“Given my luck, probably,” I mutter.
“Why do people always say that?” Fletcher says. “My dude, you don’t have bad luck. None of us have persistent bad luck.”
Says the guy who arrived on the team furious and taking it out on the whole world when he was unceremoniouslyfired by one of the best teams in the most prestigious league in the UK and lied to about why.
Sounds like bad luck to me.
I frown at him. “When you find a dog, it loves you. When I find a dog, it’s the one dog in the entire city who hates men. Your sister saves people’s lives. My brother’s dead. You’re engaged to an absolute saint. The last woman I hooked up with” —before last night— “snuck out of my house with all my spatulas and sent me the Instagram page she set up to show their adventures.My spatulashave a spite spatula travels Instagram page.Plusshe kept leaving cheeses of all varieties in my mailbox. You got fired from the club you’d played with for years, and now you’re shoving your success in their faces. I tried to make another team overseas, and I broke my foot. Don’t fucking talk to me about luck.”
Fletcher opens his mouth, but Goldie touches him lightly on the shoulder. “I think we need to let him have this one for now, yeah? Good. Glad we agree. Will you please go get me more tartar sauce?”
“Anything for you.” He leaps out of the booth like he wasn’t grunting and swearing and moaningI won’t be able to move tomorrowduring weight training while I was having PT yesterday and heads for the condiments.
Knew it.
I knew he was whining for my benefit.
Or possibly to mock Silas. Goldie’s brother also whines a lot on leg days.
Goldie leans across the table and grabs my arm. “The hardest things in life are worth fighting for. If she’s worth it, she’ll be here, or she’ll let you know a real reason why she can’t. There’s probably traffic.”
“A car accident.”
“Holt. Stop.”
“I fucking like her, and Coach sent that email, and we already knew it was dicey, andI like her. How thefuckdid I find the one woman in the entire city who’d be off-limits to house-sit for me?”
Goldie smiles. “You’re down bad, aren’t you?”
“If I don’t hear from her in the next five minutes, I’ll?—”
I stop myself.
Because there she is, walking through the door.
Her hair’s tied up in another messy bun, and her cheeks are red like she had to park too far away in the heat.
I should’ve told her to pull up front and made Fletcher park her car for her.
Wary eyes scan the room, and her smile isn’t bright enough when she spots me.
My heart starts a slow barrel roll of doom.
She told her mom.
She told her mom, and now she’s coming to tell me she can’t be seen with me and she’s moving in with them until she finds a house and we’re going to never see each other again.
I’m bracing myself when she slides into the seat next to me. “Sorry I’m late.” Her gaze flicks to me, and the next thing I notice is the way her eyes are rimmed in red. “We ran into Abby Nora and Vitamin Guy, and I needed a minute. Okay, an hour. I needed an hour. And to convince my mom I was okay to drive after that hour.”
It takes everything I have to not wrap her in a hug and tell herfuck Abby Noraand offer to plant my fist in Vitamin Guy’s face. Or offer to have Fletcher egg their houses. I settle for squeezing her thigh under the table.
“You okay?”
She shakes her head. Nods. Shakes her head again.
And Goldie squeaks. “Oh my god, that’s where I know you from!”
We both look at her.
