Page 58 of Well Played

“Who sounds like a keeper?” Mateo poked his head in the bedroom doorway, his eyebrows pinched.

“Just someone who knows how to treat a woman right.” I hid my smirk as his eyes bounced between Tia and me, as though searching for clarification. Tia’s face was as blank as mine, but I noticed her eyes drop to take him in as he wandered further into the room. Violet was right. The man was a snack, if you liked tall, lean, Latino swimmer types.

You just had to ignore the fact he took pride in his reputation both as a player and the team clown.

“I know how to treat a woman right.” The pout in his voice had me rolling my eyes as Tia ignored him in favor of pumping foundation out onto her hand.

After another twenty-five minutes of Tia painting my face while we both ignored Mateo’s attempts to charm her, I appliedmy own fake lashes and we took a moment to appreciate her handiwork.

“If you ever get tired of waiting tables, you could have a decent future in makeup artistry,” I joked, admiring the subtle beauty of the work she had done.

“I’m already tired of waiting tables, but I don’t think this is my new career path. I’m not quite over my old one yet.”

Her eyes darkened with a sadness I could never imagine, and when Mateo opened his mouth to question her, I changed the subject quickly.

“Should we get the dress out?”

Tia looked relieved at the new direction of conversation, even as Mateo looked put out.

It was her place to decide who knew about her career ending knee injury, and the devastating timing of it during her rookie year in professional soccer. She could have been a star.

At her instruction, Mateo unhooked the dress bag and laid it out on the bed with a care that surprised me.

“Should I open it?”

“Tia, have you spoken to your brother recent—Oh! Are we getting the dress ready?” Mrs Cavanaugh forgot the phone in her hand as soon as her eyes landed on what was laid out on the bed, but I was more concerned about what she had been going to say.

“What’s wrong with Oscar?”

She hummed, shooing Mateo out of the way as she lowered the zipper on the bag.

“Oh, nothing to worry about. He isn’t answering his phone, but I’d say he’s probably busy making sure everything is perfect.”

And like fate had decided to prove how not-perfect I could make the day, she opened the bag to reveal the dress.

Silence fell over the room as we all took in the sight before us. No one was willing to speak first.

We were fucked.

5

Oscar

“Don’twe get one phone call?” Cian slumped beside me on the bench of the holding cell. After our dramatic arrest on the beach, the cops drove us to the nearest police station and, after stripping Cian and Cam of their phones, they dumped us in this cell. That was when we’d discovered my phone was in the car — along with my suit — and was now sitting in an impound lot.

“Do you even know anyone’s number to call, if they let us?” Cam asked miserably. He’d raged right alongside us when we were first thrown in here, but seemed to have settled into a level of acceptance that I refused to attain.

I was getting married today, dammit, even if I had to perform a jailbreak to do it.

“I could call Coach,” Cian offered.

“He’s not your coach anymore. I’m sure he has other screw-ups to deal with. He doesn’t need to hear from us.”

We all hummed sadly at the thought. I missed the team like crazy, and if I didn’t get a call from my agent soon, I’d have tothink about finding a real job. The idea of working a nine-to-five desk job was almost as depressing as our current predicament.

“I’ll call Fraser. He can bail us out, at least.”

The plan wasn’t perfect, but as the resident nepo baby, Fraser had the funds to help and the family connections to make it happen fast.

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