I sigh and let myself lean my cheek against his again. “I thought we’d get old together.”
“That guy? He’s fucking ugly.”
I stifle another smile. Fletcher’s pettiness is remarkably comforting. “He brought me flowers every Friday. If I had a bad day, he’d come home with cheese dip. About the same time he started sleeping with Stefanie, he sent me and three of my best friends on a spa vacation.”
“Including her?”
“Including her.”
“Did your other friends know?”
“Doesn’t matter if they knew or not. They were her teammates. I was the one who didn’t fit.”
He stops dancing, rears back, and looks down at me.
“I’m fine, Fletcher,” I say lightly, forcing a smile in case anyone’s watching. I squeeze his waist, and we start moving again.
He tucks me even more possessively against his body. “If you were fine, you wouldn’t have asked the hottest guy in town that you can’t stand to be your date tonight.”
“I can stand you. Most of the time.”
“She knew you two were dating.”
“This happened alongtime ago, and I’m better off without him.”
“She still hurt you. And your friends tookherside?”
“They were her teammates. Not just friends.Teammates. On a professional women’s team where performance matters even more than it does for you. The team started struggling on the field, and it was so obvious that no matter how professional they tried to be, the trust was gone from some of the people who were on my side.Iwas hurting the team. So I…I left them. I left my friends so they could do what they needed to on the field.”
“Fuck, Goldie,” he mutters.
He gets the teammate angle.
He has to figure out how to put aside hating my brother off the pitch to be his teammateonthe pitch.
I can’t solve that for them. Agreeing to a couple dates with Fletcher probably won’t help their situation, but Silas will get over it. I’m leaving before the season starts. They’ll probably have a fistfight and then be over it because men are dumb.
But for the Scorned?
I wasn’t all of the problem, but I was definitely part of it. And it was obvious that me removing myself from the situation would improve the team’s morale.
So that’s what I did.
It meant I didn’t have to see Miller and Stefanie together either.
Elizabeth knew. She called me on it. She made sure I knew that she didn’t give two fucks what happened between Stefanie and me, that she still cared and I could still call her anytime.
That’s the only reason I’m here tonight.
Because Elizabeth personally asked me to come, and there’s no telling the next time I’ll see her.
But my former friends? Stefanie’s teammates?
“That’s why I hang out with Odette and Evelyn and Sheila,” I whisper. “They were my friends when I had no friends left.”
I had Brittany, but that situation was weird. And I knew not to make friends with Hallie’s nannies because they inevitably left. Even when Hallie was only a year and a half old, Silas was already going through the nannies.
I wasn’t one of the Scorned, but they were my family. They’d been my family since I came home after college and Elizabeth took me under her wing to help me find my footing despite professional soccer not being in my future.
