Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 69847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
“Have you been here a lot?” I asked her.
“I have.” She paused. “If you say five times is a lot. I guess I’m just really good at following signs, though.”
She pointed at a set of signs that indicated where the away team boxes were.
“Ah,” I said. “That makes more sense.”
We arrived at the box a few minutes later, and my eyes widened when I saw the few people inside.
“I think we’re under dressed,” I mused.
“You aren’t,” she said. “They’re overdressed. They’re Instagram and TikTok famous, and they post pictures of themselves at the games for likes. Some of them are obnoxious.” She jerked her chin in the direction of a few normally dressed women. Ones dressed like us. “They’re more our style. The one on the left over there is the quarterback’s girlfriend. I think they’re going to make it.”
She moved us toward the girlfriend.
When we arrived, the girlfriend held out her hand to me and said, “You must be Ari. I’m Gladys.”
Gladys.
I loved it.
“I am. Did Ashton talk about me?” I questioned.
“Ashton talks about everyone.” Gladys smiled sympathetically. “But you’re a big deal among the girlfriends. Everyone was talking about you days ago when we all saw you’d married Slone.”
I had to get a good laugh out of that.
“Oh, yeah?” I asked.
“Yep,” Gladys said. “How’d that happen, by the way?”
In our huddle before the game started, I told her the same story I’d just told Sweetie an hour earlier.
Before long, we were all fast friends.
“Where does Briley go during the game?” I asked.
“Usually, she has a nanny following her around everywhere. She comes up here during the game,” Sweetie explained. “But I think that babysitter moved to Dubai because she got a new job nannying some really rich guy’s new baby. And I think I heard Slone say that he was going to have to start interviewing for new ones soon.”
I hadn’t heard that.
But that really sucked, putting your child’s life in the care of someone else.
That must be downright terrifying.
“Game’s starting,” someone called.
I turned in my seat to see the players start coming out onto the field.
My eyes immediately zeroed in on a familiar pair of arms.
Yeah, he didn’t have any identifying tattoos. The ‘Briley’ on his arm was hidden from sight by a plain brown sleeve. And the only thing I could really see since his head was lowered was the bulk of his body.
But I’d know him anywhere.
I’d spent enough time worshipping his body, after all. With my tongue and hands. With the way my body fit around his.
Needless to say, I didn’t need to see his face to know it was him.
But then he looked up at the room and smirked.
He knew I was watching him.
“Wow,” another one of the TikTok ladies—and yes, they’d seriously been making TikToks the entire time—called out. “I’ve never seen Slone even glance up here during the game.”
Not even to see his kid?
That didn’t make any sense.
More likely, she’d never watched him so closely because there wasn’t someone in the room that they felt threatened by until me.
I knew I was pretty.
You couldn’t have the genetics that I had and not know it.
I mean, I had the perfect hourglass shape, long, curly, silky black hair. I was what I’d been referred to more than once as ‘captivating.’
“He looks up here all the time, Lidia,” someone called. “You forget that his kid’s usually in here, and they always wave at each other before the game.” The woman paused. “But I suppose it’s probably habit. He’s likely not looking for her.”
Bitch.
“Ignore them,” Sweetie sighed. “Now, let’s ogle and stare and drool.”
I knew there was a reason that I liked Sweetie.
I met him outside the locker rooms.
Sweetie had dropped me off, and her husband had been one of the first ones out of the locker room.
I actually started to get nervous, but then Titus came out with a few others and saw me waiting.
He flashed me a smirk then said, “He’s on his way out now.”
Titus ruffled my hair, then they were gone, leaving me in the vacant hallway.
He came out ten minutes later, looking tired and haggard.
Oh, and limping.
Why was he limping? He hadn’t gotten hurt during the game—at least not that I’d seen.
“You’re here,” he said as he came out, his hair still glistening from his shower.
“I am,” I confirmed, my gaze going down the length of his body to search for an injury. “Ready?”
He caught my hands and said, “I need to run back by the hotel before we head anywhere. I have a hella bad blister on my foot from my new cleats, and I think if I put anything on but my Crocs, I’m going to regret it.”
I nodded and we started back to the exit.
He continued to limp beside me.
“Did you enjoy the game?” he asked as he caught a door before it could close all the way.