I wince. “I can’t actually say.”
The boys look at each other. “Why?” Leo asks.
“NDA.” I shrug, popping a peanut into my mouth.
Leo’s lips thin. “So I take it that means we’re not going to hear anything from here on out?”
Smiling, I shrug again. Everything from here on out is on a need-to-know basis, and these two do not need to know.
“Can we at least go out tonight?” Leo pouts.
“Lulus?” I sit up, collecting my trash. It’s been a productive day, but I have one more big thing to do.
“Yeah. You said you have an appointment?” Emmett glances at his watch.
“Yeah.”
“How about we meet at nine? I’ll check in with Heidi.”
I know I need to bite my tongue. I know that it’s better to say nothing at all. But if I were good at either of those things, I wouldn’t get into half the trouble I find myself in. “She really does have you by the balls, man.”
Emmett’s eyes narrow, his jaw ticking once before he decides that I’m not worth it.
There’s something about her that makes him absolutely feral. Calm, cool, and collected, Emmett losing his cool any time someone even looks at her wrong.
Not that anyone would. But the last time I questioned him about the new rock around his neck, he blew a fuse and started yelling about how itactually mayhave healing properties and will help him with his focus.
Alright.
With a smack on my shoulder and another on the back of my head, my friends leave me to take care of my last order of business.
My feet hit the shiny hardwood floor, and all of the stress I’ve had about finding a home fades.
“Thank you so much for doing business with me,” Roger says, shaking my hand. His voice bounces off the walls of the large, empty space overlooking the inner harbor.
He leaves me to it, and I make my way to the wall of floor-to-ceiling windows, my hands in my pockets as I take in my new view.
This place is ten times nicer than Warner’s place. Mostly because, unlike him, I waited until my contract was extended to buy a place.
Sure, he got a pretty big rookie contract, and mine was far from it. But my old apartment was an absolute piece of shit compared to his place.
But this one?
The nicest bachelor pad I’ve ever stepped foot in, and I’ve been to some insane parties.
I can see Warner’s place across the bay, whichisthe only downside. I wouldn’t put it past him to sit at his window with a telescope trying to spy on me.
The aquarium seems a stone’s throw away, and I can see the stadium in the distance. I still haven’t seen this place at night, but I know that seeing both the Vipers’ stadium and the Cobras lit up with their colors is going to be one of my favorite parts of living here. To the left is Federal Hill, where Leo and I have gone running in the off-season in an attempt to burn off all his shitty ass pizza he scarfs down.
Over three million dollars later, and I finally have a place to call home in the city I’ve been residing in for years now.
Smiling, I roll my shoulders back, the odd, itchy, scratchyfeeling from my new tattoos healing, sending a shiver down my spine.
Tomorrow the movers will bring all my belongings, and although there aren’t enough things in my small shitbox of an apartment to fill up even a quarter of this one, it’ll be enough until my designer gets here in a few days to work her magic.
When I was a kid, this was something I could only dream of. Nothing that would ever actually happen. Not in a million years.
But getting into the league was a pipe dream at one point, too.
