Hard Fall (Trophy Boyfriends #2) - Sara Ney Page 0,53

well-rounded day of nonstop chaos.

Perfect.

I flop down on my pillow and stare at Mrs. Wallace’s messages. She’s such a lovely woman, so much warmth. The kind of mother I wish I’d had growing up—not that my mom wasn’t loving. She was just…caught up in a world where children did not come first. Socializing and popularity were the orders of the day, always.

That’s just how it was.

Nope. Can’t do this to Buzz’s mom.

I cannot have dinner, brunch, or breakfast with Buzz Wallace’s parents. Not Thursday, not next week, not ever.

I roll to my back, waiting for Madison.

She might not have answers, but she almost always brings ice cream.

16

Trace

“He what?”

I need more clarification from Noah—the story he just told me about Marlon and Hollis isn’t surprising, but it is infuriating.

“I walked up as he was getting nasty, calling her a snob and shit. She looked like she was going to cry and he looked crazy. I think he’s juicing—something isn’t right with him. He went from zero to eighty in three seconds.”

“No bullshit?”

“No bullshit.”

Damn. Marlon Daymon is using? What the hell for? The dude is at the top of his game. One drug test by the establishment and he’d be done. Well—okay fine, maybe not fired done, but it would leak to the press, and he’d probably face a suspension then get fined up the ass. Thousands and thousands of dollars in penalties. For what?

Faster speed? More endurance? To look ripped?

Baseball players are not football players. You don’t see too many of them walking around like the cover models of fitness magazines.

Often enough, I’ve heard my sister complain about our baggy pants and baggy shirts, about our players having no definition. Basically the dad bod of professional athletes.

So if he’s seriously trying to pump himself up, people will notice. And when they do, there will be consequences.

Besides, how dumb do you have to be to call the fucking owner’s granddaughter a snob? To call the general manager’s daughter a princess? That shit doesn’t fly—we have our own set of rules down in the locker room, our own code of conduct that has nothing to do with the establishment’s. First one: don’t shit where you eat.

Meaning: don’t piss off the boss by insulting his family.

Second? If you have a side piece, don’t bring her to the game—any game.

Thirdly? If you’re dating someone new, do not have her sit in the family suite with the wives. Too much gossip—too many diamonds and expensive purses fill a new girlfriend’s head with all the wrong ideas.

With Hollis, I wouldn’t have to worry about any of that.

Hollis is the game. I don’t have to play it.

“You should call her,” Noah tells me, as if it weren’t obvious. We’re in his kitchen and I’m eating a slice of leftover pizza I nabbed out of his fridge. I was enjoying it, but now it’s just a lump of dough in the pit of my stomach.

“I will.”

I’ll do one better; I’ll head directly to her place from Harding’s so I can see her face, gauge her mood. Is she going to blame me for this? Is she going to hold this against me and all other men who come after Marlon, for the rest of her life?

Dramatic, sure. Unhealthy, yes.

I’ve been to her place to pick her up twice now already and know the way like the back of my hand. It’s late afternoon, and I imagine she’s probably starting dinner—or crying, or stuffing a voodoo doll. I brace myself for an argument.

Unless she’s not alone.

Which is exactly the case when I arrive.

Hollis is not the face that greets me at the door and for a moment, I step back to check the number on the outside of the building to make sure I’m at the right address.

Seven one five.

This is the place, but that isn’t Hollis.

“What do you want?” the girl—her best friend, I think—rudely asks, only cracking the door open a few inches, a gold chain linked near the top.

She catches me off guard and I waver. So unlike me—I always have something to say. “Is Hollis here?”

“Obviously.” The friend rolls her eyes, and I wish I could remember her fucking name. Madge? Brittany? Sue?

“Can I talk to her?”

“What for?” The pretty brunette narrows her heavily mascaraed eyes into slits. “Here to rub salt in the wound that is her love life?”

“Huh?”

“Did that dickhead teammate of yours send you? Huh? Huh!”

“My dickhead teammate doesn’t know I’m here because he has absolutely nothing to do with the reason I’m