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“What do you mean?” Maren blinked a few times.
“She approached Mac earlier today.”
Both Cris and Maren went tense. Maren breathed out, “What? No.”
Cris narrowed his eyes at Ryan before looking at me. I saw the unspoken question asking if I was okay, and I gave him a slight nod. Relief flared before he looked back to Cris.
Ryan said, “She’s the blogger I told you about.”
Cris frowned, confused. “Wait. The one who showed up before practice yesterday?”
I sank into Ryan, feeling his own tension ramping up. He clipped out, “Yeah. Same girl.”
“I saw that chick. She’s not the same girl.”
Maren had her phone out and said, looking at it, “She’s changed her looks, but that’s her. See.” She showed Cris her phone, swiping at the screen and adding, “This is what she used to look like.”
At seeing both images, he let out a swift curse. “Fucking bitch. That’s her. She’s put on weight and changed her hair color, but that’s the chick who knew I thought she was you.” He stared at Maren for a moment before cutting his eyes our way, the storm that was brewing had some pain. “She knew what she was doing. She was wearing clothes Maren usually wears.”
“What?”
He didn’t look at Maren, still focusing on Ryan. “She was wearing Maren’s perfume. That shit that smells like lilacs. She had her hair done like Maren’s last year too.”
Maren went pale. She looked as if she’d been physically punched in the face, staggered.
Ryan cursed in my ear before his hand touched my hip, nudging me forward. “Go to her. Take her in my room.”
I moved without questioning him. He always knew the right thing to do. He’d taken care of me in the same way. I approached Maren, taking her hand, and said softly, “Let’s give them a minute.” She didn’t move. She was frozen in place.
I met Cris’ gaze over her head, both of us knowing she was going to lose it.
I tried to give him a smile, because I wasn’t going to let that happen, but he’d gone back to watching his girl as shadows flitted over his face. In a way, I was feeling Maren was the most affected by this and I needed to get in there with her. I needed to get inside, where she could hear me, connect with me, or we might lose her all over again.
“Maren.” I tugged on her hand. This time she went with me, walking in a daze as I led her down the hallway, around the kitchen where some of their other roommates were standing, all with different expressions on their face, but judging by the tension in the room, they knew something was going down, something serious.
I kept going, up the stairs and into Ryan’s room.
She was still in some sort of shock, so I pulled her to the bathroom and ran some water over a washcloth, using it to wash her face when it was warm.
There was a brief knock on the outside door.
I stepped out of the bathroom as one of Ryan and Cris’ roommates stuck his head inside. The others were right behind him. He saw me, his eyes flicking behind me. “We’re supposed to be at practice, but called Coach and told him some shit’s going down. Was I right to do that? He wants to know what’s going on because it’s a big fucking deal that we’re all missing.”
I hesitated before stepping more out and shutting the bathroom door behind me. “I—yeah, some shit’s going down, but I think most of you guys could go to practice.”
His eyes went back to studying the closed bathroom door. “Right, so here’s the real situation. I’m coming to you because I’m about to go see your boy downstairs and we need to know how to handle both Chavez and Jensen?”
He was asking, but also not asking at the same time. I got him.
When Ryan needed to be my emotional foundation, he was perfect. Steady. Stable. Calm. And loving. But I was fine now, and when that happened, that meant Ryan didn’t have to be, and well, Ryan had another side to him where he wasn’t a guy to mess with. His roommates and his teammates were well aware of that Ryan, and that’s what he was actually asking, was more trying to gauge how deep this shit was going to be, and how much I’d be affected because that would then affect Ryan.
I shook my head. “It’s a little hiccup with me and Ryan. Most of it’s about Maren and Cris.”
That’s all he needed to know. He clipped his head in a nod, already withdrawing from the room. “Got it. We’ll get orders from Jensen downstairs.” The other guys heard and were moving away, but he paused, once, looking back at the bathroom. “Whatever’s going on, let her know she’s not alone. Okay? We’re not just a team on the court, you get me?” His eyes flashed. “That means our girls too.”
“Thanks. I’ll—” The door started to open, so I turned around, saying as I did, “—tell her.”
The door opened all the way and Maren stood there, but she wasn’t in shock anymore. She was pissed.
