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My phone buzzed in my pocket.

I slid it out, making sure to keep it hidden under the lip of the table.

Mikey

Hope your date is going well!

It took me a second to figure out what he was talking about, but when I did, I felt myself flush.

Why had I let him think I was going out with someone? Why hadn’t I told him I was meeting with my asshole father?

You know why.

Mikey and I were getting too close. I was weak when it came to him, and it was only a matter of time until that weakness tipped my hand. I needed plausible deniability.

And even so, I couldn’t stop myself from responding with the truth.

Me

It’s awful. I wish I was hanging out with you instead.

“Who’s that?”

I jumped, twisting to find my dad standing a couple of feet behind me.

Fuck. I hadn’t even heard him come back.

“Team chat,” I lied, sliding my phone into my pocket.

“You ready?” he asked.

I pushed my chair back. “Yup. Let’s go.”

He drove me back to the hotel in relative silence, following my directions as I guided him toward the parking lot.

He leaned forward, examining the exterior through the windshield, his hands gripping the steering wheel tightly. “This really where they put you up?”

“It’s uh … there was an issue with the first place,” I told him, scratching my cheek.

The issue being we’d been there one night when of the guys had spotted a rat in the breakfast room. By the end of the day, they’d moved all of us across town. This place was a step down in terms of decor and amenities, but what it lacked in those it made up for in not having any fucking rats.

He shook his head. “I’ll talk to your agent. We need to get you out of this town; make sure you’re playing somewhere they know how to treat star players.”

Aside from the fact that wasn’t how any of this worked—a fact he well knew but his ego refused to let him accept—I didn’t want to leave. And even if I did, I wouldn’t have my dad facilitate it. Fucking Christ. What was I, eight?

“No. I already told you—I like it here.”

He flung his hand out, gesturing toward the squat beige facade outside the window. “You like this? This is bullshit, and you know it.”

“I said no. Drop it.”

It was maybe the most forceful I’d ever spoken to my father, but he wasn’t listening.

He never listened.

“Excuse me?”

I unclipped my seatbelt and spun to face him as best I could in the cramped interior. “I don’t want you to call my agent, or my GM, or anyone else, for that matter. Half the guys in the locker room already talk shit about how I keep to myself and think I’m better than they are.”