He doesn’t respond right away. When he does his voice is cautious. He is sick of being hurt by me. “What did you say?”
I look at him, and I know he can see the regret all over my face. “Something about how I should date someone Tessa knows so she feels what it’s like to have that shoved in her face.”
Levi lets that roll around in his head, and within seconds he makes the connection Zoey obviously did. “Zoey and Tess knew each other. Shit. Zoey thinks you were just trying to hurt Tessa?”
I nod. “Between that and the running out after sex and the text from Kina on my phone, she’s done.”
“Who the hell is Kina?”
“She’s that nurse from the children’s hospital,” I explain, and I fall back across the bed, staring up at the ceiling. “I couldn’t sleep when I freaked out, so I went to an all-night diner and Kina swung by there for breakfast with some other nurses when her shift ended. She recognized me and said hi. I asked her about that kid we saw when we visited with the Cup. I wanted to know if he was doing better. Anyway, she said he was out of the woods and cleared to go home this weekend. I said I’d love to give him and his family some tickets to our home opener. She said she could arrange it, so I gave her my number. I had forgotten my phone at Zoey’s, and I guess she texted and Zoey saw it on my screen.”
I prop myself up on my elbows to gauge his reaction. He’s just staring and blinking, trying to absorb the whole story. “You’re not sure if I’m lying or not, are you?”
“I mean…no. I think you’re telling the truth; it’s just…you’ve told lies like that before when you’re hiding shit from a girl,” Levi confesses, and I can’t even be upset with him. It’s the truth.
“Yep.” I try to fill my lungs with air but it hurts. “Zoey’s just come out of a bad marriage. And her ex knocked up his secretary sixty seconds after their marriage ended, so she’s rightfully jaded. And my reputation gives her no reason to believe me. I don’t even blame her. This is me fucking up again.”
“Man, Jude, I’m sorry,” he whispers. “Maybe if you just give her a couple days…”
I shake my head and drop back flat onto the bed again, this time closing my eyes. “No. It’s better this way. I’m too much of a fuckup. I’ve known she was too good for me since I met her. Guys like me don’t keep girls like that. After all the shit I’ve done, I’m not going to get a happy ending, and I’d accepted that until she walked back into my life.”
“So don’t accept it now.”
“Just let me catch a nap,” I growl back, because I am so done talking about this and feeling this and I just want to be unconscious. “Please, Levi.”
“Okay, but know this, Jude…you deserve her,” he says quietly, and a second later I hear the door open and close. I sit up, yank my shirt off and drop my jeans and then throw back the covers. I crawl into bed and lie there and think of her. Nothing but her.
32
Zoey
“Hello?”
“Stop.”
I blink and pause the video on my computer. “Stop what?”
“Watching the video I sent you of the Thunder meeting the president,” Morgan replies sternly.
I lean back in my chair and shift the phone to my other ear. “If you didn’t want me to watch it, then why did you forward it to me?”
“Aha!” he blurts triumphantly. “You’re watching it. You’re obsessed with it. Because you’re obsessed with him!”
“I’m not obsessed,” I reply and sigh. “I loved him.”
“You still do, so talk to him,” Morgan replies. “Work this out.”
“I don’t even know if he wants to work it out,” I mutter. “If I was just a way to get back at his ex.”
My mind is still reeling with everything. The Jude I heard and saw on that Rollins video was nothing like the guy I’ve been spending almost every waking hour with for weeks. That Jude was mean, selfish and coldhearted. I never saw any of those traits in him. Was I oblivious, just lost in old feelings and the need for someone to care about me after my marriage blew up? Or was I blinded by lust? Was I just another one of the millions of girls fooled into thinking they were special to him?
“So he hasn’t called or emailed or texted?”
“Nope.” I take a deep breath. “And I have an open house this afternoon at his condo. I was going to get Marti to handle it, but she’s got her own showing.”
“Is he going to be there? You can talk to him then,” Morgan suggests.
“No, they have three days off before the first game of the season, so he went to Maine,” I explain. “His parents are there.”
