Page 71 of Wicked Player

“No shit?”

“Pretty sure. Don’t even know if Paige put it together when they all had dinner the other night.”

Dinner? Elizabeth had dinner with Shannon and Paige, wives of two of my closest friends on the team and hadn’t thought to mention that to me?

“Gage! Your turn!” The shout came at me through a tunnel.

“We’ll talk later,” Powell said. From the scoring table, Kolby Jones was giving me an expectant look. Powell lowered his voice to a low rumble. “Don’t know your gig. Not with women and it ain’t my business but I know you don’t play the field and I know you haven’t had a public girlfriend in all your time in the league. I’m just warning you to tread carefully. Jaxon isn’t someone you want to mess with.”

“Right,” I gritted out my response.

Then I went to the ball return, grabbed mine and slammed it down the lane. The smack of the ball hitting all ten pins didn’t calm me down.

As soon as I was done with my turn, not registering the slaps to my shoulders, the one parent who squeezed my arm a little too playfully, I grabbed my phone out of my pocket and typed out a quick text.

We need to talk.

She’d mentioned me not learning all her secrets yet, but just how many was she hiding?

Twenty-Four

Elizabeth

Something shifted. I felt it in the air and the heat of Gage’s glare as soon as Oliver started talking to him. It sent me reeling, him staring at me like he suddenly wanted to rip my head off.

It threw me off my game and on my next turn I didn’t even manage to pull off a spare. Normally I would have been disappointed. Not quite the showing I wanted to put on, not only to show off for Gage but because I’d been reigning Amateur Bowling Champion three years in a row in my teens. It’d all started as fun family trips to the bowling alley when we were kids and turned out, I had a knack for throwing the ball straight down the lane. I was twelve in my first local competition and ended up coming in third place, beating out teenagers who’d been competing for years. I had never been particularly good at sports. Not team ones anyway. I didn’t have the coordination or size for volleyball or basketball. And even with soccer, my legs were shorter than most. I got tossed around the field and outrun in sprints regardless of how quick my legs carried me. But bowling had clicked somehow and I’d always enjoyed it.

I’d been having fun all night, despite Connor’s attempt to get my attention. If he thought I owed him anything after his attempts at Velvet last night, he was dead wrong. I’d said all I needed to say to him and now I wanted him to stay exactly where he belonged.

In my past.

The parents I spoke to were incredibly sweet. The fans who had paid to attend were wide-eyed and awestruck at the players who were there. All of them had such wonderful things to say, and all the parents who attended were more than willing to tell me their children’s stories. I supposed nothing helped them open up more than drinks flowing. This was a night to forget their stress while at the same time honoring everything going on in their life. I had enough stories on the voice memo app on my phone to give me several days worth of work. It’d also been one of the most fulfilling moments of my career, talking to some of the moms and even the dads as tears formed in their eyes. Yet all of them were so hopeful. So thankful Gage was giving their families a place where their hospitalized kids could have a glimpse at a regular childhood.

Before that glare from Gage, I’d had a hard time not running to him and throwing my arms around him, telling him how much I adored him in front of the crowd. Did he even know how inspiring he was?

That desire was yanked back and fizzled as soon as he turned his back on me.

My phone buzzed in my pocket and I glanced over my shoulder. Gage was there, standing at the scoring machine for his team three lanes down. His brows were arched, daring me. Mad. He also had his phone in his hand and lifted it before sliding it into his back pocket.

I turned from the team I was bowling with and stepped toward the stand of bowling balls for a brief moment of privacy.

My breath caught as I pulled out my phone and swiped the screen.

We need to talk.

Nothing good ever came from those words. My chest heaved and ached at the abruptness of his text.

What could he possibly mean by that? I’d seen him talking to Oliver. Was he mad I hadn’t told him about Shannon? I hadn’t exactly had time with the blindfold and all the hot sex.

A shadow fell over me and then the voice from the man I’d been avoiding all night was too close for comfort. “Been wanting to talk to you all night.”

Good grief. Just what I didn’t need right now.

“I have nothing to say to you.” I turned to walk away from Connor when his cold voice stopped me.

“Don’t have to talk. Just have to look at something I want to show you.”

Stupid. So stupid. I had no idea what made me look at the phone in Connor’s hand he shoved in front of my face but when I did, my knees locked so I didn’t fall over.

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