Five Ways to Fall (Ten Tiny Breaths, #4)(28)

“Honestly?” He pauses, tapping his pen against the pad. “I was going pro. There was no other way about it. Then some jackass plowed into my knee. Everything about the hit was dirty. The ball was out of my hand a good five seconds before that. The guy wanted me out for good. It wasn’t the first time he had done something like that. He shouldn’t have even been on the field.” He leans back in his chair, and a rare morose expression passes over his face. “The NCAA got involved, suspended the guy for one f*cking game. I was pissed, but there wasn’t much I could do. Once the NCAA rules, they won’t change it. Still, I had to try. So I built a case against the guy myself—with specific names and dates and witnesses. His history.” I can see the spark of passion in Ben’s eyes. “I appealed the suspension. It didn’t change anything for me, exactly like I had expected. But when the idiot took another player out the next year, the case I’d built made sure he was out for the year.” Ben shrugs. “I couldn’t play anymore, but I figured sports law was something I might be good at. I know the ins and outs of this profession, beyond just the game—how to spot future talent, all the top schools, standard contract requirements and terms, and all that bureaucratic bullshit. I figured with some luck, I could do well.”

“But Warner doesn’t have a sports law department, Ben,” I say slowly, not wanting to dampen the sudden excitement in his voice with the obvious.

He grins. “I know it doesn’t, Reese. Not yet, anyway. I was actually offered a job at a sports law firm on the West Coast, but I need to stay in Miami because of my mama for now. And, Jack’s willing to let me try to build one here, after I’ve put my dues in.”

Ben turns his attention once again to his work as I feel the small smile curl over my lips. Jack is always looking for ways to help people out. I wonder if he’s taking a chance on Ben because he’s a good friend of his son’s and Mason doesn’t have a lot of friends. Jack’s the kind of guy who would do just that.

“What else did Mason tell you about me?”

I see the dimples appear, even at this angle. “That you’re certifiable.”

“And?”

Ben’s gaze lifts to me. “And I like certifiable.”

“Well, sorry to disappoint,” I offer with a heavy sigh as I bite into an apple that Jack dropped off earlier, before heading out. “I’m completely sane. He’s just had it out for me since I jumped out of his closet and made him piss his pants.” Of course I leave out the part where I was wearing a clown costume and had a very realistic-looking cleaver in my hand. And I was eight. Because those details actually might make me sound a tad unstable.

Ben bursts out in a roar of laughter; a genuine, chest-warming sound. “Okay, are you going to help me with this work or just sit there and look tempting all day?”

I roll my eyes—though I secretly bask in his words.



I don’t believe it.

Eight hours after that ridiculous public display at the café, I’m straddling my bike outside a Chick-fil-A and inhaling a sandwich, while staring at a private message on my Facebook account from my ex-husband.

Was great seeing you today. You’re more beautiful than ever.



I reread the message at least twenty times as bitter nostalgia consumes my insides. Jared always greeted me with a groggy, “Hey, beautiful,” as soon as my alarm went off. The first time he said it was especially jarring because I hadn’t heard it since I was five years old, when my father was still around. Growing up with a mother that looks like Annabelle—and me looking nothing like her and everything like my father—I know what beautiful is and I know that I am not it. Sure, there’s something about me. Something that sometimes grabs someone’s attention.

But, Jared always made me feel beautiful.

My appetite has suddenly vanished. Wrapping up the rest of my dinner and sticking it back in the bag for later, I type out with shaky hands:

Great seeing you, too.



Simple.

And highly untruthful. Was it “great” to see Jared today? Was it even remotely pleasant? No, it wasn’t. Yet I feel a spark of something inside me that convinces me otherwise. And as much as I want to be a bitch, as much as I want to lay into him with my litany of “whys”—Why did you leave me? Why did you lie to me? Why did you break my heart?—I find myself staring at my screen, waiting for the little “read” indicator to pop up, hoping for a response.

I’m still staring at it when I hear a woman’s heels clicking behind me. “Do you have a light?”

I turn to find espresso brown eyes drifting over my frame, probably in the same way I’m now assessing her. She’s beautiful in a very seductive way, her long black hair poker-straight and sleek, her lips full and pouty. Her breasts way too swollen and round to be real.

“Sorry, don’t smoke.”

She lets out a loud sigh of exasperation as her hands drop to her sides, a cigarette perched between two fingers. “Why does no one f*cking smoke anymore?”

“Because it’s highly uncool. Plus I already have a black heart. Black lungs would just be overkill.”

“You and me both,” she mutters under her breath, studying my bike. “Yours?”

“What gave it away?”

She dissects me through narrowed eyes for a long moment before jutting her chin toward the Harley next to mine, the one with the red and yellow flames on the body that I was admiring earlier. “My boyfriend’s. He’s on his way out soon. Hey!” She waves down a guy walking by on his way in, holding up her unlit cigarette. He seems only too happy to dig into his pocket for a lighter, his eyes trained on this woman’s cleavage as she pulls a flame from it. “Thanks, babe,” she says in a low, husky voice, giving him a wink as she blows a puff of smoke directly in his face. “Now keep moving before my man comes out here.”