Page 158 of Slapshot Bride

Diane takes out her phone.

“Sit down, Easton. This is a legal problem, and we’ll handle it from here on out.”

What happens next takes three hours.

They ask me everything. Dates, amounts, the bank, the party, who else was in the room. The team lawyer joins on video from her kitchen in a bathrobe and asks the same questions four different ways and writes all of it down.

I answer every one.

At two in the morning I walk out into the players’ lot alone.

There’s a good chance I’ve just ended my career. I understand that. Diane’s face said as much about ninety minutes in, when she stopped taking notes and just listened.

But I also know one thing for certain: the Maya situation is over. For good. She has nothing left to hold over me.

I stand next to my car in the cold and wait for the panic.

It doesn’t come.

If anything, I feel empty.

I’m scraped out. Empty in a way I’ve never been in my life.

But I feel free too. And gutted. Because no matter what, nothing I’ve done will bring her back.

34

RILEY

The Life I Wanted

Iwake up at six because my body still thinks it has somewhere to be.

One week with Preston, and my body was back to surviving under his rules.

For a second, I don’t know where I am. White ceiling, wrong window, and a lamp on the nightstand I picked out when I was fifteen. Then it comes back—the piano, my father’s voice, the ring bouncing once on the Sinclairs’ floor before it rolled somewhere nobody bent down to look.

I lie very still and wait for the relief to come. And when it eventually does, it’s small.

Not excitement, but regret. What I’ve lost.

Easton.

The name sits on my chest, heavily. I drag in a deep breath, and panic immediately sets in.

Preston. The video. Now that he no longer has me in his clutches, he’ll do whatever he can to prove a point. Easton. He’ll get to him. He’ll release the video.

Oh God!

I jump out of bed, desperation and confusion clawing at my chest. I find my phone, but it’s dead. I need to reach Easton. Figure a way out to get over this.

I’m still in the middle of the bedroom, trying to think of how to sort this, when a knock sounds on the door.

“Riley… honey, are you up?” It’s my mom.

I rush to the door to get it. I could use her phone. Or drive to his place… tell him before it’s too late. I yank the door open, and she’s standing there, a smile on her face.

She has two mugs in her hands, her reading glasses perched on top of her head.