Page 62 of Cherry Picking

Something goes cold and flat in my chest. My thumb is still hovering over a picture that suddenly isn’t funny anymore.

“Maxie.” Augie drops onto the bench, counting the cash he’s about to lose. “Settle a dispute. If I get fined for loving the boys, can I write it off as—”

“Ask someone else,” I snap.

“I’m asking you because you did taxes for—”

“Augie, I don’t care.” It comes out with an edge that doesn’t belong anywhere near a kangaroo court, loud enough that Kyo looks over. “Figure it out yourself for once.”

The bench goes still. Augie leans back and puts both palms up.

“Sorry,” I mutter, already standing. “Give me a minute.”

I push off and find somewhere without an audience. The bathroom is empty. I brace both hands on the sink and make myself look at the mirror, which I’ve been dodging since the airport.

I’m a dipshit. I decided for both of us that ending it clean was safer than trying, then delivered the news like I was canceling a dentist appointment. Now I’m surprised she took me at my word.

I run the cold water and hold my wrists under it. She’s told me plenty about herself—she doesn’t leave people hanging and she doesn’t do second chances. There won’t be a follow-up or a crack in the door I can talk through.

If I want back in, a picture won’t do it, and neither will a phone call she can just as easily decline.

When I come back out, Duval’s robe is off, and Hartwell has the gavel. Augie watches me cross the room, then slides over to make space on the bench without a word.

“Fine me,” I tell Duval.

He blinks. “For what?”

“Unsportsmanlike conduct.” I put a hundred dollars on the table. “Being an ass to the captain’s favorite center when he didn’t deserve it.”

Augie looks at the cash and grins. “Atta boy.”

Duval writes it in the ledger and bangs the gavel. I sit there with my hands on my knees, already running the schedule in my head. We’re in Vegas on the thirteenth. Two weeks until I’m back in that city.

It cost me a hundred bucks to square things with Augie. Whatever squaring things with Evie costs, it’s going to be higher than petty cash.

CHAPTER 18

EVIE

Briggs can go ahead and fuck all the way off.

He wants to text me funny pictures like we’re going back to being pen pals who happened to hook up once over Christmas break. This isn’t that. This was never going to be that, and he damn well knows it.

I don’t think I’ve ever met a more spineless, emotionally constipated man in my life—and I work with Phil.

The whole no girls on the road thing was probably bullshit, too.

If he weren’t still grieving his brother, and if I weren’t on his payroll, I’d have told him exactly where to put his heads-down stretch. Because I’m a woman of principles. I have high standards for myself. And I do not chase men who sprint for the airport at the first sign of trouble.

“I’m telling you,” Hazel says, holding a fringed suede jacket against herself in the mirror. “They play the Aces next Tuesday. You should hook up with one of his teammates while they’re in town. I can find out where they’re staying in one phone call.”

We’re at Retro Betty’s, a vintage place off Main we’ve been coming to since college.

I finally told her everything—the flirting, the texting, how Briggs ate me out like he had something to prove. And then, subsequently, how he dipped without a word. It all came out after the fact, which spared me weeks of her live coverage.

She took it exactly how I expected. First fury on my behalf, then strategy. Hazel doesn’t do wallowing; she does damage control.

“I’m not hooking up with a teammate,” I say. “They travel as a herd. It’d be back to him by breakfast.”