Game Changer by Kelly Jamieson Page 0,8

going to be humiliated too. And he’s not going to be happy about that. Steve’s a great guy, but he has a temper.

Getting out of town for the summer sounds amazing. If only I could do that too.

I could.

I study Jax. “You know what I’d like to do?”

“What?”

“I want to come with you to California.”

4

Jax

Holy snapping eyeballs.

I can’t take Molly to California with me. What the hell is she thinking?

I swallow a sigh. She’s upset. She’s not thinking clearly. She’ll realize in the morning we can’t do that. “I don’t know,” I finally say. “That doesn’t seem like a good idea.”

“Why not?” She commandeers the tequila bottle and pours herself another.

Okay, she’s also toasted. Again, she’ll have more sense in the morning.

“Well, for one thing, Chucky would have my balls in a vise if I take off with his fiancée.”

“I’m not his fiancée anymore.” She sets her little chin stubbornly.

“Still, he’d be pissed.”

“Probably true. But I don’t really care at this point.” She lifts one shoulder dismissively.

She can dismiss that, sure. I’m the one who’ll have to deal with Chucky’s ire. Jesus. I can only imagine how incensed he’d be.

“Also, you don’t have a flight booked.”

“That’s easy to solve.” She picks up her phone and waves it in the air.

“Or a hotel room.”

“Please,” she scoffs. “These are not real obstacles.”

“You don’t know my family.”

“That’s okay. I’ll do my own thing while you have family time. I can lay on the beach or by the hotel pool and drink margaritas for a few days. It’ll give me time to process things. It sounds perfect.”

She’s not giving up.

“Let’s talk about it in the morning,” I suggest carefully.

She purses her lips. “You think I’m drunk.”

“You said you are.” She’s exasperating as hell, always has been, but for some reason it always just amuses me.

“Right. Okay, I am. Fine. But I really want to go with you. I’m not saying that because I’m drunk.”

“We’ll see.” I stand. “I’m going to check the guest room and make sure the bed’s made up.”

She needs a good night’s sleep and hopefully in the morning she won’t even remember this conversation. I march down the hall and into one of my extra rooms. My cleaning lady makes sure it’s kept up, since some of my friends often spend the night if we’ve been drinking. This room is the bigger spare room and has its own bathroom.

Yep, there are clean sheets on the bed and a basket of toiletries on the vanity in the bathroom. All ready for Molly to sleep it off.

I stop in the room for a moment before going back to her, to regain some equanimity. This runaway bride thing has knocked me for a loop. Totally not how I expected the day to turn out.

My gut aches for Molly. I damn near died when she was up there reading those dirty text messages, looking like a beautiful, virginal princess in that frothy dress. I could see how distraught she was even though she was holding it together. I couldn’t even make sense of what was happening.

I’m also pissed the hell off at Chucky for what he did.

I may not believe in marriage for myself, but I do expect guys who get married to be faithful. And when they aren’t…it pisses me off.

I’ve seen what happens when men cheat. Men who seem like decent guys. I’ve experienced the pain that a divorce causes because of infidelity. It makes me want to puke.

Now Molly’s sitting on my couch wearing rolled-up pajama pants and a loose T-shirt that doesn’t hide the fact she’s not wearing a bra, her face sad, on the verge of tears. I fucking hate that she’s hurting. I also fucking hate that she thinks Chucky screwed around on her because of…her oral skills and, uh, lack of boobage. Not that I have any experience with Molly’s oral skills. I close my eyes as an image of her on her knees in front of me pops into my head.

Jesus! What is wrong with me?

I swipe a hand across my forehead.

Onward.

I return to the living room. She’s turned around on the couch so her chin is resting on the back of it, facing the windows. Her red-gold hair is a tousled mess of waves, just brushing her shoulders.

The bare shoulders I saw earlier tonight, undoing her dress. She has faint golden freckles there and a tiny mole on her left shoulder blade.

I shake my head. “Okay. The guest room is ready for you, whenever you want