I rub my forehead. Shit, the conversation about the kids’ swimming class would be preferable to this. “I know what Paul Revere said, Logan, and it was ‘the Regulars are coming out.’Most colonists still considered themselves British, so that phrase is more myth than fact.”
He studies me, brows furrowed, then shrugs. “I’m pretty sure you’re wrong, but whatever. Doesn’t change the fact that Gigi is here.”
The name sends a chill down my spine, and I take a full step back.Shit. “Why the fuck didn’t you lead with that?”
“I tried. You’re the one who went all history professor on me and?—”
“Boys, focus,” Sloane snaps. “Logan, Gigi’shere?”
Logan nods, his hair flopping against his forehead. “Yup. She just walked in, and she’s already chitchatting away with a glass of wine in hand.” He peers over his shoulder. “I bet it’s not even wine. It’s probably a witch’s brew filled with children’s tears and virgin blood.” With a deep breath, he turns his attention to Sloane completely, wagging an accusatory finger. “If she’s back from the depths of hell, isn’t that something you should have known?”
I’m wondering the same thing. Sloane is up to date on everything going on in our world, so the return of the owner’s granddaughter—who, oh yeah, happens to be my ex—should’ve been on her radar.
“I only found out this morning,” she says, scrutinizing me like I’m a bomb and she’s looking for signs that I’m about to detonate. “I hoped I’d have more time to figure out how to tell you without causing… this. And I obviously didn’t think she’d be here tonight.”
“Why is she back? I don’t activelyhopethat Sanders is dead, but if he is and she’s only in town for his funeral, I also wouldn’t be upset,” Logan says, tapping his black dress shoe in an increasingly quick tempo.
Sloane stares at him, a look of disgusted confusion on her face. “Did I just hear that correctly? You want the team owner dead?”
“No,” he replies. “But if she’s back for her grandpa’s funeral, that means she’s leaving again.”
I tune out the two of them and focus on breathing, trying to wrap my head around the actual issue at hand.
Gigi Sanders.
We were fire and gasoline from the start. For a while I thought that meant passion, but now I realize it just meant destruction. She’d twist my words until I doubted my own memory and get me to apologize for things I hadn’t done. Every fight circled back to how I wasn’t enough. How I was too closed off, too cold, too focused on hockey. She accused me of cheating every time the team traveled, turning my phone into evidence and my teammates into suspects. I bent over backward, trying to prove my loyalty and defending myself against accusations I never deserved.
Then I found out she’d been sleeping with someone else for months. One of my ex-teammates.
The irony would’ve been funny if it hadn’t gutted me. I spent so many nights on the phone for hours, missing team dinners, so I could reassure her, explaining every text and every conversation, and in the end, she was the one who’d already checked out.
The day I finally ended it, a switch inside me shut off permanently.
Now she’s back, and I have no idea what her angle is.
“Shit, shit, shit,” Sloane murmurs, more to herself than to us.
“What?” Logan asks.
If our PR manager hadn’t been a friend since before I signed with the Bobcats, I probably wouldn’t recognize the briefglimmer of panic in her eyes. “Gigi’s going to bid on the date with you.”
Logan squawks, his eyes going comically wide. “His cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs ex is here, and you offered him up to be trotted around like some spring chicken at a market?”
“Spring chicken?” I jerk back. “Seriously? You couldn’t have said prize ox or something?”
The fucker winks at me.
“As I said, I didn’t know she’d be here,” Sloane says to him, ignoring his outburst. “We need to focus on ensuring that she doesn’t win a date with Cameron… right?”
I shoot her a scathing look, offended that she’d even suggest I still hold a flame for my ex-girlfriend. The only flame I carry for her is left over from the burning hell she put me through.
God that sounds dramatic. I’ve been friends with Logan for too long.
“Right.”
“Fuck, okay. We just need someone to outbid her,” Sloane says, her words full of determination but also a hint of desperation. I didn’t make her job easy when Gigi and I broke up, considering I’m curt and burly on a good day.
“Maya would do you a solid and bid on you, but Cole would kill you,” Logan muses, tapping his chin. “It can’t be Sophie. That’d be tooGame of ThronesLannister-esque if you catch my drift. Jake might bid on you, but since neither of you bat for my team, I don’t know how viable of an option that is.”
