Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 131271 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 656(@200wpm)___ 525(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131271 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 656(@200wpm)___ 525(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
“What’s the big deal, man? It’s not like you have a girlfriend.”
I pale at the thought of Riley looking and judging. It’s not like she doesn’t know I have a past. Jacob, too. Only Hayes is wearing a halo right now. But it’s different to compartmentalize something that happened before you came along and have to deal with it rearing its ugly head in the present.
I look debauched, like a man who doesn’t give a fuck about propriety of any kind. I look like an asshole.
“This is bad,” I say, knowing Coach is going to flip the fuck out. He grilled us about our public personas and their importance to the school and our future careers. This is going to follow me forever. People get nicknames this way, and I don’t want Double Pucker to be mine.
Collins shrugs, scrolling through the comments beneath the images and article summary. “Kind of a mixed bag. Some people think it’s hilarious. Others are tearing you a new one. Got a couple gems in here calling you a disgrace to the team.”
“Great,” I mutter, my jaw clenching. “Just what I need.”
Collins hesitates, his usual cocky demeanor faltering. “Look, man. It’ll probably blow over in a few days if it makes you feel any better. People love a scandal, but they’ve got the attention spans of goldfish.”
“No one knows the attention span of a goldfish,” I say, my tone flat. “It’s a fucking myth.”
“Yeah. Right. Okay.” Collins rubs the back of his neck, his blue eyes darting over my shoulder like he’s already thinking about the next place he can drift off to share my shame.
But this isn’t about me. Not really. It’s about Riley and the team and everyone who will look at the picture and think they know me. Shawn Drayton, a player on and off the ice.
“Well, thanks for stopping by to fill my world with good news,” I say in my usual careless tone. He grins, appeased.
“Yeah.” He claps me on the shoulder, which is bro code for ‘see you around, bud,’ and I watch him amble off to his own vehicle.
By the time I get back to the house, my head’s spinning. I toss my bag onto the floor and collapse onto the couch, staring at the ceiling like it might give me some answers.
Should I call Riley to give her the heads-up? Explain myself? Make sure she knows this was a while ago, and I’m not an extra-large cheating fuckboy. Hope she hasn’t seen it yet? Pretend it’s not a big deal and act like my usual charming self?
Contemplating coming clean makes my stomach churn but not telling her and risking her finding out from someone else and potentially getting the wrong idea fills me with a level of dread I haven’t felt since Jacob sat me down and told me what he knew about Lucy.
I don’t want to be like my ex best friend, Harris, hiding my indiscretion and leaving the hurt to find Riley like it found me. But the truth is, I don’t know how to fix this. I don’t know how to be the guy Riley deserves, and she’ll find it out sooner rather than later. She’s going to know me for who I am and want someone else, the same way Lucy wanted Harris.
And it’s not like I don’t have competition for her heart. She has Hayes, the man who gave her his friggin’ virginity and is as loyal as a labrador, and Jacob, who would go to the ends of the Earth to defend her honor. What’s my role in her life, even? The joker. The add-on. The spare brother, in case something goes wrong with one of the others.
My phone buzzes, and I grimace at the message congratulating me on bagging two girls with awesome tits. It vibrates again, and I don’t even bother looking. I already know what it’s about.
The front door opens, and Jacob walks in, bringing the cold with him like a cloud of disapproval. His expression is dark, and he shakes his head.
“Why the fuck did you let someone take a photo of that, Shawn?”
“I didn’t know,” I say.
He closes his eyes, tips his head to the ceiling, and then fixes me with a narrow gaze. “What was it? A fucking orgy? How many people were in that room?”
My lack of a response must answer this question because he growls. “Didn’t Coach’s little chats sink into your thick skull,” he says. “If you can’t keep it in your pants, keep it discreet. It’s a damn clear message.”
“I can’t change the past, Jacob, or I’d just hop in my time machine and tell past me to keep my pants firmly on and my dick out of those women.”
I was drunk isn’t an excuse that’s worth airing. Telling my brother I needed something, some human contact, a way of exorcizing Lucy and Harris from my system, a way of feeling like a man.