Page 67 of Sure Shot
“Oh God! He just y’alled us,” Anton hoots. “We’re gonna lose to Dallas if he doesn’t cut that shit out. First the twang and now the y’all.”
“Later!” I call over my shoulder as I head for the showers.
“You better look for that underwear!” Anton calls after me. “Don’t jinx us, y’all!”
I take a long, long shower in the hotel’s luxurious locker room. But when I come out, there aren’t any towels. I could swear I grabbed one off a stack on the counter, hanging it on the hook before I got into the shower. But now I’m dripping on the floor and there’s not a towel in sight. “What the hell?”
The only towel in the room is slung around Castro’s hips. He’s standing by a locker, shaking out his shirt. “You know he’s kidding, right?”
“What? Who?” I’m distracted because I’m still trying to solve the towel mystery.
“Anton. He’s a music hound. He plays the guitar and goes to every concert he can find. He was just putting you on with that Texas thing.”
“Oh.” For a split second I feel only annoyance. I fell for that shit? But then I realize something important. If Anton and Castro are pranking me, that’s a good sign. You don’t prank a teammate that you hate. “Wait. Did you take all the towels?”
“Towels?” Castro says innocently. “There are some paper towels in there, I think.” He points to a wall-mounted dispenser.
Because I’m a little slow, I actually walk over to the dispenser, if only to mop up the water I’ve dripped on the floor.
It’s empty.
“Fuck you,” I grumble, and Castro laughs. So I do the only reasonable thing, which is to stalk over to him, grip the edge of the towel he’s wearing, and yank it off his body.
Castro, bare-assed now, just snorts. “I was done with that anyway.”
“Good thing.” I dry myself off as best I can with his wet towel. “Did you really take the paper towels out of the dispenser? That’s pro-level. I hope you’ll put ’em back, though, so that some underpaid hotel worker isn’t cleaning up after your little prank.”
“Don’t you worry.” Castro opens his locker and shows me a tower of towels—cotton on the bottom, paper on top. “I left the toilet paper in the stalls. Once I watched a player try to dry himself off with TP. It disintegrates, you know? He was picking little pieces out of his underwear for days.”
I shake my head. The prank could have been worse, I guess. If I wasn’t willing to grab his towel, I probably would have walked back into the weight room buck-ass naked for a workout towel.
We get dressed in silence for a few minutes. Right until Castro opens his yawp and says, “So. You and Bess, huh? What exactly are your intentions?”
“My—” I let out a chuckle. “What are you, her dad? And is this 1955? Where do you get off asking me that?”
It comes out sounding snippy, and I fully expect Castro to get mad. But he just sits down on the bench and calmly levels me with a brown-eyed stare “You got to stop thinking of me as a young punk who doesn’t know things. And you really shouldn’t blow off my question. Bess doesn’t date players.”
“Yeah, except for this one. And I bet she wouldn’t be super-excited about you discussing it behind her back.”
He doesn’t even flinch. “But shereallydoesn’t date players. She says she needs to be able to go anywhere with us in any situation and never have to wonder if people will whisper about her. She says that’s the only way she can do her job.”
“I get that,” I say testily. “Except she’s notmyagent. And obviously she’s made a different choice this time. So maybe you shouldn’t question it.”
“But that’s just the thing,” Castro presses. “Shedidmake a different choice. She broke her own rule for you. And that means something. Something big.”
There’s a bad joke in there somewhere aboutsomething big. But I let it go. I would never embarrass Bess. And she wouldn’t like this conversation at all.
“She likes you,” Castro says. “Shereallylikes you. That’s what I’m saying. So I hope you’re worth it. Are you gonna treat her right?”
The question makes me bristle, but I won’t give him the satisfaction of letting it show. “Aw.” I chuckle. “Thanks so much for asking. I’m glad you guys are so loyal to Bess. But, yeah. Bess is special to me.” It’s a hundred percent true, too. I’m startled by how I feel about her. Lately I’m wearing a silly grin half the time, because she put it there. It’s not just the sex, either. She’s made me feel like my fun self again. Like everything in the world isn’t so fucking complicated.
“She doesn’t need anyone fucking around on her,” Castro says.
“Oh man. I thought we were having a moment, and you had to go and ruin it. Not that it’s any of your business, but I never cheated on anybody. Don’t believe everything you read. I’m good to Bess, and I was good to her way back when flip phones were still popular.”
He frowns. “I know the bloggers don’t care about a little thing like the truth. I’m not an idiot. But I do know this—Bess wouldn’t take a chance on you if it didn’t matter to her. But you’re this bitter guy who just got divorced. Last night you told Jimbo never to get married.”
“Yeah, and I waskidding. That kid is twenty, and I’m sure he’s smart enough not to marry someone who will divorce his ass and then still text seven times during dinner to ask him how to flip a circuit breaker in the garage of the home you bought in the neighborhoodshe choseeven though it gave you a shitty commute.”
