I watch Arrow. The sight of him climbing into his electric-blue Mustang GT steals my breath. The engine purrs, and he tears out of the driveway.

  Breathe, I remind myself. I close my eyes and focus on the cool air filling my lungs, the warmth of the newborn curled into my body, the hum of the ceiling fan almost whispering the reminder: Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.

  Gwen’s heels click on the hardwood planks of the hall, and I know she’s heading my way before she knocks.

  “Come in.”

  She opens the door slowly and steps into the room, bringing with her a cloud of expensive perfume and a reminder of my anxieties. She looks every bit the part of the stereotypical trophy wife—from her blond hair and perfect body to the single-carat diamond studs in each ear.

  At twenty-six, Gwen is only six years older than me, five years older than her stepson. She married Arrow’s father a convenient eight months before she gave birth to Katie, making her husband a father to his second child at the age of sixty-five. I don’t judge her for marrying Mr. Woodison, a man nearly forty years her senior. We all have our reasons for taking paths for which the world will judge us.

  “I’m guessing you heard that,” she says.

  I nod and tell my racing heart to steady. If she asks me to leave, I don’t know what I’ll do. Get a job at Walmart, maybe? The pay cut would be a bitch, but it would be something. Of course, then there’d be no school next fall, and the fact that Mr. Woodison pays me enough that I’ll be able to afford my tuition at Blackhawk Hills U is definitely the sweetest part of this arrangement.

  “He hates you so much,” she says. The words hit me with the dull force of a blow to the heart. “Why?”

  Because I destroyed everything. “I don’t know.”

  She extends her arms for Katie, and I hesitate. Seeing Arrow again—even for only the ten seconds it took him to climb into his car—has left me feeling ugly and guilty. The baby’s warmth is a soothing balm to my battered conscience, but I hand her over.

  “I don’t know what we’re going to do about him,” Gwen says. “But if that’s a taste of what’s to come, it’s going to be a long six months.” She shakes her head and peers between the slats in the blinds. “I can’t say that I’m happy with him serving his sentence here, but it wasn’t my choice to make.”

  “He’s not that bad.” When she cuts her gaze to me, I wish I’d kept my mouth shut. If I’m going to keep my job with the Woodisons while Arrow is home, I need Gwen as my ally.

  With a sigh, she releases the blinds and turns back to me. “I won’t live in a house with you two at each other’s throats. So as long as I’m stuck with him here, you’re going to have to fix it.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Whatever is wrong between you and Arrow. Fix it. Or I’ll have to find someone else to help me with Katie and the house.”

  My heart plummets, and I reach out and grab the edge of the crib. “I’ll talk to him.” Not that talking will help. The best thing I can do for Arrow is avoid him. He won’t be so angry about me being here if he doesn’t have to look at my face.

  “Between you and me,” Gwen says, her lips curling into a perfectly painted snarl, “I’m hoping he’ll slip up and start using again. I’d rather see his spoiled ass spend the next six months in jail than have him under my roof.”

  “Start using again.” I never thought those words would be connected to Arrow, and hearing them is a slap in the face. Because Gwen might be clueless, but everyone else in this town knows why Arrow’s life spun out of control this semester, and anyone who’s honest knows I’m to blame. I wasn’t driving the car. I wasn’t throwing the punches. But I was the catalyst. If I’d stayed home that night . . .

  I keep my mouth shut, and I’m rewarded with a smile as Gwen hands Katie back to me.

  Fix it. A simple command delivered by a woman who’s grown accustomed to having her demands met. Only she doesn’t know she’s asking for the impossible.

  No one can fix this.

  Arrow

  The house is dark and quiet when I get home. Maybe everyone is sleeping, but that’s unlikely. At eleven, Dad’s probably drinking his first scotch. Maybe screwing his nubile young wife.

  And Mia? Is she sleeping? Studying? Maybe she’s rocking the baby to sleep and humming a lullaby.

  I climb the stairs and head straight to my room, each step feeling like another click of the invisible shackles of my house-arrest sentence. Tonight was my last night of freedom, and I spent it sitting in my car alone by the lake. Because apparently I’m a fucking masochist who wanted to wallow in his memories for a while. As if having her in the room next to mine for the next six months isn’t going to be reminder enough.

  I can’t decide if her nearness is a gift or a curse—if seeing her in the hall and catching her scent will be heaven or hell.

  Pausing at the door to Mia’s room, I press my palm to the wood. I swear my pulse triples at the thought of her on the other side.

  “Wrong door.”


  I spin around at the sound of her voice and find myself face to face with Mia Mendez, my stepmother’s goddamn nanny, my best friend’s girl, and a reminder of everything I regret.

  Her dark hair is piled in a sloppy knot on top of her head, and soft tendrils curl at the base of her neck. She’s wearing some sort of oversized, wide-necked T-shirt that’s slipped off one shoulder, exposing a dusting of freckles I know too damn well continue down to her bra line. Her feet are bare, her toenails painted pink, and her legs . . . Christ.

  She swallows and stares at my chest, like she can’t look me in the eye anymore. Join the fucking club. “That one’s mine,” she says softly.

  “Yours?”

  Her head bobs as she nods, and anger flares in my stomach, a hot flash over the lust that sucker-punched me the second she appeared. She’s ashamed of me. Or disgusted. It would only be worse if she had any idea what being this close to her does to me. “This isn’t your room,” I say. “It’s just where you’re staying while you work.”

  She lets out a breath and shifts her gaze to the door. “Whatever.”

  I give her another once-over, all the while telling myself the ugliest lies I can about her. Anger is so much easier to deal with than this soul-stealing desire. No. Desire would be easy. It’s basic. Practically juvenile compared to what I feel for Mia. This is something else. Something more. “You make a habit out of walking around my dad’s house like this?”

  She arches a brow. “Like what?”

  I shift my gaze down her torso and let it linger on her thighs just below the hem of her cotton sleep shorts. “Half naked?”

  Shaking her head, she pushes past me and into her room. The shorts shift with each step, and I simultaneously wish they were longer and pray they might become shorter. Because this—the view of the caramel skin at the back of her thighs and the memory of how she whimpered when I rolled her onto her stomach and put my mouth there—this, without the gratification of seeing the curve at the bottom of her ass. This nightmare my life has become—having her so close and knowing she can’t ever be mine. This isn’t heaven or hell. It’s fucking purgatory.