Page 12 of Free Agent
“All right, miss thing, thank you for coming out with me. You sure I can’t take you to dinner, or, do you want to come by the house? We can order in, have some drinks…?” Sierra asked as she led me through the tunnel to the private exit she and the other family members used to leave the court, then the arena.
I gave the valet my ticket and shook my head. “Yes, I’m pretty sure you’ve got some victory neck to throw anyway, don’t you?”
“Uh-uhn,” she said, laughing. “I gave have a good game head, so it’s front loaded.”
“Ah, smart woman,” I giggled. “Still though… I’m good.”
She groaned. “I don’t like it, but I’m gonna let you rock. But now that we’re alone… I’m not letting this rock,” she said, grabbing my hand.
My left hand.
“When is enough going to be enough?”
I let out a huff, shaking my head. “Honestly… I… I don’t even know if this means anything anymore. If it ever meant anything. But I’m trying not to think about it too hard, because if I do that, then… I…just… not today.”
Sierra sighed, then pulled me into a hug. “Of course, doll. Not today. Can I say it yet?”
I grinned, pulling back to get into my purse and check my phone.
No update yet from Shannon.
“Nope!”
THREE
AURORA
There were three missed delivery notes tagged on my door when I made it home.
Instead of going to the mailbox at the end of the hall to retrieve any of them, I simply pulled the notices off the door, crumpling them in my hands to toss into the trash.
They could rot in the mail room for all I cared.
There was no need to check who they were from.
My alleged fiancé.
I wished like hell that I could tie the way Monty loved showering me with gifts to some need of his to make up for something, generosity as a cover for infidelity.
Nope.
The generosity wasn’t new. He’d been that way even when he didn’t really have anything to give. It was one of the qualities that made me fall in love with him in the first place.
I couldn’t say money had changed him.
Even his apparent inability to be faithful… it wasn’t like some switch flipped when he got an NFL contract, or even for years after.
Could I just be naïve?
Of course.
But right before I found out he was cheating the first time… I knew. I knew something had changed, knew something was off.
I just didn’t know what until my face was splashed across gossip blogs because the woman he was sleeping with decided the world needed to know.
Inside my condo, I fished my phone from my purse, intending to let Sierra know I’d made it safely home. Before I could do that, I was distracted by a deluge of social media notifications waiting for me.
Against my better judgment, I went looking to see what people were saying.