Page 14 of My First and Only Crush

“How about you?” I ask to fill the silence. “What are your plans to celebrate?”

Jeff shrugs. “Dunno. Hadn’t let myself think it might actually happen.”

“Yeah. I feel that.” I scrub my hand into my still damp hair.

“Might spend a week on a beach somewhere.”

“With Sinclaire?”

He looks surprised. “My twenty-four-year-old daughter doesn’t want to go on vacation with me, man.”

“Twenty-five,” I correct automatically.

There’s a pause. “Fuuuuck. Today’s her—” He looks at his watch. “It was her birthday. I missed it.”

“You were busy.”

“You remembered.”

I scrub my hand over my face as he pulls out his phone and sends her a text message. I read it out of the corner of my eye.

Jeff: Happy Birthday! I’m sorry I forgot to text you earlier. Was a little busy today. Your mom would kick my ass for forgetting, though.

He waits a beat, but she doesn’t reply.

Jeff: Love you, kiddo. Trick says I should take you on vacation. Would you like that?

I laugh and he thumps me on the arm.

He sighs. “I should have insisted she come with me for this trip. But she’s been busy doing her own thing, and I was relieved, to be honest. I don’t like her being around the players, you know?”

I grunt. Yeah, I’m intimately familiar with that fucking stress. For multiple reasons.

The elevator slows, then the doors open.

“How many times have we done this?” Jeff gestures to the empty hall ahead of us. The thick carpet, the generic luxury hotel room doors.

Hundreds of times.

“I’m retiring,” I say quietly.

He stops walking.

I exhale roughly. “Sorry. Wrong time to say that.”

“Nah.” He laughs. “I thought we might try again next year, that’s all.”

“I’m tired.”

“Maybe wait a week to make that decision, yeah?”

I don’t answer.

He slows at his door, but keeps walking. I’m at the end of the hall. Now I’ve done it. He’ll want to come in for a drink and talk me out of this, thinking it’s a rash decision.

Ah, well. It’s probably better than getting drunk by myself and thinking about how good Sinclaire would feel bouncing on my dick.

I tap my card against my door, then lean against it without opening it. “Look, I don’t want to talk about it tonight, okay?”

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