Page 70 of Dirty Player
He shot me a look that curled my toes.
“Do you want some water? It’s all I have. I’ve got snacks, too, if you’re hungry, but not much.”
“No.” He walked toward me and reached for my hand. It was in his palm before I could pull it back. “Stop blabbering. This isn’t bad.”
He laughed softly and pulled me toward the couch. I’d draped a sheet over it—something I pilfered from Beaux’s place because the couch was old and gross. Oliver gave me a look before sitting on it, and I laughed harder.
“I know. It’s nasty. My things are coming next week, though. Then I’ll be all moved in.” I spread my arms out to the open living space. The exposed brick walls and ductwork made it seem more like a loft-style building, but I loved the character. The doorways were wide and curved, and all the baseboards and wood floors were original and after a polishing would be in excellent condition.
“I like it. It suits you.”
I was too nervous to ask what he meant by that.
He took his hat off and tossed it to the floor, then leaned to the side so he could face me fully before he let my hand go.
“Serena,” he said with a groan and wiped his hand over his mouth. “God, I don’t know where to begin. I haven’t talked about her in so long with anyone but my lawyers.”
“Beaux told me you’d loved her. That you didn’t start acting like a dick until she left you.”
“Yeah, well,” he huffed. “That’s what happens when the woman you think you’ll be with forever walks out on you.”
I gave him time and excused myself to get some water. I came back carrying two bottles, and when he didn’t seem to notice I was offering one to him, I set it on the floor.
“We were high school sweethearts. Started dating when we were fifteen. Seems like forever ago and yesterday at the same time, you know?” He didn’t look at me, didn’t seem like he really wanted a response, and he continued talking before I could, so it didn’t matter. His eyes glazed over and he stared at his hands when he wasn’t running them through his hair or down his face.
“We grew up in a small town outside Savannah. All we wanted was to go to college and get out of that town and make something of ourselves. She wanted to see the world and I wanted to play football. And I loved her. God, I loved her. She has this energy, this wild and frantic energy that pulls you to her immediately. I was wrapped up in her, wrapped up in football, and she swore she’d follow me anywhere. Worse, I believed her. I proposed to her the night I was drafted, after we got back to the hotel, and we were married in my parents’ backyard before I had to start the season.”
His voice had softened and his eyes became so glazed that I doubted he even knew I was in the room. The familiar burn of jealousy—that after so many years he still looked like that when he thought of her—began to flame, twisting my stomach.
“What happened?”
He made a choking sound and pulled his eyes straight to me. “Raleigh happened.”
My brow furrowed. “What?”
“We’d been in New England before here. Having the time of our lives. Newlyweds, exploring the big cities, traveling, partying it up like we always wanted to, and then I was traded to Raleigh.”
“I don’t get it.”
“That’s because you don’t give a shit about where you live, I suspect, but Serena…she wanted lights and activity and shopping and she never wanted to return to the South. She hated it. A year after being up North, she started trying to forget everything about where we came from. Bitched around the holidays when I wanted to go home and see our folks and friends. I didn’t want that stuff to change us, but she was changed by the fantasy before I ever got a paycheck. She wanted the high life—the condos in the city and the vacation homes in Greece. Raleigh…that was too big of a step down for her.”
“She left you over it?”
He pinned me with a look that went straight to my stomach, icy and splashing out the burn of jealousy from earlier. “Said I had to get a different contract somewhere else or she was leaving. Said that it shouldn’t matter to me anyway, since I was never home. She didn’t give a shit about football, or my dreams, or the fact this had always been our plan. I could keep our place in the city and just travel back and forth. I told her we were a family and I wanted her with me. That she knew having to move when I was traded was part of the deal she’d agreed to when we were married. But I hadn’t thought of it as a deal, just something we would always do together. She said I either stayed or kept the place, found a way to keep her where she was happy, or she was gone.”
“And she left.”
“Yeah.” He laughed and shook his head. “With half my money for a grand total of six years.”
My eyes jumped open. His salary was public knowledge. Even I knew how much he’d made. She took half? “You were married three years!”
“Together eight. We hadn’t even been married for three years before she filed and I came to Raleigh. But I just wanted to make her happy, I guess. I don’t even know. She asked for what she wanted, my lawyer told me not to, but I couldn’t tell her no. I’d never been able to tell her no until I said I couldn’t stay in the city with her. I didn’t even like it there. She knew I’d missed home. She just didn’t care. The worst was that the night she left, she told me she’d always hated football, just used me to get out of our small town and knew it would happen. She felt like she’d invested enough of her life and now she deserved everything she’d asked for. I should have realized all of that when she quit coming to my games after my first season in New England.”
“That’s…” I sputtered, unable to think. “That’s absurd!”
“Yeah, well, her support is almost up and guess who’s broke?”
My eyes widened. “She…what?” I shrieked.
