Page 84 of Dirty Player

College sweethearts.

Life just took us on a little detour. I had to do some growing up and realize my brothers’ point of views weren’t as important as what I thought.

I’ll work out my father later.

“Listen to me.” I pull her closer, brushing her tears with my thumbs. “Both of us have kept this from the other people in our lives. But now we’ll ease them into it. Show them how much we are in love.”

Her face crumples and I pull her to my chest when a song breaks through the silence, interrupting us.

I know what it is. Her mother’s ringtone.

Kaylee curses, pulls out of my arms, tugging her phone out of her dress pocket.

It’s late, almost midnight I think, and I’m almost certain both of us are thinking the same thing as she answers. Her dad...

“Mom?” Kaylee replies, then her mouth drops open, and she starts running.

Shit.

KAYLEE

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I DON’T KNOW where I’m going, but as Mom cries through the phone telling me Dad has had a heart attack and is in the emergency room, I just keep running.

When I find myself at the front of the convention center, I see a handful of cars and take a risk.

“Uber?” I yell into the window, and he lowers it.

“Where to?”

I tell him “the hospital” and he nods. By the time I’m climbing in, Levi is on my tail.

“Kaylee!”

I glance at him when I have one foot in the car, and freeze.

I can’t do this right now.

I know how much of a hypocrite I am, being angry at Levi for not telling his family and keeping me from them. I’ve done the same with mine.

Worse, I let them believe Levi was the one who ended it.

I’ve lied.

I didn’t want my father to see me as a cheater. Instead, I let him think Levi treated me like I was not good enough for him and his rich family.

I can’t let him come with me.

My parents would be furious and with Dad in the ER, this isn’t the time.

I’m not sure it ever will be.

How could I put his health at risk or confess to my mother the truth? That I lied to my father and now he’s dead.

If he doesn’t survive this.

What a fucking mess.

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