Hate the Player: An Enemies-to-Lovers Romantic Comedy(29)

The good doctor slips on some gloves while the nurse lowers my bed flat. With two gloved hands on my nose, Dr. Collins does exactly what he said. He pushes my nose back into place with a quick, abrupt movement of his wrists.

It hurts—it motherfucking hurts—but this isn’t the first time I’ve had a broken bone that’s needed to be set, and I doubt it’ll be the last. When you’re an actor who prefers to do his own stunts, you find yourself incurring a few injuries over the years.

“Okay, you’re just going to need to keep icing it for the next forty-eight hours, and besides some bruising and swelling that will last for a week or so, it should heal nicely.”

The nurse eases me back up to sitting, and I find Birdie at the foot of my bed, her pretty brown eyes narrowed into little slits again. I wonder if she’s always this suspicious of people. I, of course, deserve it, but still…I wonder how she got so jaded.

“Lucille will get all your discharge paperwork and instructions together, and we’ll have you out of here shortly,” Dr. Collins says, and I nod.

“Thanks, Doc. I appreciate it.”

Once Lucille and Dr. Collins leave the room, Birdie starts in on me.

“Did you just let them set your broken nose without any pain medicine?”

I shrug. “Yeah, I guess I did.”

“And you didn’t even flinch. Didn’t groan. Didn’t do any of the shit you’ve been doing since…”

“Since you elbowed me in the face?” I remind her, and she glares.

“You’ve been playing me this whole time.”

“Playing you?” I repeat. “I wouldn’t say I was playing you…”

“Are you kidding me?” Both of her hands fly up into the air. “You’ve been acting like you were in agony since the moment we left the restaurant!”

“Well, not the whole time. I spent a fair amount of time teasing you too.”

“Ugh!” She squeals as she stomps across the room and snatches her purse off the chair.. “I should’ve known it wasn’t possible for you to act like a grown fucking man.”

She heads for the door immediately, grabbing the knob with brute force—force I’m almost certain she’d like to be inflicting on me.

“You’re leaving?” I ask. “But they haven’t discharged me yet.”

“I think you and I both know you’re going to be just fine, you big fat liar,” she snaps back.

“But you drove me here, in my car, and the keys of said car are in my pocket,” I challenge. “How are you going to get home?”

“I’d rather hitchhike than spend another minute here dealing with your pretend bullshit.”

Well, shit. This isn’t exactly how I pictured this ending…

Not to mention, the idea of her hitchhiking has me feeling extremely uncomfortable.

“Wait, Birdie.” I try to coax her back, but she’s already putting her purse over her shoulder and turning the knob. “Okay, fine. If you don’t want to wait for me to drive you home, at least let me get you an Uber or a cab.”

“Pretty sure I can handle getting myself a freaking Uber,” she declares, and an odd sensation of relief fills my chest.

“So, you’re not going to hitchhike? Just Uber?”

“Of course, I’m not going to hitchhike, you idiot.” She huffs out another sigh and tosses both hands in the air. “And why am I even standing here answering your stupid questions!” she exclaims, talking to herself more than me. “Yeah, I’m done. I’m leaving.”

A glare and a scoff tossed in my direction are the last things I get before she opens the door and stomps through it. An unfamiliar part of me wonders if I’ve pushed her too hard, but the experienced part of me knows better. This is just a part of the game—they always come back.

“See you in a few weeks, sweetheart!” I call toward her retreating back, but she doesn’t entertain me with another response.

Per my assistant Blake, Birdie has to head back to Nashville tomorrow. It was one of the many excuses she used to avoid a dinner date with me.

But in two weeks, she’ll be back in LA to shoot Grass Roots. With me.

I’ll just have to find a way to keep her attention in the meantime.

I snag the clipboard off the bedside table, and my emergency contact stares back at me in pretty, feminine scrawl.





Birdie Harris


555-111-5554


I grab my phone off the bedside table and save her number under the only name that makes sense.

Firecracker.





Birdie



It’s not the ups and downs that make life difficult; it’s bobbing and weaving to avoid all the punches jerks like Andrew Watson like to pull.

My hands shake as I hit the button to download Uber from the app store while standing outside the hospital entrance. An ambulance pulls up to the bay, EMTs jumping out quickly to unload someone in real distress, and still, all I can think about is how angry I am at Andrew Watson.

The bastard played me.

Pretending—fucking acting—like he was in all this pain and making me feel guilty as hell for accidentally elbowing him in the face.

If I hadn’t left when I did, the doctor would have had to set his dang balls back into place after I shoved my knee into them.