Once Upon A Half-Time 1(81)
I didn’t need any more ammunition for their hazing, especially when I was still picking popcorn kernels out of my seats like they were molars.
Elle called me at noon, and I nearly tore my ACL leaping from my cafeteria seat to take the call. The guys laughed, but at least I was used to the humiliation.
I talked to her outside, forsaking my lunch. Wasn’t hungry anyway, and I didn’t need the guys overhearing this particular conversation.
“Hey, Charming.” Elle spoke quick, flirty, and too high pitched. Like she was forcing it. “We need to talk about your toothpaste.”
We had a lot more to talk about than my fucking toothpaste. “What?”
“Some people roll the paste from the bottom. I’m guilty of occasionally squeezing from the top.”
“Elle, what the hell—”
“But you!” I heard her smile. It wasn’t genuine. “Last night, you cut the toothpaste out of the middle of the tube. With a razor.”
Yeah, it hadn’t been a great day. “I was in a hurry. Hey, I got a question for you.”
“I mean, the sink was a mess.”
What the fuck was happening? “Red, where the hell are you, and, by proxy, my unborn child?”
She laughed. Fake. “Oh, didn’t I tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“I had a thing today.”
“A thing.”
“Yeah. I won’t be at practice. I thought I mentioned it?”
“No?”
“Well…” She cleared her throat. “I should be back late, like midnight. I’ll crash at my place so I don’t wake you.”
“Midnight?” What was happening? “Elle, if you’ve been like…kidnapped or something—”
“I’m not kidnapped.” She paused. “And I know that’s what someone kidnapped would say, but it’s fine. I just had to do a uh…photo shoot.”
“Where are you?”
She sighed. “Atwood.”
“You’re in…you’re across the country?”
“Just for today.”
I paced the field. “We’re playing Atwood next week.”
“Yeah. There’s a…photography gig I’m doing. For the team.”
“You’re a horrible liar.”
“I know it sounds strange, but I’ll explain it all later.”
“I got some time. Why don’t you try explaining it now?”
“Lachlan, I promise. It’s nothing. It’s a little photography job I picked up. I’ll do it this afternoon, and then I’ll fly right home…”
I’d stopped listening.
The phone nearly tumbled out of my hand.
The brunette waved at me from the chain-link fence that separated the practice facility from where our fans watched the practices. But training camp was closed to the public until two in the afternoon.
I had no doubt Victoria sweet-talked security into letting her in.
“Elle.” I interrupted her. “I’ll call you back.”
I hung up before she answered.
This was not my day.
Victoria waited for me with a little curl of her fingers. She hadn’t changed.
She was just as soul-suckingly beautiful as she was in high school. I saw past the raven hair and moon-pale skin now. Her spell had broken when she’d called from the hospital to tell me about the baby she nearly miscarried.
Tried to miscarry.
But Victoria tested me again. The plunging neckline of her shirt pushed her tits up, revealing too much pale, creamy skin. She leaned against the fence, popping her bubble gum. Her sunglasses pushed into her thick, black hair.
“Hey there, sexy.” Victoria glanced me over with sinfully dark eyes. Fortunately, Sebastian had inherited my greens. “You look good in black and gold. I could eat you up.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I saw you on TV.” She smiled. “You looked so damn handsome in all the pads and sweat and grass stains. Reminded me of the old days, you know?”
“No. I don’t know.”
“I had to come see you,” she said.
“No. You didn’t.”
“Are you still mad at me?” She pouted. I remembered that look. It had once been cute, until the day she puffed her bottom lip out and tried to steal my attention from my hungry son. “Can’t we just talk? It’s been so long.”
“I have nothing to say to you.”
“Lachlan, we have a history together.”
“It’s over.”
“We have a son.”
She was lucky a fence separated us. “No, you don’t.”
I meant for the truth to hurt. She didn’t react.
“You’re right,” she said. “You’re absolutely right. I don’t have my baby now…but I’d like to. Can I see him?”