“What’s wrong?” Dom asked.
I held up my hand. “Hold on.” I quickly dialed and had a stab of relief in my chest when she picked up immediately. “What did that jackass do?”
Chapter 5
DANI
“Grabbing lunch from J’s. Want something?” I asked Belinda and Gretchen, one of our community organizers, who was in the office for the day.
They both jotted down their orders and handed it to me.
“Be right back.” I adjusted my bag on my shoulder and walked out the front door and through the lobby. I’d had appointments all morning and I was starving. I’d also spent what little downtime I had between clients looking at that damn picture on Gabe’s social media account. He’d been smiling at me and yeah, it was all for show, but it was nice.
Hewas nice.
Nope, not going there. This was a means to an end, and I was ready to be single again for real.
I’d also checked out his dog’s Insta page, Tucks and Pucks. Of course he had a golden retriever. It totally tracked, and the videos were annoyingly cute. I might’ve liked one or two of them.
But then my father had texted his surprise about me falling for another hockey player, especially a goalie, when I’d told him I never enjoyed the sport, and that hadn’t helped matters. He was coming into town in a week and wanted to do the whole family dinner thing.
No fucking thank you.
It hadn’t escaped my notice that he hadn’t messaged me in the group chat that included Mal when he asked about dinner. And Dad knew damn well Mal would be back when he was still here.
Fucking dick.
“Perfect timing.”
My head jerked up to see Roger standing just outside the front door to my office building.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
“We need to talk.” He moved closer toward me, and I stepped around him.
“There’s nothing to talk about, Roger. We are done. I’ve explained that more than once, and I want you to leave me alone.”
“Come on, Dani, you don’t really mean that. We had a great thing going and you know it.”
“I’m dating Gabe.” He kept stride with me as I walked down the sidewalk. How this asshole refused to understand that we were done and I wanted him gone was infuriating.
He reached for me, but I caught the movement out of the corner of my eye and shifted away before he could make contact.
“Look, we both know you aren’t really dating him and that kiss was totally staged. It’s all too convenient. Are you doing this just to piss me off? And with our rival, even.” He paused and barked out a laugh. “Except they’re not really our rival since we kick their asses every time.”
“Not that it’s any of your business since we are done, but yes, I am dating him and he makes me happy. And this”—I waved my hands between us—”is over. Stop trying to control me.”
“I’m not controlling. I’m in love with you and you love me, too, even if you never said it.” He muttered the last part.
He was right. After four months of dating, I still hadn’t said it. It wasn’t a phrase I just threw around meaninglessly like some people do. Hell, this man had only said it to me when I told him we were over.
I sucked down my urge to strangle him and pulled out my phone, sending a quick text to Gabe.
Within seconds, he called me.
“Hi, babe.” I plastered a smile on my face and tried to ignore Roger grinding his teeth next to me.
“Hey, beautiful.” Gabe’s voice was loud and clear, and I knew Roger could hear him since he was standing so fucking close to me. Too fucking close.
