Total pages in book: 122
Estimated words: 114951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 575(@200wpm)___ 460(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 575(@200wpm)___ 460(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
Then he opened one practice a week to the fans. Richard had always said it was too distracting — and he’d been right. But Nathan announced it at a press conference without telling a single damn person on staff. We just had to smile and pretend it was the plan.
Now I had weekly meet-and-greets when all I wanted was to prepare for whomever we played next.
It was good. All of it was good. The city was invested. We were in the news. We were being talked about. We had a winning record.
Which was why I wouldn’t voice my concerns out loud, and why I felt like I’d slipped into insanity. Because somehow, I was the only one who saw he was a snake dressed as a saint.
I pinched the bridge of my nose, letting out a long, calming breath as I squeezed my eyes shut against the headache building.
I had no actual reason to feel like Nathan was a problem other than the fact that he was with Ariana and I didn’t like it.
Basically, I was acting like a jealous fucking teenager, and yet no amount of common sense could snap me out of it.
A loud thump and subsequent rattling snapped my head up, and I whipped around with my heart hammering and my hand curled into a fist ready to fight.
Only to find Ariana standing with a giant box in her arms.
“Oh, sorry,” she said, a bit breathless as she tried to balance the box. She teetered again, this time the rattling amplified as her eyes shot wide and she saved the box before it tumbled to the ground. “I… I didn’t think anyone would be here.”
I hopped up, rushing to the door to take the box from her hands. It was surprisingly heavy, and I laughed a little as I grunted and carried it to the desk I’d just been sitting at. “No one should be at this hour. What the hell is in this box? Bricks?”
“The trophies for the Skate for Change event,” she said, her cheeks pink, hands hanging on her hips now as she caught her breath. “I accidentally had them shipped to our house instead of the arena. Classic ditzy move. They showed up earlier tonight and Nathan didn’t want them cluttering our…”
Ariana’s words faded, and she cleared her throat, smiling like she thought better of finishing her thought. My attention was stuck on the fact that she’d called herself a ditz.
She was so far from that, it was laughable. Why would she insult herself that way?
“Anyway, we needed them here, so I just thought I’d bring them up myself,” she said.
“At nearly midnight?”
She shrugged, and her eyes finally met mine. “Couldn’t sleep, so I figured now was as good a time as any.”
Time slogged when she looked at me like that, her diamond eyes piercing straight through my battered soul. She hadn’t looked at me in weeks, and I savored that gaze like it was a hard-earned championship title.
Why couldn’t you sleep?
I wanted to ask so badly, but I had a feeling by the way she watched me that her words weren’t an invitation to pry.
I let myself indulge in my greed instead, soaking in everything about her — the matching lounge set she wore, mustard yellow, the color bringing out the gold in her hair and setting off the blue in her eyes. I wondered if yellow was still her favorite color. The fabric hugged her curves and fell around her silhouette, the image one that had me flashing back to her in her dorm in college. She wasn’t wearing makeup, and her hair was unkempt, like she’d literally rolled out of bed and thought, “Well, nothing better to do, so I guess I’ll just run this heavy ass box of trophies up to the arena.”
She looked so damn cozy I had to stuff my hands into my pockets to keep from reaching for her just to see if she felt as soft as she looked.
Ariana’s cheeks burned a deeper shade of red the longer I looked at her, and I was ready for her to frown and snap at me and storm out of the room.
Instead, she folded her arms over her chest and cleared her throat. “What are you doing here so late?”
I shrugged, nodding to the screen that was still playing the Detroit game. “I’m always here late. Watching video.”
“You don’t do that in your office?”
“Sometimes I do,” I said. “Sometimes I need a change in scenery. Or a bigger screen,” I added with a grin.
“It doesn’t hurt your eyes to stare at this thing?” She pointed to the monstrous screen behind me.
“Oh, everything hurts my eyes at this point in the day, but I’m a masochist, I guess. I just… I don’t know. Sometimes it’s hard to leave when I feel like I’m missing something, or like the team needs something from me that I haven’t delivered yet.”