Page 33 of The Problem with Players

“Well, you should figure out how to be invisible because they called youhot!” She shivered as if the idea of me being good-looking was the most disturbing thing she’d ever heard of in her life. “They kept going on about how they’d love for you to coach them in different…ways. I even overheard teachers talking about how handsome you are.”

I laughed. “It’s not that serious.”

“It is. It’s so gross. So if you can just not look so much like you, that would be great.”

I smirked and flexed my arms. “I can’t help it that I’m so ridiculously handsome, Squirt. It’s a gift, it’s a curse.”

She rolled her eyes. “If only they knew how corny you are.”

I flexed my arms behind me. “Too bad they’ll never know because they are so wrapped up in my hotness.”

“It’s like you want to make me physically ill like Uncle Easton,” she complained.

I laughed. “Is he texting you that he’s on his deathbed, too?”

“Yes. He’s asking me to make my famous chocolate chip cookies as a farewell gift.”

“Don’t you dare make him those cookies.” I brushed my hand over my chin. “Unless you make me a dozen, too.”

“Uncle River said the same thing. You guys really need tolook into your cookie addiction. I’m surprised you don’t all weigh a million pounds.”

I flexed one more time. “What can I say? It’s genetics.”

She made more gagging sounds before we got to work. After a while, I flipped the “open” sign on the door. A few customers already waited outside for us to open, which wasn’t surprising. The shop always buzzed with business. Evan and Easton truly created a remarkable place. I wondered what our father would’ve thought of their success. He always wanted to open that shop before he passed away, but he never saw it come to fruition. That wasn’t due to anyone’s doing but his own, seeing how he gambled away the funds to make it come to life.

Still, sometimes I wondered if he would’ve been proud of them.

Then again, it wasn’t very characteristic for that man to have pride in anything other than himself.

A woman walked into the shop, laughing like a freaking hyena. Falling closely,veryclosely behind her was Wesley, Avery’s fiancé. He had an ice cream cone in his hands, and the woman turned to face him and slapped her hand against his chest. Wesley caught her hand in his grip. Oh shit. They were holding hands. At least for a split second. The woman leaned forward and licked the ice cream from the cone in Wesley’s hand.

Shelickedhis ice cream.

“You’re so ridiculous, Wes!” she sang, shaking her head in laughter as she wiped dripping ice cream from her chin. “There’s no way you thought that.”

“I one hundred percent thought that,” he said with a smug look on his face as he licked the ice cream.

They both licked from the same ice cream cone. They could’ve been having sex in public, as far as I was concerned. Not to be dramatic, but if I found out my fiancée was lickinganother man’s cone in public, that would be enough to call off a wedding.

Perhaps a part of me wanted to find any reason for Avery to call off her wedding.

Still… It felt inappropriate.

I stood behind the cash register with my arms crossed, annoyed by their mere existence. I’d never interacted with the guy in town, though I’d seen him around enough because he was with Avery and her family most of the time. Other than knowing he was about to marry Avery in a few weeks, I knew nothing about the man. Yet seeing how he was with a woman who wasn’t Avery made a newfound rage bubble up within me.

It only took me two seconds to notice something extremely inappropriate going on between the two individuals. I may not have known them personally, but I knew body language. And theirs was loud and clear.

Wesley looked up toward me and smiled as if he didn’t realize I hated his guts by him allowing that woman to put her hands on him in such a flirtatious way.

Avery deserved better.

He then turned toward the woman and said, “Drew, help me out here.”

Drew.

What a stupid, ugly name.

Stupid and ugly.

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