Tomboy (The Hartigans #3)(47)

Zach: There was shit that went down.

LL: I’m sorry. You don’t have to say any more. Just know, whatever it was, that it sucks, and I’m sorry it happened.

Most people would want every detail. Hell, he would, too. Yet, Fallon kept her nose out of it. He should be thankful. He should move the conversation in another direction. He didn’t.

Zach: I’m millions in debt because of them. They were my managers and didn’t pay my taxes when they told me they had. They signed me up for loans I didn’t know about, and some that I did, but I didn’t realize how predatory the terms were. I just signed because my parents said it was a good deal. They siphoned off money in addition to their salaries from my first paycheck to the last one before I figured everything out. Too late. Dumb jock for the win.

By the time he finished and hit send, he wasn’t sure if he was still breathing. Everything hummed and burned and felt great all at the same time.

LL: You’re not dumb.

Zach: I was for trusting them.

He should have known better. He should have seen what they were really like. He’d been an idiot.

LL: How have you kept all of this on the down low? This is huge. They should be in jail. I want to fly out there right now to yell at them at the very least.

Of course she did. She was Wonder Woman in scrubs, out for truth and justice. The mental image of her in a metal breastplate and thigh-high boots while holding a lasso put a different spin on his mood. Yeah, he’d totally be putting that in his pocket to think about later when he could be alone.

Zach: Lucy stamped out any hint of it in the press. Coach Peppers helped make sure the team took care of my basic necessities. Kyle worked out a payment deal with the banks and the IRS. They’re the only ones who know. And now you. I don’t want anyone to know. Ever. I just want to pay off my debts and get free from underneath all of it.

The conversation bubbles on her end appeared and disappeared five times before her next message came through.

LL: Why did you tell me?

He didn’t even have to think about it. He knew the answer the same way he knew which way an opposing player was going to move or if there was a hole in their defense that needed to be covered.

Zach: Are you gonna tell?

LL: No.

Zach: That’s why. I trust you.

More appearing and disappearing text bubbles.

LL: What are we doing?

He didn’t have a clue, but he wanted to do more of it.

Zach: I don’t know, but I’ll see you tomorrow.

LL: You don’t have to come to the fundraiser.

Zach: I know.

There was no way he was missing out on a chance to see Fallon again.

The plane was picking up speed when his phone vibrated with an incoming message. This time it wasn’t a text. It was a photo of Fallon on her bed. She was sitting cross-legged— wearing his Ice Knights hoodie above her bare legs. Her face was turned up toward the camera, but she was looking away from it.

The words “Sweet Dreams” were written in block text across the top of Fallon’s picture. Yeah, he wasn’t about to have sweet dreams after seeing that pic—which was a clear quid pro quo for his being vulnerable with her. She hadn’t needed to send, but she did.

And tomorrow, he’d show up at that fundraiser with every Ice Knight he could strongarm into coming. He couldn’t fucking wait.





Chapter Sixteen


It was an hour until the official start of the clinic’s second carnival fundraiser, and it was total chaos. There were a handful of volunteers’ kids who were already running through the clinic, which had been transformed into a circus midway, with balloons and tickets for games. There were clowns everywhere, along with balloon animal makers and face painters for the kids-oriented circus-themed clinic fundraiser, but no Ice Knights—and definitely not one in particular.

There were about a million things still to do before the doors opened, and they would be getting done a lot faster if Fallon didn’t keep looking behind her to check the doors every twenty-three seconds, hoping to see Zach walk through.

What had she been thinking with sending that pic last night? That wasn’t something sorta-friends and one-time fuck buddies did. Those people didn’t flirt with each other—and she sure didn’t because flirting was definitely not her thing. And now she was going to have to see him again? Without the glass surrounding the hockey rink between them, or from the safe distance of her side of a texting conversation? This was going to be a disaster.

Fallon tied the knot on a helium-filled balloon and handed it out to a waiting six-year-old in pigtails and kept her nothing-to-see-here-move-along-folks smile on her face. It fooled the grade-schoolers, but judging by the curious looks Harper and Cameron were giving her, she wasn’t slipping one over on the adults.

“Harper, you did a great job organizing this. Another couple of these, and we’ll be able to fund the food pantry for the entire upcoming fiscal year,” Cameron said. “It really helps that our overhead has been so low for these events because of the volunteers. How did you get all the clowns to work for free?”

Harper nodded toward one of the clowns across the waiting room they’d turned into a station where the kids would be learning to pull scarves out of the sleeves of their jackets. “I used to date the goofy one with the red hair and the kazoo.”

“Interesting choice,” Fallon said, taking in the guy with a Bozo Knows All T-shirt and rainbow suspenders.