“It will get us viewers.”
“There’s good attention and bad, Fisher, and this is bad. Are you that thick?”
“There’s money in bad attention, Tenley. Are you that thick?”
We stare at each other. He looks smug and I’m sure I look rabid. I grab my sweater and my purse and start out of the room. He follows me to the door and calls after me as I march down the hall to the exit. “Tenley! Are you going to stomp off like a child?”
“Oh trust me, asshole, what I’m about to do is not child’s play,” I reply, my voice calm and even. Unaffected. I pause to glance back at him and as he takes in my expression and the coldness in my stare the smug smirk slides away.
Good. Because I’ll burn this dream of mine to the ground before I let him ruin Crew and Liv’s lives.
Chapter 17
Nash
I know it’s not a good sign when I get back from my morning yoga class and Tenley is gone, but the ring is still on the coffee machine. It’s been touched, I can tell because the lid isn’t completely back on the box. I decide to leave it there. I head off to practice, have lunch with some of the guys, and do a quick grocery shop. When I get back to the loft, it’s deathly quiet.
I don’t expect her to be home, because she’s not quiet. There’s always some kind of noise when she’s here. I toe out of my shoes at the door and place them in the shoe cabinet next to the closet. Her purse and a sweater are in a heap at the entrance to the office. Now I’m confused. Is she here? I walk through the loft. The thing about concrete floors is they muffle the sound of bare feet easily so I know if she’s in the living room or kitchen I might scare the shit out of her so I’m about to call out, but then… what if she’s napping? I did keep her up past her bedtime last night. I was exhausted hauling my ass to yoga.
Exhausted but very fucking satisfied. Sleeping with Tenley was incredible. She was built for sex and damn if that woman didn’t cause the best orgasm of my life. I also think it helped that we have so much animosity between us. This was my first hate-fuck and honestly, if I knew it would be this good, I would have dared her to fuck me in Vegas. Then maybe we would have had multiple orgasms by now and not be fake married.
The living room and kitchen are both empty. I start to pull my phone from the back pocket of my jeans as I climb the stairs to my bedroom. I figure I’ll text her and… a sound stops me in my tracks. It’s like… a sniffle? No… a sob.
“How do I not cry? You can’t put me in this position!” It’s Tenley. Her voice is ragged and strained. My whole body goes cold. “Aunt Callie… it’s not right. I know you know it’s…”
She sobs again. I turn to head back downstairs. This is eavesdropping and it sounds very personal but… I don’t take more than a single step. I stay frozen in the middle of the staircase. It is personal, but I have this overwhelming urge to stay in case she needs me.
"No. I can't. You have to say something before. They can't be blindsided if it… if it… Aunt Callie, please. I don't give a flying fuck if it's the playoffs and neither will they!" Her voice breaks again as she tries to raise it. "If you don't tell them before the biopsy, I will drop that grenade on the group chat. You can hate me forever but they won't because they'll be happy they know."
It’s silent for a long second, then Tenley sniffles. “I love you so much and that’s why I’m not changing my mind.”
More silence and then I hear a soft creak of the wood on the bedroom floor and I start down the stairs two at a time. I hit the ground floor as she calls my name. I turn… and I know the minute I see her tear-streaked face that she knows I heard at least some of her conversation. "You were spying on me? What? The camera isn't enough, now you sneak around?"
“I wasn’t… not on purpose,” I reply and take in her face. She looks broken. It pinches my heart. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s a family matter.”
“I’m your husband.”
“On paper only.”
“Well, and in the biblical sense now,” I add lightly. She doesn’t smile. “Look, I’m also a very, very good secret-keeper.”
“So am I,” she replies and leans against the railing like she’s suddenly completely exhausted. “I lock shit away like it’s Fort Knox and I’m fairly certain it takes years off my life.”
“So unburden yourself,” I counter as I climb the stairs slowly. “You hate me so taking years off my life would be a bonus.”
That gets a small, fleeting twitch of a smile before her face goes back to despair. She sniffs and wipes at her eyes with her hand not clutching the phone. She takes a deep, shaky breath. “I have something I do need to discuss with you, and probably with Crew. And with your dad and a lawyer, I would guess.”
“Umm… what?”
“This is a long, horrible story so let me tell it to you on the way to Liv and Crew’s, okay?” she says and marches right past me and down the hall toward the front door.
“Is this about the phone call with your aunt?”
She spins so fast that her blonde hair flies out around her. "No. And do not even breathe a single word of that in front of Liv. Promise me. Promise me on your playoff run."
“I promise you on my playoff run.”
