Page 132 of My Best Bet

He was the only person I could think of that would want to hurt Mer. While he wasn’t around five years ago when Stella’s brakes malfunctioned, he could’ve easily repeated the accident to frame me.

It had to be him.

“An–”

Johnny slammed the heel of his dress shoe right on my foot, making me crunch forward.

He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye, his jaw locked, silently telling me toshut the fuck up.

Blowing out a huff, I stayed silent.

When I was finally released, Johnny led the way out of the station.

“Prepare yourself and don’t say a word,” he said, buttoning his suit jacket.

I had no clue what he was talking about until we walked out into the cold, gray day. Flashes went off and a million questions were shouted at me.

One question rang louder than the rest:Did you kill Stella?

They couldn’t print that, could they? Lucy would eventually see everything they wrote. I immediately felt sick to my stomach.

I held my arm up to block my face. “What–”

“Story got leaked. Not a word, got it?” Johnny said. “Keep moving.”

Doing my best to block out the gathering of press people, I trailed after him on shaky legs as he casually strolled toward his Mercedes-Benz.

Yanking his car door open, I folded myself in the passenger seat and slammed the door shut, blocking out the rest of their questions.

Johnny laid on the horn to make the press people move, then he revved his engine before swiftly backing up and tearing out of the parking lot.

“What the fuck is going on, John?” I stared out his back window at the people still snapping pictures of us.

Johnny cocked his head to the side. “When a captain leaves right before a road game, people are gonna have some questions. When a player has a second significant other almost die in the exact same way the first one died, people are gonna have… more questions.” He shot me a look. “Wanna tell me something?”

My eyebrows slammed down. “You think I did it?” I burst out. “I fucking love her.”

Seeing my pissed off face, he started laughing.

“Oh, fuck off,” I told him. “Take me back to the hospital.”

“You were really going to open your mouth and make my life harder, weren't you? Haven't we talked about this before?”

My face cracked. “No? I’ve never been arrested, asshole.”

He shifted in his seat, thinking. “Wait, you’re right, that was Kappy.”

I did a double-take. “Kappy’s been arrested?”

He scoffed. “Uh, yeah. Had to get him and his pretty little girlfriend out of the slammer at like two fuckin’ a.m. once.”

“What?” He didn’t have a girlfriend. “Who? What’d she look like?”

“Uh… Pretty? Tall-ish? Blonde? I think she was a figure skater?”

Piper?

“Wait, don’t turn.”

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