Page 37 of Those Heartbreak Scars

“I’ll walk you out.” I follow him through the flat to the front door.

It feels like we didn’t really talk about whatever was bothering him before we crashed into bed. The stuff about change. It feels important in a big, big way.

I watch him search his pockets for his keys. “What did you mean you’re scared you’re too broken to change?”

“I just…” He takes a deep breath and dispels it. “I’m sorry, Rica. We should talk, and we will.” He kisses my cheek. “But I really have to go. Later. I promise.”

“Okay.” I’m a little disappointed as we step outside, but of course it can wait.

Everett smiles wide while walking up the garden path. “There’s my girl.”

Chapter Fourteen

Gray

Those first few months after Indy left me, I went a little off the deep end. I quit my job, sold my condo, and found a corner of the world where I could hide and lick my wounds. But all that did was give me far too much time to let the rot set in.

Indy left me. She fell for someone who wasn’t me. And she cut me out like I was the cancer in her life. She moved on with him.

Anger and hate settled in during that time I spent in a hut on the beach. And so did the booze. Until I woke up with a mouthful of sand and my head under water as the tide came in one morning.

Crawling my near-drowned, hungover ass out of the waves was only the first step. I had to get my head on right enough to beg for my job back when my bosses no longer had confidence in me, and my client portfolio had been divided up between the other agents I worked with.

In any sport, too much time on the bench with an injury—even a broken heart—can cost a career. I’m lucky I had a great track record for years prior. My bosses were willing to take that into consideration when they agreed to give me another shot.

I’m working as hard to rebuild my roster as I had to when I first started. And it’s as tedious and slow as it was back then. No one wants a rep they can’t be sure will be there when they’re needed. Contracting Mann is the necessary step in the right direction. I need him.

As the soccer player struts toward us I grin and wave as I mutter under my breath barely loud enough for America to hear, “Not your boyfriend, huh?”

“I can see whoever I want to see, Gray,” America whispers back. “And I didn’t know he was coming over.”

He’s a brilliant soccer player. He has magic feet. But he also has an Instagram account that might as well be a champagne ad for the party lifestyle. Every image has a different beauty clinging to him.

And then there’s the things I’ve heard in the bleachers. He goes in hard and cools off quick. That might be okay for groupies, but not for a girl like America. She gets obsessive about things. He’ll end up hurting her, intentionally or not.

I wouldn’t want any of my friends dating him. This is why I don’t want her to date him. Right?

Well, maybe my opinion is skewed. I don’t have any other friends I can’t keep my hands off.

She jogs over and hugs him with her whole body. There’s so much affection in it. Like he really is the boyfriend she wants. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

He lifts her off her feet to hug her tighter.

I glance down at my whitening knuckles, wrapped around my keys. At the bruising from punching that creep professor earlier. I feel like taking a shot at Mann too.

I’m not a fighter. There were a few times in college, during games where I’d lose my temper. But most of those fights were settled with a shove and a few hotheaded insults.

And there was that night when I picked up Indy and America from a nightclub when they were freshly twenty-one. America had been trembling so hard as they’d raced to my car withsome drunk asshole on her tail. Indy had been flipping out and snapping at him to back off.

I’d fallen a little harder for Indy that night as I’d put myself between the girls and that idiot. The girl with the plan and the big heart and the bravery to face up to things that could hurt her. I was prepared to throw punches, but ultimately didn’t need to.

The last time that I almost hit someone, desperately wanted to, was the night my replacement brought Indy back to our apartment covered in Jell-O.

Recalling that slimy, disgusting, chunky, vomit-like shit all over her… It’s enough to make me want to gag, but that’s not the only thing that makes me queasy as Mann brushes his lips against America’s.

I’m possessive of America. I’m jealous. I want to spend time with her. When I’m with her I can’t stop myself from touching her. I’m not thinking about Indy. I’m not drowning in misery the way I have been since Indy left me. For the first time in a long time I’m thinking about someone else.

But I didn’t wake up this morning thinking about America. I woke up bitter, with my chest aching so hard that I would have suspected a heart attack if I hadn’t recognized it as the same sensation I’ve felt regularly since Indy left me. Finding America was the distraction I needed. The fact that I didn’t think about Indy again until just now… it doesn’t matter. Not when I can’t let her go. That’s not fair to America.

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