Page 89 of Wildest Dreams

For a player.

For the guy who sweeps you off your feet and then immediately pulls the rug.

“Idiot, idiot, idiot,” I whisper between my tears, swiping at them as they fall incessantly down my cheeks.

In what universe would Tanner be love-struck at first sight? Of course he was just trying to get into my panties – and that’s literallyexactly what he did.

I toss my phone across the room, grab my pillow and scream into it.

“Fuck – this – shit!” I yell, thumping my fist into the cushion after I drop it onto my sheets.

Fresh start my ass.

There’s a good reason why I had my walls up all through high school, why I played the role of the heartless bad girl when guys were throwing themselves at my feet.

It was because of this, right here: because if you aren’t the one breaking hearts, then you’re the one getting your heart broken.

I rip off my sweater and storm into the condo’s currently-spare bedroom, throwing open the wardrobe and staring in at the neat piles of clothes.

I pick up the cutest outfit that I own and then throw it down on the bathroom counter, ready to scrub that fucking big shotjerkoff of my body before forcing myself to be the girl I always knew that I had to be.

The heartless player.

The bad girl with an attitude.

The type of girl who never gets to fall.

I stare down at my little freckle and feel my tears pour down my cheeks.

I was so naïve, I think to myself.

No more wearing my heart on my sleeve.

Chapter 23

Tanner

Present day

She won’t meet my eyes. She keeps on looking out across the lake, then over to the house that she’s staying in, but as soon as I duck down to try and capture her attention she’s blinking down at those pretty sandals, bottom lip trembling dangerously.

But she hasn’t walked away from me. I haven’t lost her yet.

We breathe quietly in a deep unsteady silence, the fall of the rain the only constant as it pelts off the lake. The drops create small sparkling rivers as they trickle over Aisling’s skin, the most beautiful shade of gold against the backdrop of the dark thunderous clouds.

I rake a hand through my hair and push it back off of my forehead, the action briefly capturing Aisling’s attention before she quickly drops her eyes back to the water.

“Aisling,” I begin, my voice low but softer than it usually is, because I want to comfort her in this moment of vulnerability in a way that I never comfort anyone.

I tentatively lift a hand so that I can position it beneath her chin, not touching her soft skin but feeling the warmth radiating out of her nonetheless. The action encourages her to lift her head and meet my eyes, and what I see in her wary gaze drives an arrow straight through my heart.

“I’m so sorry, Aisling,” I tell her, my hand hovering over her shoulder before I wince and drop it completely, not sure where the line is right now. When it comes to breaking the touch barrier I need her to give me the green light first. “I… I can’t imagine how that must have felt.”

If I’d woken up next to Aisling that morning and found her phone littered with texts from guys, or if my teammates were talking about her like that in our group chat, I would have been pissed the hell off – the only difference is that I would have been pissed off withthem, not her. But I can see it from her point of view and, in this instance, after having a whole squad of chicks talking smack about me to her, I understand why she shut me out.

They made me out to be the heartless player.

And it’s not even a miscommunication. It’s the truth. Thatisthe guy that I was in high school – it’s just not the guy who I wanted to be going into college.

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