Page 2 of Scoring Position

He stops, his heaving breaths telling me he probably ran all the way here from the courtroom in his ugly penny loafers—a fashion choice that I’ve overlooked for the last eleven years because I love him.

Loved. Past tense. Not anymore.

“Are you mad at me?” he asks.

Jesus Christ.I’ll take“Things I Don’t Have Time For”for five hundred, Alex.

I look up to the sky, collecting myself before I say something I definitely mean, but still shouldn’t articulate. “No, Ryan. I’m not mad at you. I just think all of this could’ve been avoided if you had been willing to work it out in mediation. We’ve been goingback and forth over this for a year now, and I just want to move on with my life.”

“I’m sorry, babe,” he says, turning to look behind himself to make sure we’re still alone before continuing. “It’s my mom. She just doesn’t think you should keep our family name since you’re choosing to move forward with a career that might put us in a bad light, you know?”

I narrow my eyes, crossing my arms over my chest. “First of all,” I sass, “there’s absolutely nothing shameful about being a sex therapist. Every couple does it. Some care enough about their partner to decide to get help when things aren’t working—not that you’d know anything about that.”

His brows pinch in, confusion evident in his expression, becauseof course it is. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

I want to scream. Before we separated last year, Ryan and I had been together since our sophomore year of college. He wasn’t my first sexual partner, but there were only a couple before him, and they were just one-night stands after I vowed to have fun and experiment. Being in a serious relationship, I thought it meant that we would grow together—find out what the other liked and try new things. But after the initial excitement and newness wore off, our intimacy slowly became monotonous. I told him I wanted to try spicing things up in the bedroom after we got married, but he made it clear we were on completely different wavelengths. I didn’t feel that was a good enough reason to throw away the life we’d started to build, so I let it go, falling back into the same old routines we were used to. The sex was never bad, it was justmeh. I’d love to be able to describe it another way, but there just isn’t a better word.

“Never mind,” I say, thinking better of opening this can of worms with him. I made him aware several times throughout our five-year marriage that I wanted to explore different kinks,but that wasn’t who he was. That’s fine, and bringing it up again now that we’re officially divorced won’t help anything.

He turns and looks toward the courtroom exit again, and I finally realize what he’s doing.This guy is such a bitch.“So,” he says quietly, “do you want to go get lunch or something?” I roll my eyes because he’s been doing this since we separated. He wants to continue seeing each other quietly so Mommy Dearest doesn’t find out. How he thinks I’d be okay with that is mind-boggling to me. We were together for over a decade, and now he wants to hide me like some dirty little secret.

I narrow my eyes at him. “Absolutely not,” I spit. “And the fact that you’re even asking me that just solidifies what I already knew. That you’ll continue to put your mother ahead of everything because you know she’ll stop paying your way if you don’t. I couldn’t say this before because I didn’t want to cause any problems between the two of you, but now that I’m not legally tied to your family, I finally can. You need to grow a set of balls, Ryan. I used to think it was cute that you were a mama’s boy, but now it’s just gross.”

The moment he opens his mouth to speak, we hear a set of chunky heels making their way across the marble floor. He turns abruptly, and a smirk tugs at the corner of my mouth because I know I don’t have to hold back if she tries starting shit with me. I’ve put up with it for too long, trying my best to spare Ryan’s feelings. But now?

Fuck his feelings. And fuck hers too.

“Hello, Lark,” she says in her signature, snooty tone. Reaching out, she brushes a rogue strand of hair from his forehead, and it makes me want to vomit. She treats him like he’s eight years old, and he allows it because she pays almost every one of his bills. Even when we were married, she paid for the things he was responsible for, leaving me in charge of the rest.

“Gail,” I say flatly.

She forces an exhale. “That was all unnecessary, wasn’t it?” she asks. “Over a year of this nonsense, and all you had to do to make it easier was give us our last name back.”

I grit my teeth, trying to rein in my anger before I lose my shit. Inhaling through my nose and slowly letting it out of my mouth, I reply, “First of all, my divorce wasn’t any more of your business than my marriage was. Secondly, Dawson is just as much my last name as it is yours. I’m not changing my entire identity simply because you think I’m not worthy of it.”

To be completely real, I don’t even want to be Lark Dawson anymore. But everyone backs down to this woman—usually because she strong-arms them—and this is a way for me to remind her that she can’t control anything I do anymore.

“Alright,” she says, raising her chin. “But let me warn you, Lark. This isn’t over. You willnotmake our family look foolish with your trashy career choice.”

I look over to Ryan. I’m not sure why since he hasn’t taken my side a single time for the entirety of our relationship. True to form, he’s standing there with his shoulders hunched forward, averting his gaze and looking as small as ever. It justifies the fact that I did the right thing by going through with this divorce. Our marriage was destined to be mediocre, and I want more than that.

“Sounds fun, Gail,” I quip. “Good luck with that.”

I turn swiftly, walking toward the exit with my head held high, leaving them in my past, right where they belong.

TWO

ACE

“Studying hard?”my pitcher, Riggs Valentine, says, startling me from where I have my face buried in my Kindle. We’re currently flying from Daytona to Philadelphia to kick off a new series. I was able to secure my spot in the Human Sexuality elective for the summer semester, but after flipping through the textbook a couple of times earlier today, I opted for a smutty romance novel instead. I have to admit, I wasn’t expecting this course to be as in-depth as it seems to be, but with a few days left before my first assignment is due, I’ll try again later. At least the people in my books use terms I can understand. All that scientific stuff doesn’t really make sense to me.

“Uh, yeah,” I stutter, clicking the power button and pulling up the generic screensaver I use so none of the guys see what I’m reading. I’m sure if they saw the covers of some of these books, I’d never live it down. I can only imagine the shit they’d give me if they saw me carrying around an e-reader with a picture of a shirtless dude on it. I’ll stick with the images that come preloaded on the device, thank you very much.

He plops down into the seat next to me, reclining back slightly. “Jacks said you’re taking Human Sexuality. That seemslike a pretty easy class. Do you even need to look at the book for that, or can you just send video proof from any given Saturday night?”

I snap my head up to look at him, but recover quickly. I’ve never talked about my past with any of the guys, and I definitely don’t want to start now. Even though I’m still fresh meat, they’ve surprisingly welcomed me into their family already. But if they knew everything, they’d probably think twice about inviting me to go out with them. I’ve put on a good front that I’m just as much of a playboy as the rest of them, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Do I make out with girls on the dance floor? Hell yeah, I do. Kissing is one of my favorite pastimes. Sometimes I’ll let them grind on me for as long as I can take it before I come close to embarrassing myself, but that’s usually as far as it goes. I have more baggage than the cargo hold of this airplane, and I’d like to keep it locked up in the same vault it’s been in for the last three years.

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