Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 89658 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 448(@200wpm)___ 359(@250wpm)___ 299(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89658 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 448(@200wpm)___ 359(@250wpm)___ 299(@300wpm)
My shoulders instantly relax as I lean back in my chair. I don’t know what I expected him to say, but that wasn’t it.
“And what are we? Chopped liver?” Jones calls him out.
“You’re friends and teammates, but Brock and I have been friends a hell of a lot longer.” He offers no further explanation, and thankfully the guys let it go.
We spend the next hour just sitting in the hotel bar, shooting the shit. We’re all stone-cold sober, but it’s still been good to hang out with them. I’ve not spent much time outside of practice with my new team, and I’m glad we did this. We’ve had several groups, both men and women, walk past our table in the back of the bar, but so far, everyone has left us alone. It’s been nice. I hate that I missed talking to Joey, but I plan to text her when we get back to the room. Maybe she’ll still be up.
“I’m out,” Rogers says, standing and throwing some cash on the table.
“Hell, we might as well all go.” Jones stands, and he too tosses money on the table. Caleb and I and the rest of the team who showed up do the same. I don’t know what their hurry is, but for me, I want the chance to at least say goodnight to my girl.
“How’s Joey doing at the retreat?” Caleb asks as we’re walking through the hotel lobby back to the elevator that will take us to our rooms.
I turn to look at him. “Good, she really likes her boss, and the rest of the te—” I stop talking when I bump into someone. “I’m so—” I start to apologize until I see who it is that I bumped into.
Lucinda Gordon.
Her hair is twisted up on top of her head. She’s wearing way more makeup than a woman her age, hell any woman should be wearing, and the mix of her perfume and the liquor wafting off her is making me sick. To top it off, she’s dressed like a hooker.
My hands are on her shoulders as I try to steady her. It was a knee-jerk reaction that I’m very much regretting as she moves in, wrapping hers around my waist. She smells like a damn brewery. “What in the hell are you doing here?” I ask, removing her arms from around my waist and taking a step back.
She advances again, but I step back, moving away from her, holding up my hands. “Don’t.” There is a stern warning to my tone. I don’t want this woman near me. She might have given birth to the woman I love, but she was never a mother to her. Some of the stories I’ve heard from both Caleb and Joey make me sick. I hate the shit she put Joey through growing up.
“You’re drunk, Lucinda,” Caleb spits. “Go sleep it off.”
“Oh, are you offering to come with me?” She winks, or at least I think that’s what she was trying to do. She is well and truly wasted. “What about you, big man?” She turns her glassy eyes back toward me. “You know you want the older, more mature version. I can show you things my daughter never thought about,” she slurs. “I know men like you. You can’t resist a wet pussy, and mine is ready for you.” She grips the hem of her dress as if she’s going to lift it and stumbles toward me. I take a step to the left, and she falls to the floor. I make no move to help her up. Instead, my eyes find Caleb’s.
“Piece of shit,” he grumbles. “We need to get out of here before a crowd starts to form.” He looks around, and thankfully, there’s not another soul in sight. How we managed that in this hotel when the entire team is staying here, I’ll never know.
“Sounds good to me.” I purposely step around Lucinda, ignoring her pleas to let her show me how good we can be. Bile rises in my throat when her words replay in my mind. She has no regard for her daughter’s feelings whatsoever. She is the epitome of a jersey chaser. It’s hard for me to process my sweet, loving, sexy-as-hell girlfriend came from the piece of trash we left lying in the middle of the hotel floor.
“Thank fuck Joey isn’t here this weekend,” Caleb seethes as we step onto the elevator. “Lucinda wouldn’t have given two shits if she was standing next to you. She still would have pulled that stunt. Worthless.” He shakes his head.
“No shit. She’s going to be pissed when I tell her what happened.” Not only is she going to be pissed, but I know she’s also going to be hurt. There’s no way can I keep this from her, though. These kinds of secrets are what destroy relationships, and that’s not what’s going to happen to us. With me having to travel so much for my job, she needs to know that she can trust me, and that means having hard conversations like the one we’re about to have, no matter how bad neither of us really want to. I hate that I can’t be there to hold her when I tell her, but I think it’s best to get it out now.