Dirty Player(6)

Only that it was best if I stayed far, far away.



***



I tugged at the end of a strand of my hair and clenched the phone tighter in my other hand.

“Can you please let this go?”

Patrick’s voice was like nails on a chalkboard. “Please, Shan. I’m so sorry. I miss you. I want to see you to talk about us. Don’t throw us away like this.”

Same old lines. Same things I’d heard for the last month.

After seeing him in the restroom, fucking Priscilla against the wall, I had taken off. I hadn’t said anything, just made some choked, animalistic noise, and run from the bathroom and restaurant like hell was nipping at my heels. I was most likely halfway home before he’d realized that I was the one who’d seen him; me that I’d heard him calling her “baby.”

He’d caught up with me in our apartment as I was slashing my wedding dress with the sharpest knife I could find.

The apologies had started immediately. The lies quickly followed. That it was just that one time, that he was stressed and scared about the wedding. I had stood in our bedroom that we’d shared for two years listening to his pleas and apologies for almost an hour, feeling nothing but soul-sucking grief.

I was only now just beginning to realize that the reason I’d put off our wedding for so long was because somewhere, deep down inside me, while I liked the financial stability he provided, I didn’t fully trust him to take care of me. For the last year, we’d argued about getting married before I’d finally caved and set a date. He’d proposed after we had been dating for two years and I finally agreed to move in together. Then I dragged my feet in getting married, always finding an excuse or reason to continue putting it off. I should have known back then that our relationship wasn’t going to work. It didn’t mean it didn’t still hurt to see him cheating on me.

Each word he spoke over the phone was a punch to my gut. I didn’t trust that Patrick still wanted me. He didn’t want to lose. He didn’t want to look like a fool. He wasn’t the guy women walked away from.

He was a McDonnelly. Ginger-haired and Irish to the deepest parts of his marrow, his family owned more than half of Des Moines. They still owned thousands of acres of land and businesses. No one said no to them.

I was still finding it hard to do so.

I sighed. “I’m scheduling a moving truck. I only want my stuff. Can you please let me know when’s a good time for them to come and pick it up?”

“Come home and discuss this with me, Shannon. I want to see you. I want you to hear me out. I swear to you, this will never happen again. Priscilla’s been moved to a different department, and I don’t even see her anymore. Please.”

His voice had softened, gone gravelly and determined, coaxing me against my judgment to listen, to give in like I always did. Her name on his lips was a bucket of cold water on the temptation.

I tapped a pencil to paper and gritted my teeth together. “No. And I don’t have time for this. I have things to do, and if you won’t be cooperative I’ll figure it out on my own.”

“Shannon—”

“Goodbye, Patrick.”

I hung up the phone at the same time a growl sounded from behind me.

I was in what would soon be my office at Stamped. I’d scrubbed the place from top to bottom over the last week, including the cute and full-of-character upstairs apartment. Every day it settled in a little bit more that this place was mine.

All mine.

Once I got my stuff, anyway. Fortunately, I’d had the smarts to bring all my jewelry-making tools and equipment with me.

Everything was scattered about on two folding tables I’d picked up as soon as I’d cleaned the downstairs office.

With the Arts Festival opening next week, I’d been desperate to start creating. I wanted the store ready to go by then, but there were a million things I still had left to do scribbled on a ripped piece of notebook paper…somewhere in my office.

Amazing how I could make such a huge mess when I had so little.

“What did the loser want now?”

I turned to Beaux to see his arms across his chest, shoulder leaning against the door to my office. He was freshly showered, telling me he’d come straight from his late workout.

I groaned and tossed the pen to the tabletop. “Same old crap. Apologies, refusing to let me go.”

I hated that there was a small part of me that was glad. Because if he didn’t want to let me go, maybe everything we’d shared, everything I thought I’d once loved hadn’t been a lie.

A month had given me a lot of perspective. Melissa and Beaux’s persistent cataloging his faults and the things they’d always hated about him had given me greater insights into things I hadn’t seen, or had refused to admit earlier.

I was angry and hurt, but beneath it there was still the love I’d thought I had for him for years, simmering. I couldn’t dig deep enough to scrape it out.

“When are you moving your stuff out here?”

“Whenever Patrick tells me when I can get the movers into the apartment. He wants to see me first, though.”

“Fuck that, Shannon. Melissa has a key. She can meet movers any time of the day. Stop fucking bending to his will.”

“I know.” I scrubbed my hands down my face and wrapped them around the back of my neck, popping my knuckles. “I know that. I was hoping—”

“You were hoping he’d be a decent human being for once.”

Ugh. I hated my baby brother. Such a pain in the ass. His words were still truthful.

“Yeah.” A breath fell from my puffed out cheeks. “I guess I was.” I spun in my chair, my design tables between us. “How was practice? Ready for the upcoming game?”

He pushed off the doorway and walked to the tables, his fingers brushing against bracelets I’d pounded and shaped earlier.

“Won’t play much the first couple games. Can’t have their new stars getting injured before the season really begins.”

He seemed to avoid meeting my gaze. I didn’t often see him uncertain or worried, unless it came to me and my life. This was football.

His dream. His goal since he was five.

“How was practice?”

“Powell’s still being an asshole. Jesus, he’s not letting me get away with shit. Every play he’s on my ass, screaming in my face.”

The name alone sent a spark of awareness to places it shouldn’t have—deep in my belly, the apex of my thighs.

I cleared my throat. “Yeah? Is he right?”

Beaux huffed and looked at a spot on the far wall. “I’m good. I know that. I’m good enough to be a starter, but every damn time I make a mistake—or when I don’t, for that matter—he’s right there, telling me what to do different. I’m not Mason, and I don’t want to be. They got rid of him for a reason, but he and Powell were friends. I don’t know if it’s something he has against me, against my playing, or because I took his friend’s spot.” He looked at me then, a gleam in his eye. “Or if he just really wants to fuck my sister and is pissed I’ve cock-blocked him.”

He choked over the word. I wanted to laugh at his grossed-out expression, but I couldn’t. That heat in my belly unfurled into something larger.

I swallowed a lump in my throat. “Really?”

I squeezed my eyes closed immediately. How desperate would I have to be for that to happen? He was worse than Patrick. Just as big of a player but didn’t feel the need to hide it.

“While this whole discussion is making me want to puke up my protein shake—”

“That’s probably just the protein.” I pulled a face. Those things smelled gross and tasted nastier. Add the kale, chia seeds, and spinach and it was shit in a cup.

“Shut up.” He smirked and went back to looking at my jewelry. “You know he was married once, right?”

My head spun while I tried to figure out who he meant before he continued speaking.

“High school sweetheart. Gossip in the locker room is he loved the shit out of her. She used him as a meal ticket and once he made it big, she left him and took over half of everything he owned.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Not sure.” He shrugged and pulled back from a necklace charm before sliding his hand into the pocket of his jeans. “Beneath all the bullshit, all the asshole behavior, and all the crap that’s said about him in the papers, I guess I don’t think he’s that bad of a guy.”

It was as close to permission as I was going to get from Beaux. Not that it meant anything. I wasn’t going to be the next woman on Oliver’s arm on a photo spread of NFL player’s wives and girlfriends webpage, only to be replaced the following week.

“He’s been named captain of the team for a reason, you know. Is he right about you and your playing?”

For an athlete, Beaux was pretty humble. More than most. He was usually pretty open to criticism and always took feedback, evaluated it to see if it was true. Hell, he scanned his Instagram feed, reading comments from guys who couldn’t pick a decent fantasy football team, to see if their Monday quarterbacking had merit.

That he’d be so angry about Powell’s input told me it wasn’t the criticism getting to him.

“Yeah.” He looked up at me and grinned. It was lopsided and made a dimple pop in his cheek. “He might be.”