Page 61 of Pucker Up
That bastard. “What rumor?” I played dumb. I knew exactly what rumor she wanted to talk about.
“Did you sleep with your brother’s girlfriend?” She picked up her bag from the floor and took out a water bottle. She opened and closed it a bunch of times, but didn’t actually take a drink.
“No. I didn’t.”
“Why does he think you did?”
My knuckles started to turn white as I gripped the old notched steering wheel. “Did he say that?”
“No.” Goldie finally took a sip of her water. “The rumor is that you slept with his girlfriend, and he hates you, so obviously he believes it.”
I knew I had to answer her question, but I couldn’t quite grasp what Gideon had or had not told her. “He really didn’t say anything to you about it?”
“Why would he say anything?”
I was confused and frustrated, but I needed to set the record straight with Goldie. The incident with Hailey, Gideon’s ex, was before I’d ever met Goldie, and shouldn’t interfere with our relationship. But Goldie was a good person, and probably wanted to be with a good person. A good guy didn’t sleep with his brother’s girlfriend.
The tires of the truck hummed on the highway, as she waited for a response. “Can I have a sip of that water?” I asked.
She unscrewed the lid and handed it to me. I took a sip and gave it back to her. “I was visiting Gideon. He had this girlfriend named Hailey. Nobody liked her. I mean nobody. I thought she was a shallow and boring bunny. Our parents thought she was a gold digger. She was likely a little bit of both. Actually, she was probably a lot of both.”
“That doesn’t sound like the kind of girl your brother would go for.”
I forgot Goldie had spent hours talking to nine of my teammates. Obviously, she’d had time to form opinions about everyone. “I think he liked her because she didn’t challenge him. It was easy for him to be with her and still focus on the game.”
Goldie rested her hand on Morton’s back. She rubbed his fur and stared straight ahead at the lanes of traffic. “I guess that makes sense, but it still doesn’t explain how she ended up in bed with you.”
“I wish I could explain that one, Goldie. I really do. Gideon and I had gone out with his team. Hailey was pissed off that he wouldn’t take her out with us, and they’d had a huge fight before we left.”
“What were they fighting about?”
“She wanted to go to the Chairman’s dinner with him. It’s a big fancy event put on by the team he was playing for at the time, South Carolina.”
“I’ve heard of those events. They are quite exclusive. It’s like the Met gala for hockey.”
“Right.” I sped past a line of cars. “Gideon told her he was going to bring me as his date, not her. I guess that didn’t go over very well. She stormed out and I’m pretty sure Gideon forgot about the entire thing as soon as we left his house.”
“Was he going to take you with him?” Morton curled up into a surprisingly small ball between us, and Goldie looked me in the eyes for the first time that afternoon.
“I doubt it.” I chuckled. “I don’t think that I would look very good in a gown. I think he just wanted to get her off his case. I think he was planning on breaking up with her before the event; he just didn’t have the time to do it between practices and games.”
“So what happened next?” The razor edge to her voice was gone.
“We went and got blackout drunk with the guys from his team. When we came home, I passed out in his spare room and when I woke up, it was morning, and Gideon’s fist was the first thing I saw. The second thing I saw was a naked Hailey in the bed.”
“Wait, how did she get into his place? I thought she left.”
“We did too. I guess she had a key or something. Listen, Goldie. I told Gideon I didn’t know she was in the bed with me—hell, I was still wearing my clothes. I was also so wasted there was no way I could’ve gotten it—”
She held up her hand. “I get the picture.”
“The problem is, Hailey swore we had been together. She also told him it wasn’t the first time. I’d never seen Gideon so mad. He called me Loki, and kicked me out. I was so hungover, I left without putting up a fight. I couldn’t believe he’d take her word over mine, and he couldn’t believe I would betray my own brother.”Why would she do that?”
“I wish I could get into her fucked-up brain and figure it out, Marigold. It was probably something as petty as the fundraiser. If she couldn’t go as Gideon’s date, she made sure I couldn’t go either. Maybe in her warped mind, she thought he would take her instead.”
“That makes no sense.”
“I know.” I took off my hat. The cab of the truck had finally heated up, and suddenly felt more like a sauna. “None of it makes sense. I called Gideon. I showed up at his place a couple of times. He refused to see me or speak to me, and then—voila!—both of us were traded to the Tigers.”
