“Not trying to be a buzzkill, I just wanna make sure we’re all ready,” she replies, a bit of regret slipping into her tone.
“We know that, Mac, no worries,” Cassie chimes in.
“Let’s see if Amelia wants to go before we head out,” Macs adds.
“She’s probably in the training room. I can ask her on my way out,” Cassie replies.
I have never been so happy for the amber liquid that the waitress has placed in front of me. I open up theUntappdapp on my phone that allows you to check in with what beer you’re drinkingat the bar. It’s something fun that my brother and I started doing in college. Ash lives in Philadelphia and it’s just another way we stay in contact and keep up with one another. He’ll toast my beer, which is the app’s version of liking, and I do the same with his. So, I check in so that he can see what I’m up to. I do a quick scan of the app and see he hasn’t updated anything since last night.
I sigh and put my phone down. “Are we having those mozzarella sticks?” I ask Amelia, Mac and Cassie.
“We can certainly split them,” Mac says, nodding eagerly. Mozzarella sticks are her go-to appetizer. Every time we are on a cheat meal or ordering apps, she always gets them. And like today, she’ll only have one. But it’s enough for her, because as she’s said before, it’s better than none.
My phone dings and I look down at the notification.
August813 has toasted your check-in.
I roll my eyes. I forgot that he friended me on this app. In a moment of weakness, I accepted it.
“What’s wrong?” Mac asks. I swear that girl misses nothing.
“August toasted my check-in,” I say holding up my phone withUntappdon the screen, so that they all can see.
“You’re the one who accepted his friend request,” Cassie reminds me, grinning.
“Yeah, why did you do that?” Amelia asks, pushing a long strand of blonde hair off of her shoulder. Amelia is still healing from her torn meniscus, so she didn’t practice today. Looking unbothered from the Tampa Bay heat while the rest of us sit here with wet hair, ponytails and sweaty clothes while we recover from the hard practice.
I sigh again. “I don’t know. Moment of weakness, I guess.”
Cassie snickers. “Well, just so that’s the only moment of weakness you have.”
My head snaps in her direction. “What do you mean?”
Cassie steals a glance at Mac and Amelia before answering, “I just didn’t think you’d want to fall back into bed with August is all. Unless I’m missing something.” Her voice trails off at the end as she appraises me with her blue eyes.
“No,” I stammer out. “You’re not missing anything.”
“Did something happen with you two in that elevator?” Amelia asks.
I consider her question for a moment because it felt like something did. There has been a shift in the way he looks at me or even speaks to me lately. Was it that night in the elevator that did that? What kind of game is he playing with me?
“It was fine, we just talked,” I reply, knowing my vague answer won’t save me.
“And you didn’t kill each other?” Cassie asks, referring to every time we’ve been together where bitter words and insults always fall from my tongue.
“No, we didn’t kill each other.” I take a long sip from my beer, hoping that this ends the conversation. But I can feel them all staring at me. “I think he was just being nice because I could hear the elevator creaking and it was scaring me.”
Mac and Cassie nod, but it’s Amelia’s turn to study me like there is something on the tip of her tongue.
“It’s okay if you two are becoming friendly,” Amelia replies, reaching across the table and gripping my hand. “You can only hold onto anger for so long. Plus it’s not healthy to constantly belittle and berate the man. August is your boss after all.”
“And before that he was something else to me.” The words fall bitterly from my lips. “And what he did was unforgivable, which is why I’m so angry at him.”
I sigh and continue sipping my beer. My phone lights up with another notification fromUntappd.I see it’s from Ash, so I open the app. He has posted a picture with his beer, and I can tell fromthe background that he’s in his living room. I grin, hitting the toast button on the screen.
Curiosity gets the best of me, and I click over to August’s page to see what he’s posted. He’s at a steakhouse and his brother Drew is tagged.Dining with their father, no doubt,I think bitterly. Against my better judgment I toast his post as well. A reflex left over from our time together, maybe, but we both do it. Doesn’t matter who posts or even if we’re sitting mere inches from each other, I’ll toast his post and he’ll do the same to mine. When I first joined the team, he made such a big deal out of it, making me wish I hadn’t done it. So, I stopped for a while. But old habits die hard and then teasing became less frequent, so my likes became a normal occurrence.
“Hen, you okay?” I hear Cassie asking me from her seat beside me.
