Page 5 of Well Played

Hallie: I fed the one thing in my life that cares for me. Satisfied?

Solace: Far from it. But it’ll do. Show me your bedroom.

Hallie: Lacking spank bank material?

Solace: That mouth will get you into trouble tomorrow, beautiful.

The next message was a picture of the cat on a queen sized bed with plain white pillows and a gray and white coverlet.

Hallie: That’s all you get. Don’t be pushy.

Solace: I appreciate the gesture. And the pussy.

Hallie: (middle finger emoji)

I laughed outright, the sound echoing across the empty parking lot.

Solace: All right. I earned that. Goodnight, Hallie. I’ll be in early tomorrow.

Hallie: Goodnight.

Hallie: Thank you for following me. I did like it.

I closed my phone, grinning like a fucking idiot and got in my car, lapping the city once before I headed home and showered in cold water, stroking myself to a denied orgasm that left me sagging against the icy tiles a hot mess as I thought of the girl who faced me despite her fear and didn’t run.

3

HALLIE

I avoided the training centre and the gym for the next week, and though I knew Solace followed me to the bus each night, he never walked beside me again after our heart shattering, panty-staining conversation.

Though each night I sent him a picture of my doormat, or my cat, or my slippers. And once, my bed.

And each night he replied the same way.

Solace: Thank you, beautiful. I’ll be in the gym early in the morning

No pressure, nothing. Somehow, weirdly, I felt more protected than ever.

Which left me back in the office, doing my job and being kind of…normal. Only I wasn't, because every time one of the team came in, I checked.

And not once, not one single time, was it Solace for the last week.

After touching me, the way he spoke, taunting, teasing…so much more than a simple water cooler flirtfest.

Or was it? Maybe this was his brand of flirting, and I bought too much into it. But I didn't think so. I doubted the other boys asked for shots of their casual fling’s beds, or checked they got home. Maybe they did. I hadn’t been in enough healthy relationships to know.

All I did know was that Solace Hunter offered the best and worst distraction of my short lived career and if I didn’t get my head out of the locker room, I wouldn’t have one.

A head, or a career.

I stared at the green cells on my spreadsheet. I had no idea what the data set was meant to be or how long I’d been looking at it. The information merged the longer I tried to focus and couldn’t and when I grabbed for my coffee not only was there a scant inch of liquid left in my oversized thermos, the lot had gone cold.

A quick check on my screen told me it was past lunchtime. So that’s how long it had been. Sighing, I pushed back from my desk, and ignored the gaggle at the water cooler who had probably congregated there since their training session had been over after morning tea. That was when the team’s photoshoot for this week’s media started, and the social gatherings across the office took off.

I’d become mostly immune to the comings and goings after my recent habitual Solace check—annoying as that had become—though it seemed that Janelle had indeed been inducted into team WAG sometime in the last week by the team’s captain, Huxley Radfield, while I let myself be distracted by a certain defender of my own.

But he’s not your own.

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