Page 67 of Pucking Rebound

A bit of me dies inside. Is she spending Christmas alone? I doubt she’ll tell me if she is because she’s kind of stubborn when she wants to be, and this façade of how she’s got her shit together isn’t fooling me.

She might be all smiles and silliness with me, but in between those times, I can see her suffering quietly, as if not wanting to burden anyone with her problems.

Barefoot, I walk over to where she is sitting and kneel on the floor. “Tell me what’s going on in that busy head of yours, baby.” I break her from her daydream.

“Nothing.” She shakes her head, a small smile touching her lips that doesn’t reach her eyes.

“Don’t lie.” I grab the dining chair and turn it around, making it screech against the marble flooring.

“I don’t tell lies.”

“Is your real name GeeGee?”

“No.”

“Why did the man in the meeting call you that?”

“My full name is Gladiola-Grace Ramsay. My father has always called me Lola, but Tim has called me Gee-Gee since he joined the company when I was ten. He was my father’s right-hand man and now he’s mine. He knows everything about the business and me.”

“Everything?”

“Everything, except why I am working for the Eagles. He thinks I’m taking a sabbatical to follow my dream of being an assistant to a pro athlete. Hell knows why he believed that.”

“And only you, Kali, and Marcus know the big why?”

“Yes. And Piper. Graham too, which I’m slightly panicking about.” Muscles tensed, she then runs her flattened palms down her jeans.

“Why are you panicking?”

“I can’t tell you.”

My shoulders drop with disappointment. “Okay, I won’t ask again. Are you spending Christmas alone?”

“No, I’m going to Piper’s.”

“Good.” I can’t handle the thought of her being alone.

“It’s not good. She has three Persian cats I don’t trust. They always look like they are conspiring to kill me. Plus, she’ll make me watchTheVampire Diariesagain for the seventieth billion time.”

“That’s not a number.”

“It’s a haphazard guess.”

Hand gripping her knees, knuckles whitened, I can tell she’s not coping as well as she says she is today. “Tell me what I can do to help you.” I have training in half an hour, physio this afternoon, and two games before we break off for the holidays, but if she tells me to stay home with her today, I’d do it.

Tears turn her eyes watery, her bottom lip trembling. “I need to go to Wade’s as I have a list of things to do for him today, but could you, please, just, hold me before I leave?”

Fuck me, that’s the saddest fucking thing I’ve ever heard. My chest tightens with sorrow as I cocoon her in my arms, just as an idea hits me like a jolt of lightning, and I know exactly how I’m going to make her feel better.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Lola

“Hello,” I call, letting myself into Wade’s house, and drop my purse onto the light oak wood table I picked out for him last week. “Perfect.” I give myself a pat on the back.

“Arrived this morning.” Wade bounces down the stairs wearing only a pair of gray joggers.

He’s probably already been to the gym this morning, ran a million miles, and done sixty-five thousand upside down sit up things he does every day. He admitted to me he likes working out, whereas I, on the other hand, am not such a big fan.

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