Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 119852 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 599(@200wpm)___ 479(@250wpm)___ 400(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 119852 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 599(@200wpm)___ 479(@250wpm)___ 400(@300wpm)
“It was ugly, real fucking ugly,” I say in what’s probably the understatement of the century. “Thanks to my lawyer and Coach, most of it stayed out of the press, and eventually, her lies caught up to her and people figured out that she was full of shit. Still, it changed how they looked at me for a long time. Some of them still look at me differently.” That’s what I hate the most—the questions in their eyes when teammates or their wives look at me. I can see the doubt there—was she telling the truth, is he telling the truth, or are they both liars?
“This guy doesn’t exactly help that,” I say, tossing a wave toward Maddox and trying to lighten the heavy pall I’ve thrown on our date. “People joke that he’s my handler, keeping me from ruining some poor, unsuspecting woman’s vagina with my dick, and he goes all Chuckles McFuckstick over here, laughing and saying it’s like trying to tame an out-of-control firehose and takes all hands on deck.”
I glare at him for that one, remembering the overly animated demonstration he gave of “me” holding my dick while it danced around wildly like one of those car-wash inflatable things, complete with machine-gun sound effects that I think were supposed to be me blasting cum everywhere. Yeah, not his best response to a locker room tease, though nobody has said that particular taunt ever since, so maybe it did work a little.
Maddox grins, holding his hands out like ‘what?’ as if he’s the picture of innocence. “Hey, if they want to believe anything they hear, that’s on them. What’s important is that we know the truth.” He winks, trying to irritate me.
Kayla has gone silent, her face blank despite Maddox’s playfulness, and I can’t help but think that, even from back home where she lives again, Eliza is still ruining things for me. She’d be thrilled about that, and while it should make me angry, I’m just sad about it. I dealt with my anger a long time ago and, for the most part, don’t give my ex-wife a second thought anymore. Except when I have to explain how I came to be the man I am today, because good and bad, she had a big part in that.
“I’m sorry she fucked you over,” Kayla finally says, her voice quiet but strong as she reaches out and lays her hand over mine on the table. “I had someone do that to me too, and it hurt.” She lets out a bitter laugh. “It still hurts sometimes.”
“What happened?” I flip my hand over to take hers into mine and press kisses to her knuckles, one by one.
Her lips thin, and thinking I’ve pushed too far, I mentally yell at myself for not letting Maddox handle this shit. He’s so much better at it than I am, tap dancing here and there, lightly digging deeper without leaving things scorched in the wake of an interrogation into your deepest, darkest secrets. That’s how he got me to open up, so I should’ve let him take the lead with Kayla too. Because despite having just laid my biggest shame bare, she’s not obligated to give me her story in return. I might want to know everything about her, but that’s one of my many issues and not her problem.
But then she slowly reveals, “We weren’t married, but in my innocent naiveté, I thought we were heading that way. We were young and looking at post-graduation internships. I was trying to decide if I was going to take the ‘easy route’ at Blue Lake with Dad or strike out on my own somewhere else.” She glances off to the side like she’s mentally gone back to those days, but when she looks back, her eyes are crystal clear and her voice is steady as she says, “I overheard him talking to someone I thought was my friend. Their tone made it immediately obvious they’d been fucking behind my back, and he was reassuring her that he was only with me because of my last name. He thought it’d make him a shoo-in at the company, and then into the family. He told her I was too stupid to even suspect and that they could work together to suck me dry.”
Worried I was coming on too strong as she spoke, I sat back to give her space, resting one ankle on my other knee as I listened intently, but when I hear what Kayla’s ex said, both my feet hit the floor and I snap, “Excuse the fuck outta me?”
With a completely different reaction, Maddox clasps his hands beneath his chin and grins wide. “Puh-leaze tell me you’re not one of those ‘take the high road’ types. I want to hear that your vengeance was messy and dramatic, leaving him on the floor in the fetal position, whimpering your name as you left with his testicles in your tote bag.”