Page 40 of Inside the Penalty Box

“We’ve been back here for twenty minutes and I’m still waiting. You can’t force me to stay here, you know. I can always head down to my car and go to Lorelai’s,” she said, crossing her arms in front of her.

I clenched my jaw tight. I was still fuming from earlier, and I didn’t need the attitude from her right now. What I needed was patience and understanding, something I rarely, if ever, received from Carlie. However, I had to remember that I hadn’t given her the story yet to receive any sort of understanding.

I glanced up at her. I could see the anger in her eyes and in her body language. She had every right to be angry. Carlie had almost ripped the hair right out of her head.

I’d already heard from Knox and Clay. They’d called the police and our lawyer, but Carlie had taken off before anyone got there.

“I’m waiting, and I’m giving you another twenty seconds to start before I put my shoes on and walk out that door for good.”

“Alright, look, first, are you alright? Do you hurt anywhere?” I asked, getting up and making my way over to her. As soon as I went to place my hands on her arms, she stepped out of my reach.

“I’ll be fine. What the hell was that? Who was that?”

“That was my ex.”

Aurora said nothing. She just looked at me, waiting for me to continue.

“It started with Sullivan Novak,” I said, anger coursing through my body as she watched me. It didn’t matter how many times I’d told the story. His name still made me want to punch anything in my way, just as much as it did when we played against him and his team.

“Who is that?”

“He was a guy on our team. The team traded him midway through last season, shortly before everything went down, thank god, otherwise he probably wouldn’t be alive, and or I’d be in jail.”

“Okay.”

“Carlie made advances toward him, or maybe I should say he made advances toward her, I’m not entirely sure. I found out about them at an away game when I’d thought she was away with her family. When I was on my way back to my hotel room, I heard what sounded like her voice. I turned to look, and that was when I saw her with him. They were kissing, and then they entered his hotel room and shut the door.

“Anger filled me, so I marched down the hall and banged on the door. She answered, then burst into tears, begging me to forgive her. She’d apparently been sexting with him for months and had been seeing him behind my back. Every chance she got, she was in bed with him, every family vacation she’d lied about, every work trip she’d gone on and each time he was in town and told me she couldn’t watch or come to the game she’d been with him. They’d done this right under my nose after lying to me. When I found out, it fucking gutted me. My world stopped.”

Aurora said nothing. I wasn’t sure what to think at this point as she stared at me.

“It didn’t stop there. When I stood my ground, she dragged my name through the mud every chance she got. Our breakup was already all over online and in the papers. Reporters ate the story up. Then she started dragging my name right through the mud on social media and to reporters every chance she got. It came to the point I had to get a cease and desist, and a restraining order put in place. She was ruining me. I lost sponsors because of her. She was literally killing my career and my bank account.”

“She didn’t seem to think you were over tonight. She seemed to—”

I stopped where she was going with this, because it was something I’d heard repeatedly every time she surfaced and acted this way. “Let me guess, it looks like I caused the breakup, right? Like I was the one who cheated. If you were to dig hard enough, you could probably find an old article online that says the same thing, but I can assure you it was her actions that landed her where she is. I cut her loose so she could have what she wanted, Sullivan Novak. Other than that, none of it was me.

“Also, we weren’t engaged. We’d talked about getting married, about having kids, but that was all. There was nothing in the works. To be honest, I wasn’t even sure she was the one. I’d started having doubts about five months earlier. All she did was confirm it. After, there was no room for forgiveness after what happened. She went for the other guy and tried to blame me for it all.”

“I’m just telling you what I saw. She attacked me as if she were still with you and I were your latest conquest.”

“Of course she did, and honestly, I was expecting this when I did that interview the other night. It was stupid of me to even answer the question they asked about my personal relationship. I should have known better. I should have known that wasn’t an approved question.”

“Approved questions?”

“Yes, the interviewers are supposed to give our PR department a list of questions and they go through and approve of them. I haven’t been interviewed in months because of her, but my lawyers and the team’s lawyers said things should be fine now. I was told all questions were approved, but I’m guessing they snuck that one in and that our PR department never got a copy of some of those questions. Without being warned, they caught me on the spot. I just couldn’t pass over it.”

“So you are saying she only did this because of that interview?”

“That’s my guess. She hasn’t been around otherwise.”

“So you’re not dating her? Right?”

“No, and I’m not interested. I wish she’d just leave me the hell alone, because who the hell knows what will come out about this tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow?”

“Yes, everything snowballs in this business, especially with the media. So, if there were any media outlets nearby, this will be all over the place in the morning.”

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