Page 96 of Wicked Player

The same reporter who I couldn’t see didn’t let up. He asked another question and while Gage had been pointing at someone else, the man asked, “Is it true it was outside a sex club?”

Gage’s scowl went electric.

“Wow,” Heather said. “Gage looks ready to rip that podium into pieces. That guy is dead meat.”

“No kidding,” Haley replied.

“I like him,” my mom said.

I was too intent on watching every feature and muscle in his jaw and face harden and tick. “What it is, is none of your business like I already said, and it’s shameful you call yourself a reporter while you’re intent on throwing a fellow one under the bus. You’re the only person in this room who has anything to be ashamed about. Now,” he looked at another hand raised and pointed. “Next question.”

“Wowzers,” Haley said. “He’s so totally hot.”

“Your husband’s right here, you know,” Blake said, arms crossed over his chest, pouty expression.

“I know dear,” she said, patting his thigh and not looking at him. “I know.”

“Is anyone else going to comment on the fact that Gage Bryant just proclaimed his love for Elizabeth on live television?” That came from Heather, whose voice was close to squealing levels.

He’d done that. I’d heard it. He alluded to it, but he hadn’t said it outright. Neither had I. But Gage had not only stood in front of cameras and live television and told everyone listening he loved me, he’d shamed that reporter, and side-stepped the question of Velvet perfectly.

God. I loved him so damn much.

Tanner pressed his finger to his ear and jiggled it. “Yeah, I feel like I need to bleach my ears now.”

My dad pushed off the rocking chair. “I need a beer. Get me when the games start.”

“Dad—” I called. He stopped walking and looked at me over his shoulder.

“What?”

I grinned at him. “I’ll always be your little girl, you know.”

“Damn straight. And if that guy didn’t love you like I thought he should, he wouldn’t be walking in this door later. He better make sure he deserves you or the first thing he’ll be meetin’ is the barrel of my shotgun.”

He nodded once. Went to the kitchen. Next to me, my mom pulled me into a one-armed hug. “That means he likes him.”

Haley, Heather, and I glanced at each other. Right before we burst into laughter.

* * *

It was later,after lunch and after Gage’s statement, “who I love…” looped in my mind on repeat a thousand times if not more, and in between games when excitement had turned to frazzled and crazed nerves.

Any minute from now, Gage was showing up at my parents’ house. We were going to watch the second game together, eat dinner at halftime and when the game was over, I was going back to Gage’s house. With his parents. For the entire night.

A lump the size of Texas had lodged itself in my throat and I was a pacing wild wreck.

“Calm down,” my mom said. “The boy loves you. And you’ve already met his parents.”

“Yeah, before I was caught canoodling with their son all over the internet.”

“Canoodling,” Jaxon snorted. “Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”

“Oh, they’re here!” Heather shouted. She rushed out of my parents’ formal living room waving her hands. “They’re here. I saw them pull up. Seriously, girl. He is gorgeous with a capital G.”

“I know,” I laughed. But God, I was terrified.

“I’ll get the door,” my mom said, and there was no arguing with Marcia when it came to welcoming people into their home. Even knowing Gage’s mom as little as I did, those two would be fast friends.Hopefully.

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