Scoring Wilder(80)

"No!" I protested. "He asked you to be his date tonight, which means that he doesn't get to make out with another girl right in front of you. He's not a fool; he knew that he was playing with your feelings."

"I told myself not to get my hopes up, but I did anyway. I really like him Kinsley, but he's off-limits. He's not ready for a relationship. God, obviously he's not even over his ex."

I didn't know what to say, so I just kept muttering, “I’m so sorry.”

She didn't say anything after that. She stared out of her window the rest of the way home, and when we got there she went and washed her face and changed into her pajamas.

"Want to come in my room and we can watch something?"

She frowned. "I don't know. Maybe I should just sleep."

"C'mon. I seriously can't let you go to sleep like this. Come watch a Parks and Rec with me and we'll laugh and curse boys to the depths of hell."

She laughed pitifully, but followed me nonetheless.

I propped my laptop on my bed and kicked off my heels.

"Aren't you going to change?" she asked as I crawled onto the bed in my dress.

I shrugged. "It's oddly comfortable and I feel pretty in it."

She smiled and shook her head, and I leaned down to press play on the show. It felt good to make her smile after the day she'd had, but I couldn't concentrate on the show. I kept replaying our conversation and her tears in the bathroom. Becca deserved more than that, and I couldn't understand what Penn had been thinking. Why would he have done that to her? Maybe his ex-girlfriend was still an unfinished story. Did Liam have an ex like that? We hadn't even talked about it.

Becca interrupted my thoughts. "I don't think I'm going to give up on Penn," she murmured with her eyes still locked on my computer screen. She'd obviously not been really watching the show either.

I twisted toward her and nodded. "Not until you know the full story. I'd be the first to tell you to leave him and find someone better, but I honestly think you should hear Penn's side of it. That ex-girlfriend was staring daggers at you so she clearly feels threatened by his new interest in you. Maybe she kissed him and you saw it at the worst time?" I paused and reached to touch her arm. "But seriously, Becca, he has some groveling to do. He can't expect to treat you like that and get away with it."

She chewed on the side of her lip, thinking it over. "We'll see."

Just then I heard a small tapping on my door.

"Come in," I said, expecting to see one of our teammates pop their head through, but instead Liam pushed the door open and cautiously took a step inside. He looked nervous about being there and I instantly shot off the bed.

"Hey! What are you doing here?" I asked, unable to mask my surprised grin as I scanned down his suit. He was holding a plastic bag in his left hand.

"You weren't answering your phone and I wanted to make sure you were okay." His eyes scanned to Becca, who was lying on the bed in her footed pajamas, and then back to me.

"Is this a guy-hating zone? Should I leave?" Liam asked with a timid smile. I wanted to kiss it right off him. He looked so handsome standing in his suit in my bedroom, even if he did look out of place.

"Depends on what you have in that bag, Wilder," Becca called out.

He laughed and held it up to look inside. "Ice cream, candy, and some alcohol. I wasn't sure what you guys would want." He shrugged and I leaned forward, kissing him on the cheek.

"Thank you so much," I murmured into his ear before pulling back and taking the bag out of his hands.

"Should I leave?" he asked as I took the bag over to Becca and let her peek inside.

"Well I'm assuming you bought these M&Ms for yourself, right?" Becca joked.

He rubbed his hand along the back of his hairline, flashing us a sheepish grin. "There's another bag for you guys."

We laughed and Becca waved her hand. "C'mon. We're pretending to watch TV while we actually consider how I should slowly murder Penn."

Liam kicked his shoes off and then placed his suit jacket on the back of my desk chair. I watched him, completely enamored by his movements. He rolled the sleeves of his shirt up and then finally came over to the bed. It was a perfect sandwich in my opinion. Becca on one side of me, Liam on the other, and candy spread across my lap. What more could a girl want?

"Am I allowed to ask you about Penn and his ex?" Becca asked cautiously as she tossed him his bag of M&Ms.

"I don't like her," he muttered, tearing the package open.

"Well that's good. You're on our team then." I smiled toward him and bumped his shoulder playfully.

"I forget how they met, but they dated for a year and she messed with his head the entire time. She'd string him along and tell him how much she loved him and then treat him like shit. I told him to leave her countless times, but eventually she left him and I thought he finally could see her for the bitch that she was.

“He hasn't seen her since the split, but I'm not surprised that she showed up tonight. She probably heard that he'd moved on and felt like she needed to sink her claws back into him. That’s the kind of manipulative cow she is."

Becca spooned a bite of ice cream into her mouth as she muttered, "Wow."