“When do you guys leave town?”
“We’ll be heading out around two in the morning. That way we avoid a lot of the fans and attention. What about you?”
“I’ll be heading out tonight. I was just passing time until my Uber arrives in about . . . twenty minutes to take me to the airport,” she declared after looking at her watch.
“You’d better head up and grab your luggage so you can check out then.”
“I’ve already done all of that. My luggage is actually behind the checkout desk. They’re holding it for me until I leave.”
“Smart lady.”
“Thank you.”
“Nothing to thank me for when it’s the truth.” I pulled my glass to my lips.
“Ashton, I don’t usually propose this, but after your divorce, after you retire, I would like to be friends.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re truly one of the good guys, and I genuinely like you—and I have a feeling you’ll need a real friend after the divorce.”
I thought about the things that Muffin brought up to me, and although I was just a kid when I did them, their impact hurt no less. Those actions had ruined my wife’s future and our marriage. I wondered if Chanel would still think so highly of me if she knew the truth about my past.
Rather than disclosing that, I replied, “I’d like that, too, Chanel.”
“Oh, God. What time is it?”I groaned, rolling over in bed. My phone was ringing, and something else was buzzing.
I pulled my pillow over my head, praying that the noise would stop, but it didn’t. The phone finally stopped, only for me to realize that the doorbell was buzzing. The only people who had access to my floor without the concierge notifying me were my family, my PA, Evie, and my best friend, Sabrina. I revoked Collier’s access once we broke up.
I hadn’t made plans with the girls to come over, and my family would have called first. I couldn’t imagine which one of them had popped up and why. The phone rang again, and I sat up and reached for it.
I knocked the phone off the nightstand and groaned. “Damn.” I slid out of bed, grabbed my robe, and tossed it on before I picked up my phone. When I unlocked it, I noticed I had several missed calls from Sabrina and an overwhelming number of social media notifications. She was so dramatic, so it wasn’t surprising that she had been calling me repeatedly. It was probably an issue with her latest boo, knowing Sabrina.
I decided to call her back after I checked to see who was at the door. My head hurt, and I just wanted to go back to sleep, not start my day with drama. My plane arrived around four this morning, and I caught an Uber home.
I had showered and fell asleep around six this morning. It was only eleven thirty now, and I needed at least seven hours of sleep to function properly. I peered out the peephole to see Sabrina, Evie, and Tommi at my door.
Pulling it open, I asked, “What the hell?”
“That’s what we want to know,” Sabrina stated, rudely pushing by me holding two bottles of wine.
“What calls for wine this early in the day?” I asked.
“We were hoping you would tell us,” Tommi declared, walking in with two boxes of pizza in her hands.
“This isn’t a girls’ night in. It’s too early, you guys,” I complained.
“I brought the chocolates, and if you weren’t all over social media, I would agree,” Evie chimed in.
“All over social media. What are you talking about?” I asked, closing and locking the door behind us.
“Check your phone,” Tommi stated, even as she shoved her phone in my face.
All I saw was a blurry image of myself and Ashton. I pushed the phone back and leaned my head back a little. I snatched her phone and read the caption on the popular blogSunni Sippin’Tea: Puma’s star shooting guard retiring not only his career, but his wife too?
I screamed and then I shouted, “What the hell?” I shoved Tommi’s phone back into her hand. I unlocked my phone and went straight to Sociogram. I scrolled through all the notifications, seeing a couple of pictures of Ashton and me at the bar, in the hotel lobby, and in front of the hotel last night.
I had seen someone taking his picture last night, but we both thought it was a fan. How had this gone to hell in a handbasket so fast?
