“One-hundred for the first six months,” he offers. “We can review after a month.”
My mouth parts. “Like, one-hundred?—”
“One-hundred-thousand.”
My entire soul leaves my body.On top of my promotion?For a second, I genuinely can’t speak, can barely breathe.
He watches me with that same maddeningly unreadable expression and slightly narrows his eyes. “Will that work?”
Will that—Will thatwork?He’s asking me if that wouldwork?
I make a noise that is definitely not a word, and he seems to take that as agreement. “Good,” he says.
Before I can recover enough to tell him that I need a calculator and maybe a paper bag to breathe into, he reaches for the driver’s-side door.
“I’ll send a moving truck tomorrow,” he says.
My head jerks up. “Tomorrow?”
He gives me a look like this is the least shocking part of the conversation. “Text me the address. Her mom is supposed to be picking her up in the morning, so we can get you set up without Penny butting in.”
I open my mouth, close it, open it again. “Okay.”
“Have your things packed.”
Things. My things. God, that’s bleak.
I have maybe two suitcases. Maybe a couple of boxes. Some clothes, my laptop, my sketchbooks, a handful of makeup, three houseplants clinging to life out of pure spite, and the pathetic remains of what used to be a stable adult existence.
“I don’t, uh… have a lot. I wouldn’t need a big van or anything.”
He opens the car door, his gaze dropping down my frame before jumping back up to my eyes.Did he just— “Just makes it easier to get you set up before Penny’s home.”
And then, because apparently detonating my entire life in under three minutes wasn’t enough, he gets into the driver’s seat like he didn’t just drop a grenade at my feet.
I stand there on the pavement, still clutching Penelope’s dead leaf, while he shuts the door.
I try to stop myself from thinking he might look back at me, but then the engine starts, andthey’re pulling away, and I’m left staring after the car in utter confusion about how I managed to crawl my way out of rock bottom in forty-eight hours.
Chapter 9
Grayson
By the timeI finish helping Maddox run drills at CU, my shoulders feel like concrete and my patience is hanging by a thread.
It would be manageable if the problem was just the workout, but it isn’t.The problem is that my life has become a series of increasingly terrible ideas stitched together by scheduling and sheer force of will.
The NFL deal is looming.My house is about to gain a new occupant.My daughter is now obsessed with a woman I should absolutely not be attracted to, and I have spent the entire damn afternoon trying to focus on literally anything else, like that’s going to keep me from giving in to temptation.
But every time I get a second to think, my brain serves up another image of her.
Carly crouched in the grass while Penelope handed her dead leaves like presents.
Carly laughing, pushing my daughter on the swings.
Carly in those fuckingjeans.
Jesus Christ.
