Page 7 of Playbook
“I wonder what they’re up to.” The hardest part of moving up here has been leaving the Holland family. Archer and his threebrothers are the only family I’ve ever known. I miss them. We talk weekly, but everyone has their own thing going on.
Hendrick got married this summer, and he and his wife Jane are enjoying the newlywed life, Knox is in the middle of the motocross season, and Flynn is enjoying the summer before he goes off to college.
“I talked to Knox this morning. He and Flynn are leaving tomorrow for Houston.”
“Really? Already?” Damn, it seems like just yesterday summer started, and now the youngest Holland brother is going off to college.
“They’re gonna make a week-long road trip of it. They’re stopping at White Sands National Park, then spending a couple of days in Austin before they head to Houston.”
I nod thoughtfully. I know it’s dumb, but I feel a small pang of disappointment that I’m finding out via Archer and didn’t hear from either Knox or Flynn. It isn’t that I think it was intentional, but it’s moments like this that remind me I’m not really one of them, even if they feel like brothers.
“Knox said to tell you not to get kicked off the team for being an idiot.”
“He would know,” I chirp back. Knox is the surliest of the brothers and last year he got into it with a teammate and got booted from his motocross team. “At least if I get kicked off, it’ll be for something a lot more fun.”
“Oh great,” Archer says, chewing. “That’s really reassuring, man.”
THREE
An hour after the longest brunch of all time, I’m sitting on the treadmill in the middle of my living room with a bottle of vodka in my lap.
That’s how Alec finds me. He crosses the room, eyeing me carefully.
“Bad day?” he asks, taking the vodka from me and chugging it like the frat boy he once was before handing it back. My roommate is dressed in a suit that is tailored to perfection. His dark hair still looks as good as it did this morning when he left and his hazel eyes are framed with long, thick lashes that any girl would kill for. Sometimes I forget that under this meticulously styled business exterior he’s just a big ole party boy.
“That’s impressive,” I say, drinking another much smaller sip.
“I prefer it on ice with a lemon, but something tells me that’s not the kind of happy hour we’re havingtonight.”
“She’s engaged,” I say, still too shocked to put any feeling behind the words. “And he has a girlfriend.”
“Whoever they are, do they know they’re in two very different relationships?”
“No.” I give my head a shake to clear it. “Sierra. Sierra is engaged. She and Ben are getting married.”
“Oh,” Alec says with a contemplative look. “That’s great. Or maybe not, judging by how much vodka is gone from this bottle. Wait. I got it. The ex has a girlfriend.”
“You figured that out way too easily.” It doesn’t escape my notice that Alec doesn’t use Chris’s name. He never does.
“Not my first time walking in on a girl spiraling over an ex-boyfriend.”
“I’m not spiraling over him,” I say quickly.
Alec lifts one brow and has that look on his face like he’s about to serve me with many points to argue my last statement.
“Okay, not just over him.” I realize that everything about this situation—finding me sitting on the treadmill in my tank top and leggings, tennis shoes next to me where I kicked them off, with a bottle of vodka—does give offnot over the exvibes.
I had planned to come home and run off the weirdness of brunch, but I slipped in my ear buds and turned on my workout playlist and before the very first song ended, I was replaying the day, getting all riled up all over again about Chris and how much of an asshole he still is. I was becoming a safety hazard. So I stopped and started drinking.
“He’s dating a model.”
“Ha!” Alec throws his head back and laughs. “Of course he is.”
He says nothing else as he goes into the kitchen, gets twoglasses and fills them with ice. He comes back and sits on the floor in front of me.
He pours us each a glass, then sets the now near-empty bottle behind him, out of my reach, and holds up his glass. “To the model skank.”
“She’s not a skank.” I take the other glass and swallow a big gulp. It burns and I cough. “Also, I don’t love calling women skanks.”
