Nixon (Raleigh Raptor Book 1) Read online

  Nixon

  A Raleigh Raptors Novel

  Samantha Whiskey

  Contents

  Also by Samantha Whiskey

  Now Available In Audio!

  1. Nixon

  2. Liberty

  3. Nixon

  4. Liberty

  5. Nixon

  6. Liberty

  7. Nixon

  8. Liberty

  9. Nixon

  10. Liberty

  11. Nixon

  12. Liberty

  13. Nixon

  14. Liberty

  15. Nixon

  16. Liberty

  17. Nixon

  18. Liberty

  19. Nixon

  20. Liberty

  21. Nixon

  Epilogue

  AXEL SNEAK PEEK

  AXEL Chapter One

  Connect With Me!

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Copyright © 2020 by Samantha Whiskey, LLC 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 is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events 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. This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you’d like to share it with. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  Also by Samantha Whiskey

  The Seattle Sharks Series:

  Grinder

  Enforcer

  Winger

  Rookie

  Blocker

  Skater

  Bruiser

  Wheeler

  Defender

  The Carolina Reapers Series:

  Axel

  Sawyer

  Connell

  Logan

  Cannon

  The Raleigh Raptors Series:

  Nixon

  A Modern-Day Fairytale Romance:

  The Crown

  The Throne

  Now Available In Audio!

  Grinder

  Enforcer

  Winger

  Rookie

  Let the Seattle Sharks spice up your morning commute!

  To those who need to heal

  1

  Nixon

  Sweat dripped down my neck as I scanned left, then right, looking for an open receiver. There. Hendrix broke free. The guy was a machine.

  I drew the ball back and fired it down the field. My heartbeat filled my ears for the few seconds it was airborne.

  He caught it.

  I raised my fist in a quick pump as he ran it into the end zone, our own defense on his heels.

  Not bad for the first day of training camp.

  Coach called practice for the day, and I ripped off my helmet. North Carolina in July was fucking brutal in full gear—I probably sweat my weight in water every day—but it was home. It had been for the last eight years. Sure, the humidity sucked on days like today, but I was a Raleigh Raptor through and through. Always had been, and God-and-contract-willing, I always would be.

  I waved to the fans that packed the sidelines behind the rope and started back toward The Barn—our giant training facility.

  “Thoughts?” Roman asked as he tucked his helmet under his arm. Padilla was the fastest running back in the NFL, and one of my closest friends.

  “He thinks I’m a badass,” Hendrix answered, raking his knuckles over Roman’s head in a noogie with a movie-star grin. Guy had run at least fifty yards to catch up to us and wasn’t even out of breath.

  Shit, I felt old, and I was only thirty.

  “Fuck off,” Roman snapped, shoving Hendrix away, but he was smiling. “Seriously, though. What do you think, Nixon?”

  “It’s the first day, and you gotta ruin it by asking Negative-Nixon what he thinks?” Hendrix groaned.

  “Noble!” A woman yelled from the sidelines.

  I flashed a smile and waved, because that was part of my job, then turned back toward my friends. “I think the offensive line is sloppy, the rookies have more ego than talent, and we have a long way to go before we’re cohesive.”

  “Way to crush a guy’s ego.” Roman clutched at his chest.

  “Fucking told you,” Hendrix laughed.

  “Sloppy?” Baker challenged as he jogged by. “Only because Padilla over there must have gained twenty in the offseason.” He turned, running backward, and gestured to the space in front of his stomach with a smirk.

  Roman flipped him the bird, and Baker laughed.

  “Cut the shit,” I ordered.

  Baker’s smirk faded, and he turned back around, jogging toward The Barn.

  “Rick ‘The Dick’ Baker, ladies and gentlemen,” Hendrix called after him, then turned to Roman. “You haven’t gained any weight.”

  “I fucking know,” Roman seethed. “But I’m trying to get along with the asshole for Teagan’s sake.”

  Hendrix whistled. “Damn, I figured that wouldn’t last once they moved in together. What’s it been? Six months?”

  “A year,” Roman muttered. “I know that girl better than anyone on the planet, and I still can’t figure out what the fuck she sees in that douchebag.” He shook his head.

  I didn’t get it, either. Roman and Teagan had been best friends since preschool or some shit, so I knew the little blond pretty well. She was sweet as my mom’s apple pie, and that guy was the sourest asshole on the team. Maybe it was an opposites attract kind of thing.

  “Nixon!” a kid yelled from the sideline as we passed into the end zone. He was wearing a Raptor shirt with my number on the front and looked to be about eight if I had to guess. Then again, I was shit with kids, so he could have been fourteen for all I knew.

  “Hollywood!” a woman called out at the same time. Hendrix threw her a wink, and when he moved the ball to his throwing arm, I shook my head and took it from him.

  “Oh, come on!” Hendrix complained as I walked toward the rope.

  The boy’s eyes lit up, and he looked up at his dad with that face that said, do-you-see-this?

  “What’s your name?” I asked, dropping down to his eye level.

  “Gavin!” he replied, bouncing up on his toes.

  “Hi, Gavin, I’m Nixon.” I grinned. The kid’s energy was contagious. “You got a pen?”

  He nodded enthusiastically and handed me a marker.

  “Thanks, bud.” I signed the football and handed it over to Gavin with his pen. “There you go.”

  “Oh wow. Thank you!” He hugged it to his chest and smiled big.

  “You’re very welcome.” I gave him a nod and stood up. There were instantly a dozen things held out for my signature. Shit. “I’ll come back out after I shower if you guys want to hang around,” I promised before walking back to Roman and Hendrix.

  “Seriously?” Hendrix whined. “Did you see the rack on that blonde? That ball would have turned her into a sure bet.” He sighed. “Good thing it was for a kid.”

  Roman laughed. “You come back out in twenty, and I bet that blond is still a sure thing, Hollywood.”

  “Probably.” Hendrix let that movie star smile slip—the one that earned him the ridiculous nickname. Add in the California blond hair and blue eyes, and the girls came running. “Or maybe you could bring her out another ball, Noble? Training camp would be a little easier on all of us if you’d get laid.”

  I scoffed,
even as I glanced out over the crowd, looking for the one person I knew wouldn’t be there. A flash of memory filled my vision: long brown hair and the greenest eyes I’d ever seen looking up at me from white sheets—

  “You know he’s gone celibate,” Roman remarked, bringing me back to the present.

  “I haven’t gone celibate,” I threw up air quotes as we walked into The Barn. The temp dropped twenty degrees as the air conditioning hit us.

  “What would you call giving up sex for the season?” Hendrix questioned.

  “Prioritizing my focus.” It was that simple. That one weekend I’d spent in Vegas with Liberty, the woman who’d won the charity date auction, had been enough to fuck with my head for the last month. Hell, I still had dreams about her almost every night. “Women are a distraction I don’t need this year, and honestly, I’m just getting sick of it.”

  “Women?” Roman’s eyes widened.

  “No.” I took a long look at my friends and struggled for words. These guys hardly ever went home alone, especially Hendrix. “The stress and worry that comes with them.”

  Hendrix opened the door to the hallway and rolled his eyes. “Not every woman is your ex, you know. They’re not all looking to trap you into a wedding ring.”

  “You seriously want to tell me that every single woman out there on that sideline wouldn’t do whatever it takes to become Mrs. Hendrix?” I asked, heading down the hall toward the locker room. “Not just for the money, but the fame? Half the WAGs are just hanging around for the perks already. And you know Teagan isn’t included in that assessment.” Not that there weren’t a few solid marriages on the team, and Teagan was pretty kick-ass, but from what I’d seen, the Wives And Girlfriends, or WAGs, were mostly arm candy in search of deep pockets.

  “You are so fucking jaded,” Roman chided. “I don’t get it. Your brother seems to have his shit in line.”

  “Yeah, well, Nate got lucky,” I admitted. My twin, Nathan, was a defenseman for the Carolina Reapers, and not only did he manage an NHL career, but his fiancée was the real deal. Those two were head-over-heels in love, even if Harper refused to set a wedding date. I kinda loved her even more for sticking to her independent guns.

  “Well, I’m just looking to get plain-old-lucky.” Hendrix grinned as we burst into the locker room.

  The noise was deafening, and they hadn’t even let the reporters in yet. I’d done far too many interviews with a towel hung around my hips, hoping the thing didn’t slip on camera, so I hurried through my shower. My mother would never fucking forgive me if I gave America an eyeful of my dick.

  Coach Goodman started up with his pep talk right around the time I was pulling up my shorts. The guy was one of the best in the league by the stats and the best in my opinion. He was a hulking, bear of a man who’d played pro for a season before his knee blew out, so he understood the player side of this business, too. He was fair, expected you to give a hundred-and-ten-percent on the field, and never put up with shit.

  “—and that being said, we’re going to get a little reminder of my rules before the press gets at you.” He narrowed his eyes on the rookies, especially Maverick Allen, the hot-headed fullback we’d picked up in the first round out of Texas A&M. “First rule, show up on time. Glad to see you all followed that one today, and I expect you to keep it up. Second rule, you act like a Raptor on and off the field. The whole world is watching, boys, and that means every jackass move you pull is going to have a spotlight shined on your ass. Third, if you do get into trouble, your first call had better be to me. I don’t want to hear about anything from TMZ first, got me?”

  The team mumbled an assent.

  “Nixon, you want to offer these rookies any advice?” he asked, raising his brows at me.

  I stood from the bench, still holding my shirt in my hand. “Don’t let the fame go to your head. This isn’t college, this is the National Football League, and here’s a room full of guys willing to kick your ass if you need to be reminded that you’re not the big fish in your little ponds anymore.” I warned the newbies.

  A round of comments, including, “Hell yeah, we will,” came from around the locker room.

  “We’re a family,” I told them. “That means check your ego at the door. You show up for your team. We’ll show up for you.”

  Another round of comments agreeing with me sounded around the room.

  “Lastly, wrap it up. There’s a whole flock of beautiful women waiting for you on the sidelines, at the bar, at events—hell, even in the hallways of our hotels at away games—”

  “Hell yeah, there are!” Hendrix called out. The boys howled in agreement, but the second I put my hand up, the room fell silent again.

  “Point is, unless you’re ready to shell out eighteen years of child support on an NFL salary, wrap your shit up. There’s a lot of good women in the world, but there are a lot of girls who are going to see that jersey as a meal ticket, so watch out.”

  Another mumble of agreement filled the room.

  “Oh, and not to correct Coach, but if you get in trouble, call me first, and we might not have to wake up the old man.” I grinned unapologetically at Coach Goodman, who shook his head at me and sighed. I’d been with him for the last eight seasons. The man was pretty much a second father to me. “You got anything else for us, Coach?”

  “I have one rule above all others, and if you break it, you won’t have to worry about being traded, because you’ll be dead.” He stood at my side and stared down every player in the locker room, making eye contact with each of us in turn as the rest sat silently. “Do. Not. Fuck. With. My. Daughter.”

  You could have heard a pin drop, and more than one rookie swallowed nervously at the murderous look in Coach’s eyes.

  Honestly, I’d known Savannah Goodman since she was twelve, so to me, she was still the little redhead with pigtails and freckles. Good kid. Then again, she was twenty now, a sophomore about twenty minutes away at UNC Chapel Hill, so the warning was appropriate. I had no doubt Coach would slaughter anyone who got close to her.

  “And just so we’re clear.” He whipped a picture out of his wallet and held it up, turning a slow circle. “This is my girl. There will be no ‘I didn’t know who she was,’ or ‘I thought she was just another staffer.’ She is Miss Goodman to you, and if you even look at her in a way I deem inappropriate, you won’t have a dick to wrap up. Are we clear?”

  “Yes, sir.” The team answered, including me. If Coach didn’t fuck someone up for messing with Savannah, then I sure as hell would.

  “Now that we have that covered,” Coach said as he tucked the picture back into his wallet. “We’re letting the press in. You know the drill. Don’t say shit you wouldn’t want your teammates to hear because the entire world hears you.”

  I had just tugged my shirt over my head when the first reporter stuck her mic in my face. Then her eyes dropped down my body with an appreciative smile.

  “How’s it going, Nancy?” I asked, pulling my shirt down the rest of the way. This was her third year in my locker room, and I had yet to give the woman what she’d repeatedly, clearly, and very loudly asked for.

  “Hi, there, Nixon.” She flashed me a smile with overly bright teeth. “So how did you feel out there today?”

  “Great,” I answered. “It’s always fantastic to get back on the field for the season.” New year, same old questions.

  “And how do you feel like it’s coming together?”

  I managed to keep from rolling my eyes. “Well, it’s the first day, so it’s hard to really judge, but knowing the base of the team that’s already in place, and seeing the level of new talent we’ve brought in this year, I can’t help but feel optimistic.”

  I fielded the rest of her questions from the bench as I got my socks and shoes on, then handled three other reporters before I made my way out of the locker room. At least I wasn’t stuck at the conference tables yet, but I knew it was coming.

  Locking eyes with Roman, then Hendrix, I pointed ou
t of the locker room, and they nodded, both still answering questions. If I got out now, I could sign for the fans for at least twenty minutes.

  “Nixon! What do you have to say about rumors that your brother had a shotgun wedding last weekend?” a local tabloid reporter called out from the side of the hallway as I walked out of the locker room.

  Usually, I ignored that shit, but this time I laughed. “Trust me, there would be nothing shotgun about Nathan marrying his fiancée.” God, he’d been desperate to get that woman to the altar for the last two years.

  “Is that a confirmation?” the reporter asked, following me down the hall with quick clicks of her heels.

  Harper would lose her shit if I said anything even resembling a confirmation. “No, it’s not. Trust me, if my brother had gotten married, I would have been there, and he would have announced it in skywriting. Besides, aren’t you a little far from Charleston for the social gossip?” I tossed over my shoulder.

  “But you were placed at a Carolina Reaper wedding in Vegas last month,” she tried again as I pushed through the doors into The Barn. The indoor field stretched out before me like the finish line in a race I had zero desire to run with the press.

  “Yep. That would have been Cannon Price and Persephone VanDoren, which has already been well-reported. Again, not my brother. Or do guys in hockey gear all look the same to you?” I arched a brow at the over-eager brunette who looked like she was still in college.

  “No, of course not,” she bristled.

  “Right. We done?” I asked over my shoulder.