Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 81745 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 409(@200wpm)___ 327(@250wpm)___ 272(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81745 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 409(@200wpm)___ 327(@250wpm)___ 272(@300wpm)
“Well, it ended in a disaster, so it’s safe to say that will never happen again,” I tell her, getting a sinking feeling in my stomach. She picks up her phone and orders pizza and then turns to me while keeping one eye on Ari. “It really isn’t that big of a deal. He came over a couple of days ago to thank me for going out with him. Then asked me to go have ice cream with him.”
“And …” She waits for me to finish.
“And nothing.” I tap my fingers on the counter. “We were there a whole five minutes, if not less.” She doesn’t say anything as she waits for me to finish. “Fine,” I snap. “He flirted with girls right in front of me. I got salty, and I asked him to drive me home.”
“You mean, you got jealous,” she says the same thing that Miller said, but I glare at her.
“I wasn’t jealous. I was annoyed that he blatantly flirted with other women in front of me. Who does that? It’s disrespectful. I was right there. He came over to my house to take me out. I didn’t call him to beg him to take me out; he showed up out of the blue. After I ignored his texts all day.” The pitch of my voice rises, and I’m suddenly angry. “Google even told him not to call me but Mr. I Go By My Own Rules decided to show up at my door.” She doesn’t say anything, which frustrates me even further. “What?” I snap at her. “What are you thinking?”
“You aren’t going to like what I have to say,” she says, and I fold my hands over my chest. “Could it be that you got upset because you like him?” I open my mouth to scream, but she puts her hand up. “He should not have flirted with other women in front of you. That was disrespectful but think about it. If you didn’t care about him, would you really care?”
I stare at her, opening my mouth and closing it and then opening it again. “If you went out with Ralph and he flirted with other women, would you care?”
“I’d cut his balls off.” I point at her.
“Okay, fine. If you went out with Brian, and he flirted with other women, would you care?”
I glare at her. “No, I would give him a high-five.”
“Which means …” She looks at me, and all I can do is glare at her.
“I don’t like him,” I tell her, and she rolls her lips. “Fuck,” I say, slapping my palm to my forehead. “I might like him.”
Chapter 18
Miller
She hasn’t answered one of my texts in three days. Three long fucking days. My head is spinning, and I literally have no idea what to do. I text her before I left for Denver, and she never answered me.
I arrive at the arena at the scheduled time for our Saturday game. My body’s still sore from the grueling physical game we played last night. We flew back home right after the game, and I had no time to do anything but sleep. Walking into the locker room carrying a cup of coffee, I’m one of the last to arrive. “Gentlemen,” I say. The rookies nod at me, some in their workout clothes already. I sit in my spot next to Manning, who is undressing. “My ass is tired,” I say, putting my coffee next to me and just taking a second to breathe.
“If you think your ass is tired now,” Manning says, “wait until next week when we play four games in six days.” Thinking about next week makes me groan. We leave tomorrow night and are away the whole week.
“I hate those long stretches,” Ralph says, taking a drink of his protein shake. “I can do two days, but a whole seven?” He shakes his head. “Get ready for cranky Ralph.”
I laugh at him as I shrug off my jacket. “When don’t we have cranky Ralph?” Manning laughs with me. “Him, I get,” I say, pointing my thumb at Manning. “With his wife and all.”
“Can we not talk about her,” he says. Sitting down, he puts a baseball hat on his head. I look around and see that the rookies have gone and are no doubt in the gym working on their cardio. “I showed up at home last night, and she greeted me naked.”
I laugh. “I don’t know why that would make you cranky.”
“She had hickeys on her tits,” he says, and my mouth hangs open. “Yeah. I don’t even care, to be honest. I haven’t felt anything for her in years, and I just want fucking out.”
“I don’t know how you do it,” Ralph says. “At some point, you are just going to have to leave her and brace yourself for the worst.”