CHAPTER 23 BEN
I wasted the last week before training camp with too much beer and not enough exercise.
I’ll be paying a hefty price for that this week, but I’m having a hard time making myself care. The physical pain resulting from going too hard at practice won’t hurt as much as the pain I’ve put myself through.
But that’s the thing.
I’m bringing it on myself, but I’m doing it for her.
The gossip reports make her look like she’s happy. She’s already moved on. She was photographed hugging that dumbfuck Cooper a few days ago.
I’m sure he’s a perfectly nice guy…but I don’t care. He’s swooping in on my girl, and that’s not okay with me.
I know better than to believe what I hear on Billy Peters or what I read in the tabloids, yet against everything I’m supposed to know, I find myself believing she’s moved on. Photographic evidence is hard to ignore.
So instead, I spent the last week eating far too much S’mores cereal and lying on the couch alternating between cartoons and football games without opening the blinds during the day and drinking myself stupid at night to try to numb the self-inflicted pain.
The cops picked up Craig for embezzlement. I don’t really give a fuck what happens to him next. There’s an ongoing investigation, and I’m hopeful Tatum will be picked up next for extortion. They both deserve whatever hell is coming to them.
Still, though, none of it has made me feel any better.
But camp will.
It’ll pull my focus from what I’ve done and give me a renewed sense for the season. Camp always does that for me, and while it’s four weeks of pure hellish torture, I’d take it any day of the week over losing Kaylee.
You never know what you’ve got until it’s gone, right?
Well, words may never have rung truer for me than those.
I can’t seem to escape the memories even though it was short-lived.
I can’t walk around my house without seeing a spot where I licked her pussy or where I kissed her mouth or where we simply just had a conversation.
Even Buddy makes me think of her and how she decoded the names of my horses and dog as types of beer.
It’s overwhelming to sit in this depression, so when Monday morning rolls around, I’m up thirty minutes before my alarm and heading toward the Complex early.
We all meet there first before we board the team plane and take off for California, where we spend our first two weeks at a winery practicing and scrimmaging twice a day, proving ourselves to hold onto our positions, meeting with coaches and teammates, and workouts upon workouts.
Nights are for recovery and mornings are for physical therapy including massages and cryotherapy—the ice chamber.
It’s long days and short nights—the perfect distraction to help me get through this strange detour where I find myself.
And wouldn’t you know it? The only other vehicle in the parking lot when I arrive at the Complex is a large black truck bearing the license plate JD5. Jack Dalton.
I blow out a breath. Of course he’s here early. I think the only person I’m less inclined to want to spend time with at camp is Eric Scott.
I head inside anyway and straight to the locker room.
Jack stands near his locker which is only a few away from mine.
“Hey.” I rub the back of my neck awkwardly.
“Hey,” he mutters.
A beat of silence passes between us, and those nerves that pulsed in my chest when I saw his truck in the lot seem to amp up a bit. What’s this season going to be like for us when all this strangeness exists between us now?
“I’m glad you’re here early,” he says.
I raise a brow. “You are?”
“I was hoping to talk to you before takeoff.”
“About what?” I set my duffel on the bench in my locker.
“Whatever happened happened, okay?” He shakes his head. “I hate what you did to my sister, but I can’t hold it against you all season. We’re men, and we will act like it. We will fucking play like it.”
“Thanks,” I say softly. “I didn’t mean to hurt her. I was trying to protect her.”
He presses his lips together. “The intent doesn’t matter as much as the action.”
“I thought you weren’t holding it against me,” I say dryly.
He lifts a shoulder. “Had to get one shot in there.” He reaches out to shake my hand.
“Of course you did.” We do our standard bro-handshake, and he slaps me on the bicep.
“You okay, man?” he asks.
I shake my head. “Not at all. Here’s to camp fucking me up even worse.”
“I can help with that.” He offers a wide grin, and I have a feeling he’s purposely going to put me in situations during scrimmages to get my ass whooped by the defensive line.
“Why’d you really do it?” he asks.
I sigh. Might as well get it out now since I’ll be stuck at camp for the next four weeks with him. “Tatum had a towel covered in my blood she was going to give to Kitty.”
His brows knit together. “What good would that have done her?”
“Her big plan was to rough Kitty up a little then pay her to go to the press and talk about how I did that to her. She would tell the media how she defended herself against me, drew blood, and wiped it up with a towel.” I shrug.
“She had the evidence. I was fucked. And then she threatened to rough Kaylee up so the press would label her as someone who was too scared to leave me and make me look like an even bigger asshole.”
“Jesus Christ,” he murmurs. He glances up at me. “Why didn’t you just tell us?”
I stare into my locker. “It was a snap decision and I chose wrong. When she threatened Kaylee, I couldn’t…” I find myself choking up, my throat suddenly clogged with emotion as I think about anyone hurting her. “I had to do whatever I could to protect her. I was desperate.”
“So what changed?” he asks, sitting on the bench of his own locker. “Why are you telling me now? And have you told Kaylee?”
“I did some investigating. Turns out my high school buddy was helping her and stealing money from my gym. I had him arrested, and I’ve got a lawyer nearby handling it for me since I’m here.
I talked to Kitty and got her a job so she could get out of Honeys.
I kept going back and forth with whether Kaylee’s better off without me or not—I tend to think yes, but I was planning to tell her the whole truth anyway…
and then I saw the pictures of her with Cooper Noah.
She seems happy. I don’t want to fuck things up for her any more than I already have. ”
Jack’s brows dip. “You got Kitty a job?”
“It took some convincing, but Ellie was desperate for the help.”
“She’s working with Ellie?” he practically yells at me.
I hold up a hand, sort of surprised he doesn’t know, but I don’t think Kitty has actually started with Ellie yet. It all came together quickly over the last couple days. “Just doing some basic administrative shit. She won’t be handling any sensitive information.”
“This is a terrible idea.”
He’s probably right. “Ellie agreed to let Kitty help her remotely on a temporary basis. This way she gets something on her resume besides a strip club so she can find work elsewhere, and it’s enough of a help to open up some time for Ellie to search for a more permanent solution.”
So all in all, it’s a win-win.
The locker room door opens and a few defensive linemen walk in.
“We’ll talk more later,” Jack says, and I nod.
I have no doubt that we both have a lot more to say.