Boyfriend Bargain (Hawthorne University #1)(73)

A cute brown-haired reporter is on the TV next, a microphone in her hand. “It was a tight game and you could tell the Lions had heart, but losing a key player was just too much. It’s a huge disappointment for the team.” She levels the camera with a serious look. “We aren’t sure if this is related, but questions are being raised, especially since Morgan wasn’t able to finish out a home game against Minnesota-Duluth earlier in the season. A statement from the team said that incident was the flu, but rumors are swirling that tonight it might be something more serious. Some are claiming Zack collapsed.”

I click the TV off and feel the weight of everyone’s gaze.

“Is he okay, Sugar?” This is from Julia.

I look around at each of them, and I know we each have secret hurts, but Z’s is not mine to share. “I don’t know.”

Was it one of his panic attacks?

I’m dashing across the room to find my phone. Please, let him be okay. I have my phone out and I’m calling him.

“Hey,” he says, and my eyes close as I step into the bathroom for privacy. His voice is low and I figure he’s on the bus, teammates everywhere. “You saw the news?”

“Yeah. Are you okay?”

A long sigh comes through the speaker. “I couldn’t hold it together, Sugar. Maybe I could have made it…” His unsteady voice tugs at everything inside me. I picture him leaned back against his seat, eyes closed. “I passed out and Coach wouldn’t let me play.”

“What can I do?”

He sighs again. I can hear his deep breaths through the phone and I want to hold him.

“I need you. Just…go to my house and wait for me. Please.”

“Done.”





33





Sugar





A while later, after bidding the party in my room farewell, I’m heading to the Krispy Kreme drive-through and getting donuts for the guys. I’m eating one when I pull up to his house and park on the street. Wrangling the box up to the back deck, there’s a bounce in my step at the thought of seeing Z, and I’m hoping I can cheer him up. There’s a knot of worry in my chest about what happened at the game, but he says he’s more centered when I’m around, and I want to be here for him.

I let myself into the house with a key he told me was hidden under a dead plant. It’s about ten at night as I open the back door.

Long John Silver flashes by and gives me a mean meow.

I flip on the lights. “Bad cat,” I say back at her, but my voice is sweet. She hasn’t quite decided if she likes me yet, and I figure it’s because Z and I aren’t here enough for her to warm up to me.

She looks over her shoulder, gives me a glare, and then stalks off to his bedroom.

But that isn’t the only cat in the room.

I flinch when Veronica comes around the corner from the den. Dammit. I must have missed her car parked somewhere along the street.

She frowns. “What are you doing here?”

In full makeup and dressed in jeans and a cropped black and gold HU hockey jersey with Reece’s number that looks custom-made, she looks a hell of a lot better than I do in my braid, grey joggers, and black sweater. I have zilch makeup on—Z doesn’t care for it anyway—except for a swipe of Make Me Hot red lipstick, which I wore especially for him.

“Why are you here?”

Her expression is stark. “I’m here to feed the cat—like I always do when the guys are out of town.” She prances around the kitchen in her stilettos and turns to face me at the counter. I eye the knives next to her. I don’t think she’d go for one, but there’s so much anger that oozes from her that sometimes I wonder. I get that she’s the queen of the jersey chasers, but she isn’t in charge of me.

“Z asked me to wait for him.”

She raises a brow. “Do you have any clue how many girls meet him here at this house?”

I cross my arms. “None since me.” And I happen to know Z isn’t the womanizer people like to say he is. I know him. Sure he has the healthy sexual appetite of a twenty-one-year-old male—hell, I love that about him—but she likes to exaggerate this idea of a horde of females being all over him. And I get it. He’s the number one draft pick and he’s beautiful and women want that, but over these past weeks, I’ve seen another side of him. The softness blended with the dark, the man who saves cats and puts up with his brother’s hateful girlfriend. Is she even his girlfriend? I don’t know.

She gloats. “Oh, I’ll give you that. You are the one right now, but if you only knew…”

I take a step toward her, and I’m taller, looming over her. “You’ve been itching to tell me the dirt on Z since the moment we met, but the truth is, I know him.”

“You know about Willow?” I nod and her gaze rakes over me. Then she smiles. “Did he ever tell you what she looked like?”

I frown. He hasn’t, but in my head I see her as a young, pretty high school girl who idolized him. I haven’t asked too many questions about her appearance because, well, it felt intrusive. “She was beautiful.”

She sneers. “She was way more than just beautiful.”

My nerves clang at the insinuating tone she uses.

“You should see your face right now.”