Page 63 of Pucked Up

I searched through the blankets and pillows, catching Ford’s eye, who winked at me. “It’s Tucker,” he said, pitching his voice a little louder. “He says hi. Actually, Amedeo says hi. Tucker says make sure you don’t eat the hotel salads. He just read an article that said some guy did a study that showed room service chefs using dirty knives to cut lettuceand people have been shitting their pants at weddings.”

“We’re not going to a wedding, and I’m going to eat salad if I feel like a fucking salad,” I told him, finding my first hearing aid. I shoved it into my tender ear canal and winced. It didn’t matter that I’d been wearing them my entire life, they never got more comfortable.

“He said—oh. Okay. He heard you,” Ford said, turning back to me. “He said enjoy trying to impress PPHL owners with shit-pants.”

I flipped Ford off, then found my other hearing aid and put it in before edging to the side of the bed. Every muscle in my body was sore, but I had no time to wallow. My father was going to be expecting me for dinner, and he’d have some corporate asshole with him. It was probably some kind of hostile negotiation, trying to find me a place on a losing team just so he could say he accomplished what I couldn’t in the last few years.

I wasn’t going to take any deals he got me. Not tonight. I wanted to give myself a little more time to do it on my own before letting him take over. But I had to prepare myself for him.

The weight of his disappointment was always so damn heavy.

“Where are you going?” Ford demanded as I stood up and grabbed my crutches from the wall.

“Shower. Want to come scrub my ball sac?”

He threw a pillow at me and missed. “Don’t take too long. I’m fucking starving.”

Grimacing, I turned to face him. “Yeah. I have to meet my father for dinner, so if you want to?—”

“Go with? Uh, duh.”

Who said duh anymore? “Ford?—”

“Isn’t the entire reason I’m here to protect you from his bullshit?”

I blinked. “I mean, technically, but?—”

“So, how should I dress for this thing?”

It was clear there was no shaking him from this, and my heart throbbed in my chest a little. I loved my friend so fucking much. “Dress slacks and a nice shirt. Button-up. Not the one with ‘fuck’ embroidered in it,” I reminded him.

He looked disappointed. Ford’s favorite thing was making people uncomfortable. Especially people who upset his friends. He’d always had it out for my dad, and frankly, all my bitching hadn’t done a lot to prove my dad didn’t deserve it.

“I’m doing this for you, you know,” he said, then winked just as I turned to head toward the bathroom.

The suite was nice, and the bathroom was both accessible and comfortable, which made showering plane smell off my skin easy. The bench wasn’t as nice as the one I had at home, but it held me securely as I used the citrus-scented hotel soap and attempted to massage some of the tension out of my muscles.

In the quiet of the bathroom, I found myself flooded with a sense of guilt and regret. I had no idea if Hugo knew where I was. I’d been avoiding him entirely since accusing him of being a monster, then ditching him the morning after our impromptu,sexless sleepover. The ditching him part wasn’t on purpose, really, but I couldn’t seem to face him after everything I’d said.

I had no idea what to say now. What if he asked me how I felt? Or what I wanted?

Telling the truth would ruin me.

Giving a lie would prove to myself that I would never be worthy of a man like him.

I knew I wanted him. I knew I wanted to abandon my rules and my strict decision to avoid anything even slightly resembling a relationship until I was firmly contracted with a team. He made it so easy to want to give all of that up.

But then I would resent him.

And if he compromised himself to be with me, eventually, marriage to a pro player would leave him resenting me. I’d seen it dozens of times over in every sports league. Marriages were strong, but they were rarely strong enough.

I didn’t want to end up like my parents. I couldn’t. The idea of hating Hugo for the sake of hating him made me feel sick to my stomach.

Closing my eyes, I let my forehead rest against the warm tiles, and I gripped my dick. It was still soft. It was like pushing him away had broken the connection between my cock and my brain, and you know what, fuck him for putting me in that position.

I gripped it tighter, willing it to get hard, but it was a goddamn dead fish against my palm.

“Fuck you,” I whispered.

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