Be My Hero (Forbidden Men #3)(51)

I glanced at the tat, read it carefully, and snorted out a laugh. "National champs? Didn't you guys lose that game?"

"And didn't I say we got them the night before?" he growled, shoving his sleeve back down to cover the mark.

I stopped razzing him since he seemed so miserable. But I still wasn't happy about what I'd just learned. "So, the girl got stuck with all the heat, and you just . . . let her take the fall . . . by herself?"

"No." He slammed a frustrated fist against my dashboard. On any other day, I would've called the prick out for that. No one treated my ride with such disrespect, but he was having a bad day, so I let it slide this time.

"I did not just let her take the fall," he said. "By the time I'd found out what had happened, she was already gone. Ten and Hamilton managed to talk me out of confessing to Coach. But that's what I should've done. Damn it. Instead, I went to Aspen's boss and tried to talk him into bringing her back. Big f*cking mistake. Let me tell you. Coach would've just kicked my ass off the team and pulled my scholarship."

A bad feeling dropped into my stomach. "But not this prick?"

Gamble shook his head, looking a lot more homicidal than suicidal. "Nope, not this prick. When he learned I was the guy in the picture, not only did he refuse to reinstate her, but he refused to reprimand me. He's a big football fan, you see. So I threatened to leave school and drop out of the team if he didn't bring her back, to which he in turn threatened to go public if I even acted like I was going to leave. So now she's gone, and I'm stuck here in order to save her reputation and make sure she doesn't lose all chances of getting a job anywhere else in the country. But in the meantime, yeah, I look like a complete bastard for letting her take all the heat for our relationship."

"Man." I shook my head and blew out a low whistle. "That's harsh. Sucks to be you right now."

"Yep." Once again, he turned to stare out the side window.

"And you haven't heard from her at all since that went down?"

He sniffed as if trying to hold in some tears. "No. I'm pretty sure she left town. She won't answer her door, and her mail has been piling up."

"You don't think she would hurt herself, do you?"

Noel glanced slowly at me, giving me a hard stare. "Well, I hadn't until now. Jesus, she wouldn't—wait. No. Her car's gone too. If she were in the house, her car would still be there. She's okay."

I wasn't so sure. "Unless—"

"Jesus, Pick," he snapped. "Stop freaking me out. She's okay. She just needs some time."

"Well, if you ever need to get into her place, just to check and make sure, I know how to jimmy a lock."

Gamble shook his head. "God, man. Where'd you learn a handy trick like that? The state pen?"

Wow, let a guy know you'd done a little time and he immediately thought you were some hardcore ex-con. I guess that's what I got for beating the piss out of one of Tristy's tormentors.

"I never went to the pen, ass wipe. It was county lockup for, like, two weeks. And, no, I didn't learn how to break and enter in jail. You meet all kinds of interesting kids when you grow up in the foster care system."

His eyebrows lifted. "I didn't know you grew up in foster care."

"Yep. From birth until I graduated out of it at eighteen." And that was exactly why I never, ever, not even for one night, wanted Julian put into foster care. I knew exactly what kind of shit he could face.

Spotting the address Lowe had given me for his place, I pulled to the curb, my stomach jumping with excitement. "Here we are."

My adrenal glands spiked. I felt so hyped and alive, ready to see her, a person might've thought I was ready to race in an Olympic competition.

I almost forgot about Gamble as I climbed out of my car and strode toward the open bay door of a garage attached to a decent split-level apartment complex.

She was here, somewhere in this building. I couldn't wait to see her again.

But as I approached the opening, I caught sight of some guy standing inside the garage, his back to me and his hands on his hips. It wasn't Mason, that was for damn sure. I was about to call out some kind of greeting to him, make sure he wasn't some creeper lurking around when he said, "Holy shit, you got fat."

That's when I spotted Eva in the garage, trying to pull something out of an open chest freezer. Her ass was pointed out at us, which didn't look fat at all to me. Hell, I couldn't even tell she was pregnant until she popped upright and spun to face the other visitor.

Her face instantly drained of color as she said, "Oh my God. Alec?"

Shit.

I ducked out of the doorway and grabbed onto Noel when he tried to pass me to walk into the garage. Then I yanked him down next to me while I crouched to my knees.

I have no idea why I wanted to hide while she had a talk with Alec, but meeting her baby daddy was not high on my priority list. I wanted to race in there and remove his balls from his nut sac in the most painful way ever, which I doubted Tinker Bell would appreciate.

This was none of my damn business. That was not my woman, and that f*cking douche probably meant way more to her than I ever would.

That's what I kept repeating to myself, anyway. I had to hum in my head to give her some privacy and not listen in, though.