Page 96 of Time to Bounce

I mean, he’d said it was innocent… but was it really?

Was I just stupid?

Was I seeing more in it than…

No.

He’d said he loved me.

I’d told it to him.

Gable wasn’t the kind of person to tell someone he loved them when he had feelings for someone else.

He was a good man, unlike my previous boyfriend.

There was a reason he didn’t want me in there and wanted her.

I knew that.

Logically, I knew that.

That didn’t stop the grief and sadness from welling up inside me, and damn those tears were back.

“You don’t want Athena in here?” I heard Garrett ask.

Gable said something that made Garrett mad, and I knew it wasn’t complimentary to me.

He was mad that I’d done this.

I understood that.

It wasn’t every day that someone else’s stupidity got them stabbed.

I pulled away from Germaine, but he tightened his hold, forcing me to stay in place.

Really, I would’ve stayed, but then Callena came barreling around the corner looking frantic, and I got an irrational urge to throat punch her on her way in there.

“I’m going back up to Maven,” I said softly. “Keep me updated on things here, please?”

Germaine studied my face before turning to look over the tall heads of his children in front of him.

He could see what I couldn’t.

And maybe I didn’t want to see.

Especially when Callena managed to push herself through the throng of Carters into the room.

Another deep voice I didn’t recognize came from the room, but I didn’t stay long enough to contemplate who that was.

Instead, I tried to appear as if I wasn’t rushing on my way back to the maternity ward.

I’d watch Maven have her baby.

Then I’d decide what to do about Gable Carter later.

Well, well, well, if it isn’t me crying because I put on a sad song on purpose.

—Athena’s secret thoughts

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