Page 75 of Wicked Player

Which wouldn’t explain at all why I’d jump to the absolute wrong conclusions.

It’d have to wait. All of it. I was late to get to the hospital and my phone had been silent since last night. To top it all off, Penny hadn’t returned my call or shown up at the hospital which meant my first stop was to see him.

I finished getting ready. My idiocy and making amends with Elizabeth would have to wait.

At least until I came up with a game plan, but there was no way I was letting her walk away from me again. Her doing it last night was bad enough, but I’d fix it.

I was fucking Gage Bryant. Winner of awards and owner of records. I could do and win anything I put my mind to. She just deserved something more than a throwaway “I’m sorry.”

* * *

“You’re quiet today,”Powell said next to me. “Have anything to do with the girl who ran out of the Super Bowl last night on the edge of tears?”

She’d been crying? “Shut up, Powell.”

“You screwed it up that bad? That must be a record.”

I barely resisted the urge to punch the grin off his face.

“Oh fuck off, Powell. How many times did you screw things up with Shannon?” Beaux rolled his eyes and turned to me. “Seriously. It was a lot. I wanted to kick his ass more times than not.”

“You wanted to kick my ass because you didn’t like that I was trying to make you a better ball player.”

“That’s because you can’t fix perfection—”

“Ladies,” I called out and shoved the palms of my hands into their faces. Riding with the guys from the practice field to the hospital was only one of the minor bad decisions I’d made in the last twenty-four hours. “Just because you live with women doesn’t mean you have to become them. I’ll handle my shit with Elizabeth.”

“But will you fix it?” Beaux asked. Danny Rudolph was driving. I figured his presence would keep the other two quiet. I should have known better.

A locker room had more gossip than a beauty salon. Not that I’d been in one of those in my lifetime. But the ladies in my small town always knew what was going on and my mama always said it was Mrs. Perkins, owner of Betty’s House of Beauty who knew all the good stuff.

“Because you were such a fixer when it came to Paige?” Powell asked, shoulders now shaking with laughter.

“Fuck off. Wasn’t my fault her friend hitched a train to crazy town, but yeah, I did step in and fix it. I took care of her shit even when she hated me for it and I’d do the same all over again. Except better.” His voice dropped and it was a punch to my chest. Paige had ended up in the hospital after her so-called friend essentially kidnapped her. It was Elizabeth’s brother, Jaxon who was supposed to protect her. Somehow, he’d let his guard down and while Paige ended up with a few scrapes and bruises, the crazed stalker had ended up dead.

Beaux didn’t talk about it much, but it was obvious why things moved so quickly after that with him and Paige. She essentially moved in with him immediately, not willing to waste another second apart.

Which meant as soon as I figured outhowto fix things with Elizabeth, I was doing the same damn thing. I might have only had one night with her, but waking up without her this morning made everything worse.

“I was a dick,” I admitted. My palms scrubbed down my jeans. She’d be there today and I still didn’t know how to react. What to say. How to behave. I was a thirteen-year-old boy with a crush on his eighth grade English teacher all over again, sporting a hard on at the thought of her, a mumbling clueless fool when I looked at her.

“Was a dick to Jenny when we dated,” Danny piped up from the front seat. “Know what helped?”

“What?” And good Lord. How had this car ride ended up being a therapy session?

“Orgasms. Lots of them.”

“I think giving her those before I got to know her caused part of this.”

He snorted and continued. “Chocolates and flowers.”

That I could do.

“And falling to your knees and apologizing, a lot of begging. A lot of groveling. That helped.”

“Probably the most,” Powell agreed. He turned to me and smirked. “What can I say? A man on his knees knocks a woman down every single time.”

Now that? That made complete sense.

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