Page 7 of Pressure Point

Avery felt her jaw go slack as she looked him up and down. That was, until she looked a little closer at his rib cage and noticed a slight bit of swelling on his left side.

“Is your left side bothering you?” she asked, still staring at him.

“Uh, yeah, twisted too hard at the gym,” he said, placing a plate on the table.

“You should have that looked at. You could have costochondral separation. It’s where the ribs separate from the breastbone. You have some swelling between your ribs. You’ll need an X-ray to know for sure, but you don’t want to do any more damage to the cartilage if you can help it.”

She heard Liam huff out a laugh next to her, as the waiter looked at her like she had just recited the whole of the American Constitution backwards.

“Uh, thanks. And you are?”

“Devlin, meet Avery Houghton, Atlanta Rising physical therapist,” Gunnar said, not bothering to hold back his laughter. “Avery, this is Devlin Decker, head waiter here at Bunz.”

“Well, thank you, Avery. I will see what I can do about getting an X-ray.”

Placing the last of the food items from his tray on the table, Devlin nodded a goodbye and slipped away. Heat rose up Avery’s cheeks, realizing that she’d done it again—embarrassed herself in front of the whole team and now two of the bosses with her inability to be normal. Looking back over at Dash, he seemed oblivious to what she’d just done, still too engrossed in flirting with Talia. Avery couldn’t tell by the look on Talia’s face if she was reciprocating, but Avery couldn’t imagine how she couldn’t be. If Dash had been giving her that kind of attention, nothing would have stopped her from returning it. She just wished she could be as cute and fun as Talia, rather than her awkward little self.

“Well done, Avery!” Felicity Sutherland said. “Now that is some womansplaining!”

Chapter Three

“Womansplaining?” Avery asked, not sure she heard the beautiful blonde correctly.

“Yup. It’s a term I made up for when a smart, knowledgeable woman puts a man in his place. Bunz was created as a safe place for female sports fans, so we could watch the game without it being mansplained to us. But there is always room for a woman to show off what she knows.”

Felicity smiled brightly at her, as if they had been friends forever. The team owner was tall, thin, and impeccably put together, even in her jeans and Atlanta Rising jersey. The woman had quite the reputation around the organization for being tough and a bit of a bitch, but Avery figured she hadn’t risen to the top of the organization without having to fight her way there. Confidence radiated off of her, and it was clear to Avery that while tough might be an accurate description, that “bitch” was probably more than a little unfair.

“Gotcha,” she answered, swallowing hard. What I wouldn’t give for an ounce of that confidence…

“Gentlemen,” Felicity said, her voice commanding as she addressed the team. “I’m not going to take up a lot of your time, because I imagine you have much better things to do after a win than listen to me. That said, I do want to take a moment to congratulate you on your first win as a team. I know we have something special here, and I’m looking forward to seeing what else y’all can do. So, have some fun tonight, enjoy your day off tomorrow, and we shall see y’all at practice on Monday.”

She nodded, looped her arm around Gunnar’s, and turned to walk away but then paused, spinning back around on her heel.

“One more thing. I helped hire every staff member in this place. The owner is my mentor, the bartender and one of the waiters are two of my best friends. I will know if any of you does anything to embarrass our organization. So watch yourselves!” Blowing the group a kiss, she reversed her spin from a moment ago, relooping her arm with her boyfriend’s, and walked away.

“OMG, I want to be her when I grow up,” Avery muttered.

“She’s intense, that’s for sure,” Liam said. “But there’s a lot more to her underneath all that. She’s actually very sweet.”

Avery turned to look at him, thinking how he had unknowingly described Felicity in the same way that she would have him. If men could have resting bitch face, she was sure that Liam would have been the poster child, with his stoic, borderline-grumpy expression. But underneath all that was a gentle giant.

“So, um…you mentioned that you’ve always wanted to watch the MCU movies in chronological order,” Liam said, stumbling over his words slightly. It was kind of hard to hear him, even with the deep timbre of his voice, as the buzz of conversation around them picked up.

“Yeah, I’ve never done it. Could be cool,” she said, not quite sure where he was going with this. “I think there are a couple of Spiderman movies I missed along the way too.”

“Well, if you follow the true MCU, then the Tobey Maguire ones don’t count. Only the two that have come out since 2017.”

“Oh, then I definitely missed those!” she said with a laugh. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Dash still flirting with Talia. Her heart squeezed, once again wishing she was the object of his attention at the moment. She let out a small sigh that she hoped no one noticed. She didn’t need to be that girl—the staffer obsessed with a player. Focusing in on Liam, she said a silent thank you that he was standing here with her, distracting her with talk of comic book movies. It was like he knew she needed something to try and keep her mind off of what was happening across the table.

“We wouldn’t get to those for a while. If you’re really interested, we could start with Captain America tomorrow.”

“Sure! Mind if we do it at your place though? I don’t own a TV,” she told him. She held her breath for a beat, waiting for the inevitable reaction. And the look on Liam’s face did not disappoint.

“You don’t own a TV?”

“Nope. I had one, but it belonged to my best friend, Hazel, and when she moved out, she took it with her. And since I haven’t found a new roommate, I haven't bothered to replace it. I don’t really miss it.”

“Okay, then, my place.”