Fumbled (Playbook #2)(13)

Sunday, he mouths.

This time I don’t fight the smile spreading across my face. Sunday, I mouth back.

Maybe this will be good. We can reconnect, remember why we used to be so good together, and then I’ll tell him. It could take some of the sting out of the blow.

Or maybe not.





Five




“You better fucking spill!” Sadie, finally out of patience, yells in sync with her makeup and garment bags hitting the floor in my entryway.

“Mouth!” I scold, but she’s having N.O.N.E. none of it. I’ve been dodging this for days and I’m out of evasive moves.

“Oh, hush. You already told me Ace was at a soccer sleepover. We’re grown as fuck and I will cuss if I want to.” Color starts to rise in her porcelain cheeks. They’re getting so red, they almost match her fire-engine hair. “You’ve been avoiding me since Tuesday and I want to know what the fuck is going on!” She stomps her foot and glitter falls from her jeans, dusting my hardwood floors.

I throw my head back and groan. “We’re going to need wine.” I knew we were going to have this conversation tonight, so I made sure my wine selection was on point . . . even though Sadie will only drink Moscato. It’s the biggest point of contention in our friendship.

“Really?” Her brows knit together and she drops her hands from her hips, forgetting her anger. “Didn’t you just meet him?”

“Sadie.” I grab her hand and drag her through my living room and into my kitchen.

My house, while small, is packed with personality. My kitchen is my favorite room.

Maya had been talking about remodeling the kitchen for months before she passed. She kept putting it off and putting it off until it was too late. And on top of everything sucking, walking into the dated kitchen she hated but thought she had time to change sucked even more.

So I decided to do something about it. Now, even though Maya left me some money, I tucked the vast majority of it into Ace’s college fund. The rest went to her funeral. Which meant doing the kitchen had to be finished not only in stages but on a seriously tight budget.

Luckily for me, I live in the age of Pinterest and free classes at the local Home Depot.

I did the counters first. I found out you could fake butcher block countertops by using pine panels. Considering my kitchen is the size of a postage stamp, the grand total came to under a hundred buckaroos. Cole let me borrow his tools, and in a day? Voilà! New countertops. A few months later, I painted the top cabinets a bright white and the same mint color as our front door for the bottoms. A few months—and some very large tips—after I splurged on a white subway tile backsplash. It cost too much money and I regretted it for weeks, but now it’s my favorite part. Then, last month, I was bored on the Internet and stumbled upon a stainless steel side-by-side refrigerator on Craigslist for a steal!

Yeah, sure, my appliances don’t match yet, but give me a couple of years. It’s going to be fab.

I don’t have to say anything to Sadie as we walk in. This is a practiced routine of ours. We are so good at it, in fact, that if navigating the kitchen were an Olympic sport, we’d get the gold every time.

She grabs two wineglasses with different-colored stems, even though I drink red wine like a grown-up and she drinks juice like a boozy toddler. I hand her bottle over to her and tuck mine under my arm as I pull the wine opener I glued a magnet to off the fridge and swing the door shut.

Once we both have full glasses, not that quarter-of-a-glass crap some people pull, we move to my living room and plop down on Maya’s worn-to-perfection charcoal sectional.

“So . . . ,” Sadie draws out, staring at me over the edge of her wineglass. “You ready to talk?”

I take a large gulp of my Malbec. “No.” I need a minute for this to kick in before I spill the beans.

“Then I’ll start.” She puts her wineglass on one of the coasters Ace made me for Christmas three years ago and tucks her legs underneath her. “TK Moore. Starting wide receiver and known party boy of the Denver Mustangs.”

Shit.

I should’ve started.

“Sad—” I start, but stop when Sadie does a superaggressive zipper motion in front of my mouth.

“No.” She points in my face, the redness coloring her face again. “I gave you tons of chances to tell me and you didn’t. So I went looking in other places and now you get to hear what I found out.”

I settle back and swallow another mouthful of wine.

“So . . . TK. Football and parties.” She picks up where she left off. “Two things you avoid like the plague. And not only does he party . . . he parties. The only reason all those Mustang players were at Emerald Monday night is because Rochelle partied with him over the weekend and promised him all sorts of shit if they came to us.”

Oh my god.

I might get sick.

Rochelle? Out of everybody in the entire state of Colorado, TK and I have her in common?

Disgusting.

Rochelle has hated me since my first day at the Emerald Cabaret. I’m not sure why, I just know she does. And if she has her eyes set on TK—which, let’s be honest, who wouldn’t?—and saw him talking to me? I’m more screwed than I ever dreamed.

And considering I already dreamt I was pretty screwed . . . this is really bad.