Page 34 of Offside Secrets
“I changed my mind,” she whispers, her voice shaking slightly but enough to make my chest ache.
“Good,” I murmur, tilting her chin up so I can see her eyes. “Because I wasn’t going to make it to the car without looking back.”
She smiles then, real and unguarded, and kisses me again.
CHAPTER 12
SUTTON
I’m pacing behind my desk like a caged animal, phone pressed to my ear with Elle on the other end, when the words just tumble out—like, no filter, no preamble, just verbal word-vomit. “Okay, don’t freak out, but I kissed Campbell.”
Famous last words. I’m the kind of woman who can negotiate a ten-million-dollar deal with a sponsor, yet I’m freaked out because I kissed someone. But it’s not that he’s just any someone. He’s…well, he’s a special someone.
My heels squeak against the floor as I whirl around for the fifth lap, ready for the hysterical laugh building in my chest to explode right outta me. I half expect confetti to fall from the ceiling, or maybe the universe to smite me with lightning for breaking the unspokendo not kiss your hot player when you own the teamrule.
There’s a beat of silence on the other end. Then: “I’m sorry, you did what now?”
“Campbell. Last night. After the gala, at my place.” I stop pacing and grip the edge of my desk. “Oh wow, Elle, I grabbed him by his lapels like some kind of?—”
The door to my office swings open without warning and Anna breezes in, carrying coffee and what looks like a stack ofcontracts. She takes one look at my face, then freezes when she catches the tail end of my sentence.
“—desperate woman who?—”
“WHAT?!” Anna’s shriek could shatter glass. The coffee cup slips from her hand, but she catches it at the last second, sloshing liquid everywhere. “You KISSED Camp?—?!”
She never finishes his name. I bolt upright, panic flooding my system, waving my arms in the air. “Shh!” I hiss, lunging for my office door. I slam it shut and flip the lock, my heart hammering against my ribs. “Anna, for the love of?—”
“You’d better put me on speaker,” Elle’s voice crackles through the phone. “I am not missing this.”
I look between my phone and Anna, who’s now bouncing on her toes like she’s won the lottery. “This is not a celebration,” I mutter, but I hit the speaker button anyway.
“Sutton Mahoney kissed Campbell Stockton!” Anna announces to the phone like she’s a town crier. “Our proper Southern Belle grabbed her captain and?—”
“I am not proper,” I interrupt, though even I can hear how prim my voice sounds.
Elle’s laugh echoes through the speaker. “Oh, honey, you absolutely are. But more importantly—details. All of them, even the one you don’t want to say out loud. Now.”
“Oh, why, why, why.” I sink into my chair, covering my face with both hands. “This is a disaster.”
“This is amazing,” Anna counters, her voice a crazed whisper. She settles into the chair across from my desk like she’s getting comfortable for a long story. “Start from the beginning. Was there tongue?”
“Anna!” Her name exits my mouth in a feral screech that I’m pretty sure could be heard from Richmond to London, no worry at all.
“What?” she asks, holding her hands in front of her in faux surrender. “It’s a legitimate question!”
“She’s right, it’s fair,” Elle chimes in, clearly delighted. “We want to know everything. The whole car ride—don’t you see, Sutton? We’reinvested. Don’t you dare leave anything out.”
I peek through my fingers at both of them—Anna leaning forward with wide, expectant eyes, Elle’s voice practically vibrating with excitement through the speaker. I can tell they’re expecting a fairy tale, when all I can see is a PR nightmare.
“It was...” I drop my hands, searching for words. “We were just sitting there with our milkshakes, and he had this stupid long-stemmed rose from the photographer, and he was being all charming and impossible, and then he leaned in like he was going to—but I told him to stop.”
“But you didn’t want him to stop,” Elle says knowingly.
“That’s not the point.” I stand up again, resuming my pacing. “We were about to kiss, then the driver hit the brakes. But we got to my place, and then...” I trail off, remembering the heat of his mouth, the way he tasted like bad decisions, vanilla milkshake, and pure temptation that could ruin me.
“Then what…what?” Anna prompts, leaning even further forward.
“Then I kissed him. I literally ran out of my house and chased him down before he left and I kissed him.”
