Warning Track (Callahan Family #1) - Carrie Aarons Page 0,26
tell anyone about this, I’ll …”
Hayes’s expression is furious stone. “You’ll what? Trade me away? Go right ahead, sweetheart. That’s what you wanted to say, right? God forbid anyone see a Callahan fall to their knees. It’s all the same with your family.”
Ripping his bag off the table, the man who just days ago was flirting with me looks as though he could dismantle me with the verbal attack of the century if he wasn’t holding his temper back on a barely restrained leash. Before he can let anymore insults fly, he storms out, slamming the door and rattling the walls with it.
I slump to the floor again, letting out more sobs, though this time for a completely different reason.
12
Hayes
Summer has arrived, and although the sunny skies and perfect weather of California are no longer in my backyard, there is something enticing about the greenery of Pennsylvania.
This place is growing on me, which is something I never thought I’d say. I’ve been in California, especially metro areas, for a long time up until moving here. I thought I’d hate the quiet, the small-town energy, the slower pace of life. It’s strange to find that, in fact, I’m actually taking to Packton.
The humidity that comes in the early morning dew on my grass, the hum of fireflies lighting up the tall grass near the pond I see out my bedroom window. I’ve developed a routine of running through Central Street on my mornings off, taking my route through the town park with its wishing well and amphitheater. On my way home, I stop in and grab a coffee from Joe. My mailman, Steve, greets me as I walk back down the street to my rental house. Recently, I started having dinner once a week at the local bar and grill, Hudson’s.
Becoming a regular was not in my plans. But something about the charm of this town weaves its way into your soul, twisting you around its quaint little finger until you can’t detangle yourself.
That’s also what Colleen Callahan was doing, before she threatened to … well, I’m not sure how she would have finished her sentence. But I’d done it for her and essentially ripped the roots she was planting straight out of where they were just initially planting themselves in my heart.
I was developing something for her, a tiny crush or something. The flirtation at the auction had been surprising; I haven’t pursued a woman in some time, especially one who is as off-limits as Colleen. But also on her part, because I’d seen the interest flash in her whiskey brown eyes.
Whatever friendship or fraternizing that was forming between us, however, was gone now.
Fine. She wanted to act like no one else had ever been wronged in this lifetime? Let her. Colleen Callahan came from a life of privilege, grew up in far better conditions than I did, and this was the first ever adversity she was facing. I admit, her father is a prick and I would have never said any of the vile things he said about his own blood if I had any of my own. But that didn’t give her the right to threaten me, to shove ultimatums in my face. Because let’s be clear, that’s what she was gearing up to do.
I’d barely hung onto my fury in that training room, and perhaps what I said had gone too far. I had not been sympathetic to her obvious upset, but how could I be when the general manager who now sat behind bars had just given an interview detailing how royally he’d screwed over players and teams involved in the game I loved?
That interview affected me, too. To hear him brag about how he had pretty much blackmailed and manipulated my agent, one who had testified against him during the trial, to getting him to trade me … I wanted to go scorched earth on the entire stadium.
I couldn’t forget that she was a part of that whole mess. Bryant and I spoke on the phone two days ago, and he could tell something was wrong. I hadn’t spoken to him much about the scandal in recent months, mostly because I was tired of talking about it. We’d had conversations about my dating life before, where he advised me not to waste time on any woman who wasn’t Ronnie-level worth it. I failed to mention anything about Colleen, mostly because if I told him about it, it made it real.