Page 63 of The Play

“Well, shit,” she said.

“My thoughts exactly,” Grant said. “Cheryl’s gonna have a fucking field day with this.”

“Is she?” Darcy asked. “Or did she cause this field day, only to reap the benefits of it?”

“Benefits?” Grant felt like he was still wading through all the panic in his brain, and nothing was as clear as it normally was.

“Potentially, you—and to an extent, the whole Condors organization—looks bad. She takes care of us.”

Grant flopped back in his seat and considered this. “Does she want to get rid of us, though?”

Darcy raised an eyebrow.

“I mean,” Grant continued, “I kinda get the vibe from Cheryl that she enjoys giving us shit. We know they weren’t going to force us to sell the team, unless it was really ugly, which let’s face it, would’ve only happened if what Rex said was true. And we know it wasn’t. This is enough to make noise, but not enough to get rid of me. Of you. Just enough to make us look bad. To guarantee—”

“That she has to keep ‘monitoring’ us. To put us in our place,” Darcy finished with a grimace. “Yes, I see it.”

“We’ve got no proof, and in the end, it doesn’t even matter if it’s true. If it is Cheryl. We knew the commissioner’s office was a sieve.”

“But we didn’t think we had anything to hide,” Darcy argued. “Admittedly, we didn’t go through everything with a fine-tooth comb. There wasn’t time.”

“I don’t know even if we had, if it would’ve mattered. I’ve never gotten an email from Dougie, before. We met, in person, when I offered him that job, ages ago. The email index didn’t even know to prioritize his email. I bet you it was buried in like personal spam, or something.”

“Probably. And fucking Cheryl found it. One more round to make sure, my ass,” Darcy grumbled.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay. It’s not my fault or your fault. It’s not anyone’s fault.” Though it definitely was Cheryl’s fault, a little. That email never would’ve seen the light of day without her interference.

“It’s Dougie’s fault,” Darcy said, chuckling a little.

“Or Deacon’s, for being so stupidly irresistible I bought a whole football team to get his attention.”

Darcy shot him a sympathetic glance. “Have you thought any more about what you’re going to do?”

He’d told her about Nicole’s admonition that Deacon deserved to hear the truth from him.

“I’ll text him.” Grant had already pulled out his phone, but he didn’t even know how to start the conversation. I’m sorry you’re finding out like this, but I’m clearly, obviously, crazy about you. So crazy I bought your football team, the way other guys might buy flowers or chocolates.

“You can’t text him this,” Darcy said, eyes wide.

“I mean, text him to meet up.” Grant took a sip of his drink. “Nicole is right. I can’t let him find out about this from someone else. It’s bad enough as it is.”

“You don’t think he’s gonna be angry about it?” Darcy asked. “How could he be? You came charging in like a knight on a white horse to save him and everything he loves. How can he be pissed about that?”

“I don’t know, he was pretty mad this week. Justifiably.” And that stung. He’d fucked this whole thing up, and even coming clean wouldn’t fix it all.

“Well, text him then. Set up your date,” Darcy said, gesturing to his phone. “No time like the present.”

Grant glanced down at the screen. He kept imagining seeing a red alert text from Nicole, letting him know the shit had hit the fan.

But so far, so good.

“Just gotta figure out how to phrase it,” Grant said, fingers hesitating over the screen.

It took him ten attempts and one and a half gin and tonics to construct a suitably personal and apologetic and yet casual message.

Words were not his strong suit.

Especially when they were this important.

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