Page 6 of The Power Play

“She’s here,” he points to the curvy brunette on the dance floor, but my eyes are drawn to the woman she’s dancing with. Her back is to me, and I can’t help but notice how perfectly her ass is hugged in the jeans she’s wearing. Her shoulder length dark hair sways as she swings her body around. That’s the friend who has been giving me death glares since the game.

“What is the deal with her friend?” I ask him without taking my eyes off her quite yet.

“Audrey? Did your date with her not go well or something?” He chuckles and my eyes swing to him immediately.

“What date?”

He narrows his eyes at me like I’m fucking with him. “Dude, the date. With Audrey. I gave you her number and told you where and when to meet her.”

I search my memory for what he’s talking about, and then it hits me. I knew right then I would just be using her number to cancel on the date and then I…fuck.

“Shit,” I mutter, taking a big gulp from my beer.

“You ditch her?” Dumont questions.

“I didn’t mean to, I just, fuck,” I run my hand through my short hair.

I don’t date. I don’t talk about it with any of my teammates and not a single person knows why I don’t, but any time anything like this comes up, I find a way out of it. I don’t want to be an asshole to anyone, but I guess that’s what I did.

“I’m not helping you fix this,” he shakes his head at me.

My eyes find Chandler and Audrey on the dance floor again, feeling guilty for standing Audrey up when I didn’t even mean to. I guess that makes sense why she was making faces at me. I should probably explain and then let her know it’s not her, I just don’t date. Or maybe I avoid her. I feel like that will be harder since she’s friends with my teammates’ girlfriend.

I down the rest of my drink, continuing to watch the two women laughing and dancing. I decide to face this head on. I might as well clear the air now so we can both just comfortably avoid each other for the rest of the season.

Without saying anything to anyone I make my way to the dance floor, squeezing between the crowd to get to Audrey. I step up behind her and notice how much I tower over her. It’s not unusual for me, I’m six foot four and she’s probably around a foot shorter than me. Now that I’m here I don’t even know what I should say. She doesn’t seem to notice me since her movements haven’t slowed. Then, her ass connects with my front, and I about jump out of my skin. Instinctively, my hand goes to her waist to prevent her from doing that again.I think.

She turns around, a seductive smile on her face that immediately drops the moment she sees it’s me. I notice that she doesn’t step back or out of my touch, but I remove my hand slowly from her body.

“Can I talk to you for a second?” I ask, leaning in so she can hear me over the loud music, and I notice the floral smell from her perfume or shampoo.

Her hand meets my chest and I feel my heart rate kick up instantly. She pushes slightly so I stand up straight in front of her.

“No,” she says before turning back around to face Chandler.

I’m slightly dumbfounded, I thought she might want to just hear me out, see what I have to say. I think about walking back to the table, probably calling it a night and going home. But for some reason it’s bothering me that she doesn’t know it was an accident. I know it shouldn’t matter; I just want her to know.

With a sigh, I lean down, my lips close to her ear, “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize we had a date.”

She whips around again with narrowed eyes behind her black rimmed glasses. “Doesn’t matter anymore, have a good night.” She tries to give me her back again, but I stop her with a hand on her hip which only makes her look at me like she’s a second away from murdering me, so I drop it instantly.

“I just want to apologize so the rest of the season isn’t awkward since I’m sure I’ll see you around.”

“Okay. That it?”

“Uh, yeah, I guess,” I glance to Chandler to see if she’s paying attention to what’s happening, but she’s looking toward where the other guys are.

“Great, see you around, Mann,” Audrey dismisses me, turning around one final time and continuing to dance.

It takes me a little longer before I’m able to move again because I’m so shocked by how horrible that conversation went. I don’t know exactly what I expected, maybe her to care a bit more that I’m actually apologizing. I guess it doesn’t even matter anyway, I did what I could to avoid the potential for future awkwardness.

Once I’m back at the table with the other guys I announce that I’m heading home. They try to convince me to stay longer and jab at me for wanting to leave so early, but I don’t care. I’m tired and don’t want to be surrounded by people right now.

My teammates continue to give me shit as I walk away from them, and I end up flipping them all off. Their laughter fades into the background of the noise all around until I’m outside. The temperature has dropped quite a bit since I got here, the cool Colorado air feels good after being in the hot stuffy club.

I drive home and tell myself I’m not going to check to see if Lacey is online. I doubt she is, and I don’t need to check before I go to sleep. If I do, that would just add to the possibility I have a slight obsession with her and I refuse that to be true.

Yet, after I’ve taken off my clothes, brushed my teeth, and am crawling into bed, I find myself pulling up the app on my phone and checking her virtual room. She’s not online and I ignore the disappointment, even though Iknewthis would be the case. I get notifications when she comes online, but I could have missed it, though I know that’s not true.

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