Page 38 of Filthy Player

“Stop trying to be so smart,” I said, poking him in the side of his stomach. His quiet laugh echoed in my ear. “You sound like my dad.”

“Yeah, well he’s the smartest man I’ve ever met and you know exactly what he’s going to say to you once you see him and start with this guilt trip you don’t need to be carrying. He’s going to say you’re too damn young to be taking care of him and all he wants is for you to experience the life you were supposed to have. That’s what he’s going to say.”

God. What was it with men throwing all this in my face? He was my dad. My responsibility. Mike repeating almost the same thing Beaux had said didn’t help, either. They might have understood. Hell, logically I agreed with them.

It didn’t help me emotionally.

“You sound like Beaux.” I should have kept my mouth shut.

“Yeah? Is that who you were with tonight?”

“I said I don’t want to talk about it.”

Mike sighed and hugged me tighter to him. I pulled back from his embrace and wiped my cheeks. My dad would hate knowing I was crying over him. I had to be strong. “Bet you don’t want to talk about it,” he murmured. “I bet that’s a yes, too, then. Look at you, hot shot…out with the quarterback of the football team. He bring you here? Awfully late for a girl like you to be out.”

He shot me a smirk and I rolled my eyes. Mike played the big brother card perfectly, even if we weren’t related and he was years younger than me.

“I was a bitch to him,” I admitted reluctantly.

“Eh. He’s got big shoulders. Strikes me as the kind of guy who can handle it.”

Perhaps. But tonight very well could have been my third strike, too. How many times would a guy come back when he was constantly pushed away? At some point, he wasn’t going to think crazy was cute, and tonight’s behavior could have permanently blown my chances.

Which was really for the best.

Tonight proved I didn’t have the time for a relationship anyway.

So, why, as Mike and I settled into silence, did I palm my phone in my hand, debating whether or not to text him an apology?

He deserved one, but more, he deserved an explanation why I was such a mess.

Before I could pull up the message app and send something to him, a woman dressed in scrubs came out of the emergency and scanned the waiting room.

“Paige Halloway?”

***

A broken freaking leg. After spending hours in the emergency room Thursday night, my dad had been taken back for surgery to have pins placed in his leg. He’d be in a cast and would re-start physical therapy as soon as he was strong enough. At least we already had a wheelchair for him in the mean time. I was able to get the story from him once the doctor had taken Mike and I back.

On a walk around the block using his walker, he’d stumbled over a crooked sidewalk a few houses down and fallen into a shallow hole right next to the cement. He’d broken his leg, laid there in pain and then somehow managed to drag himself back toward home, collapsing in our yard when he couldn’t walk any further.

Thank God for Elsa. Who knew when I would have found him? That thought only made my guilt heavier.

Beaux still deserved an apology from me, and he’d get one, but I was too busy and too tired while I spent most of the weekend in the hospital with my dad.

But it didn’t feel good to ignore the text from Beaux I’d gotten on Friday night asking how my dad was.

That was all he said. How is your dad?

No hello. No call me. Nothing personal. I deserved it, completely, but it still stung.

I hadn’t bothered to answer. He had to have sent the text on his way to Atlanta. He needed to focus on the game, not on me.

Now it was Sunday, and Dad and I were home from the hospital. I’d called Paulie and told him I needed two weeks off work until Dad was more mobile again. He’d argued, threatened and told me this was my last chance, and after he begrudgingly told me he hoped my dad was okay, he hung up.

I was really starting to like my boss.

We were settling in. I’d helped Dad out of his wheelchair and into his recliner, propping up his casted foot on a pillow to keep it elevated and then handed him the remote knowing exactly what he was going to turn on.

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