Page 35 of Her Player

She nodded softly. “Ryan.”

“Ryan,” I muttered.

She sighed heavily. “He was… massive. Dwarfed me in every way. Such a ray of sunshine, despite my ‘black cat demeanor,’ as he always called it.”

The thought made me smirk. She, indeed, was very black cat energy. Always prowling about. You never heard her coming until she intentionally clicked her heels across whatever floor bowed to her mercy. She always kept her face impassive and impossible to read. Her mere presence sometimes felt like an omen of something to come.

“I can see that,” is all I said.

She shoved me playfully, but her smile reached her eyes, and that’s all I cared about.

This woman deserved to smile more than she did.

Then, she sighed heavily before pulling the comforter up to her chin, as if she was comfortable at my side.

Not even the apocalypse could have pulled me away from her.

“Do you know how he died?”

The entire fucking team knew. Brynn was always very open about what happened to her father. But it was clear that Victoria didn’t speak on it much. So I told as much of the truth as I could.

“Why don’t you tell me?” I asked, sliding my fingers over and over through her hair. “It sounds like you need to get it off your chest, and I’m all ears.”

She grinned. “And tongue.”

I stuck it out at her, and her giggle filled me with such delight that she could have dropped an anvil on me as a surprise and I would have died happy.

But then, her face grew somber once more. “Ryan played for the team when it was still minor league. Worked his way up to coaching it before I bought it and moved it up to the PHL.”

“Sounds like the team was always in your blood.”

She smiled. “Those two were always close. Brynn was in middle school when the shooting happened.”

My stomach clenched as she drew in a deep breath.

“I’ll never forget it, Rhett,” she whispered, tears filling those gray eyes of hers. “I was so bogged down with work at home that I didn’t even realize what was going on. Ryan had just stopped to fill up the tank on his way home. Wrong place, wrong time. That was all it was.” Her voice broke on the last word. “There were no warning signs. No reason. Just a man at a gas station who never came home.”

I just stayed silent, giving her space to say whatever she wanted to say.

“The second I opened that door, everything fell away, you know? Like in the movies. I mean, you see it in the movies, but you never really understand that…”

“That it’s true?” I asked softly.

Her lower lip quivered, and it broke my heart. But I kept listening all the same.

Because something told me she’d never told anyone this before.

“Yeah,” she whispered as a tear cascaded down her cheek. “He just looked at me with that face, you know? And immediately, I just said, ‘Brynn?’ And when he shook his head, for just a moment, there was nothing short of relief.”

I nodded. “Until he told you about Ryan.”

She choked back a sob, and I couldn’t take it a second longer. I reached my arms out, pulled her flush against my body, and tucked her head beneath my chin.

“Oh God, Rhett, I’ll never forget it,” she said with tears clouding her voice. “I just ran right past him. Out of the house. Into the driveway. I was in my robe. Sandals. No heels. Legs unshaved. Dry shampoo in my hair. Glasses fucking lopsided. I just kept thinking if I could get to the hospital fast enough, if I could just get there before they—before he⁠—”

“I know,” I said quietly, my hand moving up and down her back. “I gotcha.”

She hiccupped with sobs against my chest. “This team… makes me feel… closer to him. But every day… I feel him… fading, Rhett. Every day… mo-mo-mo—moving further… away.”