I shook my head, wiping my eyes so I could see. “How do I get out of here?”
He pointed behind him, but then he grabbed my arm. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“Y-you’ll find o-out when you go inside.” I whirled on my heel, to go. But then I spun back around. Because I did care. Even if Blue Bishop was the biggest jerk on the planet, I cared what happened to him. Cared way too much.
Madden had already made it to the door, his fingers gripping the handle.
“Madden!” His eyes skittered over. “Shane has a contract for Blue to transfer to the University of Texas. It benefits Shane. Blue will lose money.Don’tlet him sign it.”
The last three sentences didn’t really need to be spoken though. The moment I said Texas, anger flashed across Madden’s face. “Got it.” Then he hurried through the door.
It took a solid ten minutes to find my way out. As soon as I was free, stepping into the sunlight, Ford’s truck screeched to a halt in front of me. I yanked the door open and launched myself inside. As the door shut behind me, I gave Smoky Mountain Stadium one last look. Because I was never, ever coming back.
I never should’ve come in the first place.
“Hey,” Ford said, confusion all over his face. “What’s going on?”
I dove into his arms where I stayed until we were past the Leaving Knoxville City Limit sign.
CHAPTER 15
blue
“You’re a total jackass,” Stilts said as he pulled a glass out of our kitchen cabinet. “And that’s the nicest thing I can say about you right now.”
A storm of anger ripped through my chest. “You can kiss my?—”
“Nah, I’ll just kick it. How about that?” He put the glass under the running tap.
I huffed. “Like you could.”
Stilts set the glass down, and slapped his hands on the counter between us, levying a terrifying glare. “You wanna know what Lacy is? She’s trash. Trash who wanted to ride your coattails as far as she could. She brought out the worst in you. She’s a terrible person who made your life miserable.”
“How?” I asked, because she’d done me a favor today. Saved me from myself, apparently. “She can’t be worse than Anna.”
“Worse than Anna?” He snorted. “Lacy cheated on you. Constantly.” He threw his hands up. “You cheated on each other. Like a pair of swingers.”
My jaw clamped and it felt like he’d sucker punched me in the gut. That did explain my Instagram feed.
Crap.
“Yeah.” He held up his massive left hand. “She ran up thousands of dollars on your credit card buying whatever she wanted. And never paid you back.” He ticked off a finger. “Threw parties on your dime every weekend, trashing our apartment repeatedly. Didn’t care that you’re trying to save every penny you can in case the NFL doesn’t work out.” Tick. “Took her friends on vacation using your money and didn’t even ask if that was okay. You didn’t know where she was for five days. You thought she’d been sex trafficked. Nope. Just on a cruise to Mexico with seven friends.” Tick. “Whenever you tried to break up with her she’d threaten to kill herself.” Tick. “And she gave you a black eye.” He threw his hands up, done counting. “It took months to untangle yourself from her and once you finally did, it took you a year and thousands of dollars in therapy to get over the damage she’d done. But hey.” He slapped the counter again. “If you want to choose to believe her over the girl who you said, and I quote, ‘Was the only person who ever loved me for who I am and not my athletic talent,’ go right ahead.”
I pressed my hands on top of the counter, processing, wishing I could vomit this sickness in my stomach. “We cheated on each other?”
“Every day it was a guessing game. Who’s coming out of Blue’s bedroom this morning? It was like you wanted to see who could hurt the other more.” It sounded like it hurt him to think about it. “I hated who you were with her.” He shook his head. “Youhated who you were.”
The worst part was, I was pretty sure I hadn’t even been in love with Lacy. I’d felt nothing when I saw her today. Not even a hint of attraction. A flatline of hormones and emotions compared to what Anna did to my internal organs.
I blew out an exhale. The events of the day had sucked most of my energy and this was taking up the rest. “But man, Anna broke up with me because I was poor.” The memory of Lacy’s words stabbed me yet again. My eyelids prickled it hurt so much.
“I don’t know if that’s true or not. You never said a word about it to me. But I do know that Anna Dupree is all you ever talked about. The one that got away.” He chuckled, bitterness lacing his tone. “Once, when you and Lacy were broken up, you got Brion to go with you to Sweet Grass to see her. You were determined to get her back. You drove my beamer.”
My head snapped up. “Seriously?”
“Yeah. It was a bye week, early on in our sophomore year. I couldn’t go because I was getting over a cold and needed to rest. She’d just started her freshman year I think. You had grand visions of her coming to your games. Hanging out with her on the offseason.”
“What happened?” Anna said we hadn’t seen each other in four years. She never mentioned that I’d come to see her.
