Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 104745 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 349(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104745 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 349(@300wpm)
“Did Drake send you here?” My tone comes out more of an accusation than I’d intended it to.
“Yes and no.” Ryann’s voice is quiet and thoughtful. “I’m sorry we’re meeting like this for the first time, but I’m afraid there’s not much to do about it.”
I nod.
This does suck. “Yeah, I always assumed it would be over a cute drink or I’d see you at the house or something. Not…” My hands flail, motioning around the room. “Over something like this.”
“I’m Stella, by the way.” Stella introduces herself, reaching to shake Ryann’s hand on the other side of the bed, leaning over me awkwardly. “I’m the roommate and the best friend, more best friend than roommate.”
Ryann shakes it with a smile. “Lucky you, living with females. I live with two guys, and it’s awful—no offense.”
Ha ha. None taken.
“I’m not sure where to start with this, if I’m being honest,” Ryann begins. “All the way over here I ran the conversation over and over in my head and practiced what I was going to say as if I were the one coming over to apologize.” She pauses. “In a way, I guess I kind of am.”
“You? Apologize? For what?”
“If we had met sooner, I might have been able to warn you.”
My throat drops to the pit of my stomach, expecting the worst. Not wanting to hear what she’s about to say. All the terrible things—all the dirt—she has on Drake.
“Warn me about what?”
“If we had met sooner, I might have been able to warn you about shit like this happening. I hate to say that it’s sort of normal behavior for jersey chasers, but…it’s sort of normal behavior for jersey chasers. It’s like they can’t help themselves. Her chance at locking down Drake Colter slipped away, and she freaked the fuck out—not that there was anything there to lose.”
Normal behavior for jersey chasers…
Her chance at locking down Drake slipped away…
Is she saying what I think she’s saying?
“So basically Shannon’s roommate pulled the same shit with me last year when I started dating Dallas. She tried to make it look like they were fooling around, which she actually leaked to the freaking press, and the whole thing was a freaking disaster.” Ryann pauses. “Now I ask you, what kind of girl does that?”
“I don’t know.” My voice is small.
“The desperate kind.” Ryann’s lips purse. “I’m not saying Drake is blameless, because when these guys sleep with these women, they kind of know the potential consequences. Their coaches literally warn them about it in the NFL.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes, they have meetings around money, women, the media.”
I did not know that.
“Maybe desperate is the wrong word. I don’t want to assign a feeling to her. Only she can do that. But what I am saying is—every so often, this shit is par for the course. It comes with the territory. I’m not telling you it’s going to happen all the time, but consider this your initiation into the Wonderful World of WAGS.”
The Wonderful World of WAGS.
“What’s a WAG?”
“Wives and Girlfriends.”
Oh.
Shit.
That sounds sort of hideous.
“I was lucky enough to have Posey—Duke’s girlfriend— come to me when all the shit went down with Shannon’s roommate. I can’t even remember her name now, if you can believe it.” She laughs. “And thank god, because if Posey hadn’t, I’d probably have dumped his ass and never spoken to him again, and my life would be…” Her head shakes at the thought. “It would be a bit emptier without him.”
Ryann glances between Stella and me. We’re hanging on her every word.
“I’m sorry, am I rambling? I feel like I am.”
“No, we’re hanging on your every word.” Stella is all too eager to listen to her speak.
“I’ve been gone a lot,” Ryann tells us. “Dallas is traveling, and I join him if I can, so I haven’t been at the house much, and I’m sorry.”
“None of this is your fault.” I state the obvious, but it seems as if she feels guilty for some reason.
Stella clears her throat. “So what’s the real story? Would you tell us if he was cheating?”
Ryann gives her a blank stare. “Would I be here if Shannon was telling the truth? No. I’d be at home on the phone with his brothers so they could get their asses back to town to sit him down.” She nibbles on a thumbnail. “I saw the footage from the doorbell camera. She had come by the house with a friend and was muttering a bunch of nonsense, then looking into our windows.
“Apparently, when Drake got home that afternoon, he looked at the footage too, then went to her place to try to put an end to her sniffing around. Seems she can’t take no for an answer.”
“But no one knows what happened when he went to her house last night?”
Ryann shakes her head. “Not technically. All I can share with you is what he told me.”