Page 58 of Her Football Star Ex

“No.” I shook my head. “I still stayed. But he ended up sleeping in Jaxon’s room, which was probably for the best.”

Knowing that that big man had sobbed himself to sleep next to my son had nearly gutted me when I’d found out about it this morning. It just seemed like we should have already met the quota of pain we caused each other by now.

“Anyway,” I continued. “The police called this morning and said I should be safe to stay at home tonight. So I’m going to just try to put this weekend behind me and try harder to move on.”

“That’s all we can do sometimes.” Kira nodded. “Move on.”

And as if the universe was trying to send me some sort of signal, my phone dinged. It was a message from a guy named Andy.

I shifted through my memory, trying to remember who Andy was. Then it came to me—he was one of the guys I’d messaged on Saturday afternoon before Tyler.

I swiped my finger across the screen.

Andy:Hey Emerson! Are we still on for drinks at Roco’s tonight at 7?

“What is it?” Kira asked, probably noticing the apprehension on my face. “Is it the police? Or Vincent?”

I shook my head and showed her the message from the dating app. “It’s a guy I set up a date with before all the crap hit the fan this weekend.”

She narrowed her eyes, seeming to study his photo. “He looks cute.”

“Yeah, I guess.” I shrugged and glanced at the image of a guy with bleached blond hair and the shoulders of someone who lifted a lot of weights. “I’m just not sure I’m really in the mood to make small talk with a stranger tonight.”

“I get that,” she said. “You can cancel if you want. I’m sure he would understand if you explained your weekend.”

I did have a pretty good excuse.

“Plus, if you don’t have a date for my wedding, I can still hook you up with Marty.”

“Are you trying to use some sort of reverse psychology to get me to keep my date with Andy?” I narrowed my eyes.

“What? Me?” She put her hand to her chest in an innocent gesture, but her lips spread into a guilty grin.

“You are pure evil sometimes,” I said.

She laughed. “I just think you deserve to let loose once in a while and drinks with a cute guy seems like the perfect way to do that.”

I thought about it.

I did need to move on, and I still needed a date for the wedding. I might as well go and see how it went. I was going to be without Jaxon tonight anyway, I might as well have some company.

So I typed in a response.I’m looking forward to it. See you at seven.

And then, just because his message had reminded me of Tyler, I decided I might as well message him, too.

22

Vincent

“What’s got you down today?”Cole asked when I walked into the locker room to pack up for the day. “Still bummed about yesterday’s game?”

We had a finished our day at the stadium, getting massages and all the fun physical therapy they did to help our bodies repair from the beating we took during our game the day before.

“It’s a little of that.” I pulled a clean shirt over my head, the thin fabric stretching as I brought it down. “But most of it has to do with Emerson.”

“Yeah?” he asked. “Did she find out it was you who was messaging her?”

“No. It’s not that.” I sighed and sat down on the bench. “She had some weird stuff happen at her house this weekend, so she ended up staying at my place last night.”

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