Chapter 20 #2
I could play nice and be professional if it were simply a matter of listening to the verbal shit coming out of his mouth, but he’s taken it too far too many times in the short amount of time I’ve been back here.
I’m not closer to working out how he got ahold of the message from her, or how he knew she existed when not a single person in the world was aware that I stood in front of her apartment one week after she first reached out to me all those months ago.
No one knew I had learned everything there was to know about her. That I’d read all her books. Studied everything there was to help me get to know her.
It was just supposed to be a random obsession. It wasn’t going to go anywhere. I was enjoying watching her from afar, biding my time, waiting for the right moment to take the plunge.
The week I decided it was time for Mina and me to get properly acquainted was the week Jack fucked it all up for me.
He hurt her.
If I could get away with killing him, he’d be dead already.
Jack studies me carefully like he can read every single one of my thoughts. He’s working out how to manipulate me again. “I think we need to clear the air. Start over with a clean slate. For the sake of the team and both of our careers.” He sounds genuine.
And that makes me more skeptical.
There’s no plausible explanation as to why he wants us to be best buds.
“No need to waste both of our times with something that will never eventuate. So I’ll tell you again: back the fuck off—from me and from her. Then we can get through this season without someone dying.”
The vein in his temple twitches. He’s losing his patience. That’d be another first. Since I’ve known him, he’s been nothing but calm no matter how much of an asshole I am.
“Seriously? Is your head shoved so far up your ass that you can’t see I’m trying to help you out here? It’s in everyone’s benefit that you start getting along with us and have an actual relationship with at least one person on the team—for the sake of your career.”
“My career is doing just fine.” I don’t see how befriending the human equivalent of an ingrown toenail could benefit me. I’ve already established my relationship with the team. Poorly. But it’s a relationship, nonetheless. We all stay out of each other’s business.
The only one who hasn’t gotten the memo is Jack.
I’ve heard all this shit enough times from Coach about making an effort to bond with the team. I have every other point working for me: skill, speed, and general talent.
It’s the chemistry portion I’m lacking. But how the fuck does he expect me to develop a relationship with a group of people who will side with Jack in a heartbeat?
“For how much longer?”
My eyes narrow on him. “Are you threatening me?”
He shakes his head, looking the picture-perfect definition of caring. “I’m saying that Coach and the owners might start paying more attention to the rift you’re causing in the team, which won’t help your case because word on the street is you don’t want to get traded.”
Ice trickles down my spine.
Getting traded means losing Mina. It’s the only reason I didn’t move when my agent suggested it months ago. Mina and I aren’t exactly in a place where I can force her to move across the country with me yet, and I’m not about to lose her just because this asshole can’t keep it professional.
“I’m going to ask you one more time: is that a fucking threat?”
“You’re not listening to me. I’m saying we should bury the fucking hatchet and focus on the game and the team.
” Jack pauses, waiting for me to drop to my knees and kiss his feet for fuck knows what.
When I say nothing, he responds for me, handing me the magic answer he wanted me to give. “Have a drink with us tomorrow night.”
I remain on the sidewalk, staring at him—the direct mouthpiece to Coach. The grand puppeteer.
The longer I think about it, the more certain I am that he’s the reason the Serpents made me an offer, and probably the only reason why I haven’t been kicked out.
I need to buy more time. A couple of months to get my relationship with Mina to a place where we can get the hell out of here. Fuck. That means not giving everyone a reason to think it’s best if I’m traded midway through the season.
It’d be like career suicide.
My nostrils flare as I fist my hands. “Fine.”
I keep walking without waiting for a reason.
“I’ll text you the address,” he calls to my back.
There’s a fifty-fifty chance I’ll block his number before then.
As anticipated, the drinks felt like I was traversing the nine levels of Hell and fighting the urge to commit a felony that’d end with me locked up for twenty to life. Fortunately, I’m still a free man, just with less will to live.
Over the span of two hours and forty-three minutes, I spoke a total of eight words.
Nodded twelve times.
Made noncommittal sounds at least twenty.
And according to the TV I watched for the entire duration of the “chill hangout,” our city’s football team was up one point at halftime and down three by the end of the game.
I shift the car into park a couple of houses down from Mina’s. I’m slowly parking closer and closer without care that I might get caught. If she discovers what I’ve been doing, it’d just be a happy accident.
The engine turns off, and I check my phone before getting out of the car. She’s sleeping peacefully in her bed, ready for me to come home. Joyce will be at her boyfriend’s again, so I help myself into her apartment with the key I had made.
A few times I’ve left the key to my front door on my kitchen bench for Mina, but clearly her morals kick in at some point because she’s never taken it, opting to go the hard way through the window every couple of days.
Mina’s curled on her side, head shoved into the pillow, snoring softly. She’s managed to wrap herself in the duvet in a makeshift cocoon. We’re going to need to work out how to organize our sleeping arrangements if she’s this much of a blanket hog.
I go through the motions that have become muscle memory. We have our nighttime routine down to a T.
Carefully, I untangle her to pry the hot water bottle out from under her arms to reheat it.
She’s like putty in my hands, happily compliant and dead to the world.
Mina barely does more than huff minutes later when I settle the freshly heated bottle against her stomach, and she stays soundless when I refill her drink bottle and the painkiller container on her bedside table.
The pill container she hasn’t needed to fill up in over two months and doesn’t even realize.
Then, with her tucked against my side, I go through her follower list and remove every man who’s followed her in the past two days.
This part is rather tedious, but it’s a necessity, and like every other time I’ve done this, seeing Jack’s comments on her author profile has me questioning whether my career is worth it.
Why the fuck won’t he leave her alone? He did his due diligence. He knew what he wanted to say. How to say it to make it hurt. The reasoning behind it makes no sense. But that’s on trend with him. He lacks logic.
Jack has a month to cut it out completely because I’ve decided Mina also has a month to come clean. No more midnight sneak-ins. No more breaking and entering. No more online relationship. We’re making this real.
Starting tonight.
I thread our fingers together and raise our hands up onto the pillow. Perhaps it’s overly ballsy, but the room lights up with my camera’s flash, and the picture of our intertwined hands is immortalized on screen.
And on my social media.
Beneath the photo, the caption has two words: “My girl.”