Page 124 of The Shake Off

His brows dropped. “What then?”

I took a deep breath and stretched in my seat as the plane hurtled down the runway and its front wheels finally lifted. Holding onto my nose, I blew hard until my ears popped and the plane levelled out.

Parker was still waiting patiently for an answer.

“I mean, it’s about Payton, but it’s not about her. My game is fine; I know that and you know that. But I’ve been thinking about that morning Payton was hungover, and something wasn’t right.”

“What d’you mean?”

“Dude, she was so drunk. No one gets drunk on their own like that unless there’s a problem. I found the empty bottles when I was cleaning. She’d sunk more than the party we threw when we moved into Casa Greyskull.”

I grinned, man that was a good housewarming party. We did have to apologize to our downstairs neighbors though, and promise to warn them next time we threw another so they could go away for the night.

“Oh, come on,” Parker scoffed.

“Okay, maybe not that much, but she was puking like that chick in The Exorcist.”

Tanner snorted loudly. “Still can’t believe you got puked on.”

I ignored him, “Anyway, something was up. She didn’t message me all day. She was totally normal when she left for work earlier.”

I stopped talking, biting down on the grin I was trying my best not to let form as the image of Payton’s full pouty lips wrapped tightly around my dick flashed through my memory. “A morning wake-up,” she’d said, and I’d come so quickly I’d gotten a headrush.

No, there’d been nothing wrong when she’d left her apartment.

“Then what?”

I jerked a shoulder and went back to looking out the window, even though it was pitch black and I couldn’t see anything except the wing lights flashing. “I dunno. It’s what I’m trying to figure out.”

“You’re starting to sound like a girl who got dumped.”

“I didn’t get dumped, Tan,” I snapped, even though that’s exactly what had happened.

He was about to reply when his focus was caught by something else.

“Heads up, Shepherd’s on his way.”

I glanced over Parker’s head to see Penn Shepherd walking down the aisle – and he wasn’t walking down having a casual check in with everyone he passed, he was heading straight for our seats. And it wasn’t the first time it had happened this week, either.

I frowned. Now that I thought about it, he was another one like a fly around horseshit this week.

“Hey, have you guys noticed Shepherd paying more attention to us than normal?”

Tanner shook his head, which was no surprise, but so did Parker.

“He has, I’m telling you. Every time we’ve traveled, he’s come to check on us. And he checked at practice yesterday, and the day before. So did Coach.”

“Coach is supposed to check on you.”

I shook my head. “No. He’s never checked like this before. Even at the beginning of the season when I…”

“Lost it?” Tanner interrupted unnecessarily.

“You know, you really are the worst and least supportive friend I have,” I grumbled, shifting in my seat as Penn Shepherd finally reached us.

His hand gripped around the back of Parker’s head rest. “Hello, boys.”

“Mr. Shepherd,” Tanner grinned up at him. “How are you, sir?”

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