'Call Girl'

NESSA'S POV

I was not one to dwell on things, especially not when I was standing in a room with eight boys who were staring at me like they had never seen a girl before in their entire lives. Their eyes moved over me from head to toe, some curious, some openly annoyed, and a few already looking like they wanted me gone before I had even said a single word. The three who had come down last were still locked on me, but the confusion that had been on their faces only a minute earlier had shifted into something else entirely. 

Now they looked almost amused, like they were studying every inch of me and finding the whole situation entertaining in a way that made my skin prickle. I could still feel that strange pull toward them, the same heavy warmth that had hit me the second our eyes met, but I forced myself to look away from them because staring back only made it harder to think straight. My heart was still beating too fast, and the air in the living room felt thicker than it should have. 

I cleared my throat, the sound cutting through the silence that had settled after they all gathered, and I made myself focus on the group as a whole instead of just those three.

“Is this everyone?” I asked, keeping my voice steady even though part of me still felt off balance from whatever had happened when those three walked in. I needed to know if more of them were going to appear, because the coach had mentioned the whole team lived here, and I did not want to repeat myself later. A few of the younger ones glanced at each other, and the boy who had opened the door earlier gave a small nod, but before anyone could answer properly, one of the three stepped forward. 

He was a strikingly beautiful blonde with a buzz cut that made his sharp features stand out even more, and the arrogant look plastered across his face told me everything I needed to know about the kind of person he was before he even opened his mouth.

“I don’t remember calling for a call girl,” he said in a tone that was borderline rude, his eyes dragging over me one more time like he was confirming his own assumption. “So who the hell are you and what the fuck are you doing in this house?”

My jaw dropped in pure shock. I had been called quite a lot of names in my twenty-three years of being alive, but not once had anyone ever called me a call girl, whether they said it directly or tried to hide it behind some other insult. 

So the fact that this jackass standing in front of me had basically decided that was what I was the second he saw me with a suitcase was beyond shocking. For a second I just stared at him, trying to process the absolute nerve it took to say something like that to a complete stranger who had only just walked through the door. I recovered faster than I expected, the initial surprise turning into a hot flash of anger that pushed the strange attraction I still felt toward him into the background for the moment. I was not about to let some overgrown football player talk to me like that in front of everyone else.

“What the fuck did you just say?” I asked, stepping a little closer without even thinking about it. 

I already knew exactly what he had said, every word of it had landed clear as day, but I wanted to see if he would have the guts to repeat himself now that I was looking him straight in the eye and calling him out on it. The room had gone quiet again, and I could feel the rest of the boys watching the exchange like they were waiting to see who would back down first.

The blonde simply scoffed, the sound short and dismissive, as if my reaction were the most predictable thing he had ever seen. “State your business if you don’t want to be kicked out,” he said, folding his arms across his chest like he already owned the place and I was the one who needed to justify being here. The arrogance rolling off him was almost impressive in how open it was. He did not even try to hide it.

I scoffed right back in pure disbelief, the sound leaving my throat before I could stop it. Then I stepped forward until I was standing much closer to where he was, close enough that I had to tilt my head back a little to keep looking at his face. He was tall, taller than me by no less than six inches, and I was not exactly a short person myself. 

The height difference should have made me feel smaller, but all it did was make me more determined not to let him talk down to me. “What is your name?” I asked him directly, my voice steady and clear so everyone in the room could hear it. “Because your coach already told me that I would have a lot of dickheads to deal with in this house, but I did not think one of you would be so uncouth right from the first conversation.”

His brows furrowed at that, the amused look slipping for a second as if he had not expected me to push back so quickly. I could see the irritation starting to build behind his eyes, but before he could open his mouth again, another one of the three stepped forward. This one was a brunette, a little less openly arrogant than the blonde but just as intense in the way he watched me. He had an intrigued look on his face, like he was trying to figure me out instead of just dismissing me the way the first one had. When he spoke, his voice was much more polite on the surface, the words carefully measured.

“What business do you have with our coach?” he asked, and for a moment it almost sounded like a genuine question, but I was not stupid. I could see the contradiction between his calm words and the clear irritation sitting in his eyes. He might have been better at controlling his tone than the blonde, but the way he looked at me still made it obvious that he was not happy about finding a random girl standing in their living room with a suitcase, and perhaps there was something else that was irritating him, but I could not for the life of me figure out what it was.

I decided it was time to finally put them out of their misery and just say what needed to be said. Dragging this out any longer was not going to help anyone, and the longer I stood there under all those stares, the more I could feel that strange pull toward the three of them trying to distract me. 

“My name is Vanessa Wilder,” I said, making sure my voice carried across the whole group. “Nessa for short. I am your new trainer and nutritionist, and I am also going to be living with you from now on.”

The words landed in the room like a stone dropped into still water. The other boys who had been quietly watching the whole exchange immediately started talking amongst themselves, their voices overlapping in low, unhappy mutters that I could not quite make out but did not need to. By the look on their faces alone, I could tell they were not pleased in the slightest, which was exactly what I had expected after the coach’s warning. Some of them were shaking their heads, others were exchanging looks like they could not believe what they were hearing, and a couple of the younger ones just stared at me with wide eyes as if the idea of a female trainer living under the same roof was something they had never even considered possible.

The rude blonde scoffed at me again, the sound sharper this time, like I had just said the most ridiculous thing he had ever heard in his life. His arms were still crossed, and the arrogant set of his mouth made it clear he thought the whole idea was a joke. The brunette still looked intrigued and irritated at the same time, his eyes moving over me more carefully now that he had an actual answer, as if he were trying to decide whether I was serious or just making things up as I went, and the last of the three, the one who had not said a single word since they all came downstairs, finally spoke. 

He had not moved an inch from where he stood, his posture still and controlled, but the first words that came out of his mouth were directed straight at me and left no room for misunderstanding.

“Leave Vanessa,” he said, his voice low and final. “You will never be welcomed here, so get out of our sight immediately.”