Page 98 of Puck Prince

“He grabbed my arm. At first he was… nice. He seemed like he’d been drinking but, like, everyone has, you know? And I didn’t think anything of it.”

“But then?”

Callie shifts into reverse, wiping her face, cringing away—not from me, but from the memory in her head. “I don’t know. I’m probably just being ridiculous about the whole thing.”

I allow myself to touch her knee, to give it a reassuring squeeze. “Don’t do that. Don’t downplay what you’re feeling. He obviously did something to upset you. What was it?”

It’s like pulling teeth, but after chewing on the words for a minute, she goes on. “He was friendly. But kind of… too friendly.”

“He came onto you?”

Lance was right. Something was going on. You think you know a guy…

Callie’s eyes widen, and she shakes her hands. “No! No. I mean, not exactly. He just… I don’t know.” She buries her face in her hands.

Meanwhile, I am fuming. My jaw clenches and unclenches as I think about it. As I think about what I’ll do to him for touching her.

“Owen.” Her words jerk me back into the moment. Mostly because she’s leaned closer. Her hands are on my thighs. “Nothing happened. He was just drinking and talking, and I got a little uncomfortable. But he didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Callie, if he made you uncomfortable—if he upset you this much—then he did something wrong. Whatever he said or did was clearly out of line.”

I stand up, nearly knocking my chair over.

Fuck. The way I feel right now, I want to do a lot more damage than that. I want to flip fucking tables.

I want to knock Miles on his ass in front of the cameras—the world. I want to show them what happens when they touch what doesn’t belong to them.

“Can we just not make a big deal of it?” Callie whimpers, scrubbing at her cheeks. “I overreacted. I do that sometimes.”

But again, she won’t look at me. Her memory is taking her somewhere else. By the look in her eyes, I can tell it’s a place she doesn’t like to go—tries to never go.

So I cool the engines and sit back down.

“You can talk to me, Cal,” I rasp, doing everything I can to keep my anger in check. I take her hand in mine. “I’m listening.”

Her chin wobbles again like she’s seconds away from shedding tears. But she swallows it all down. “Do you remember… when we were signing the contract in my uncle’s office? He said something about me having a history at work…”

I nod. “I remember.”

“It’s not, like, a long history. It was just—I’m saying it was just one guy. The last team I worked with. I sort of got… involved with one of the players.”

“Okay.” My voice is gentle. My touch is even gentler. Because I want her to keep going. Because I want her to tell me anyone who has ever hurt her so I can wipe them off the face of the Earth.

I see how much these memories scare her and how hard this is to talk about.

And whatever happened with Miles ripped the stitches out of those old wounds and now she’s bleeding. I need to stop it.

“It was so stupid. I told myself I wasn’t going to do that. I was fresh out of college and a lot of the people in the industry didn’t take me seriously, including the players. So I told myself to stay professional and prove them wrong. And then I met… someone… He was nice. Charming. But you know what they say about charm…”

“It’s dangerous.”

“Exactly. We started seeing each other, but he wasn’t who I thought he was. He was too much. And kind of aggressive. I guess I have a little PTSD from it.” Callie shakes her head, pulling her hand back. “Anyway, I’m fine. I don’t even know why I’m telling you this. I just get triggered sometimes, and I overreact. That’s all.”

I take in what she’s saying and sit with it for a minute.

How the hell do I deal with this? On one hand, I know she’s barely scratching the surface of the story. On the other, she’s so close to dissolving that every instinct in my body is screaming at me to hold her together. Not to poke, not to pry—but to protect.

Keep her safe,it’s saying.Keep her whole.

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