Page 35 of Play the Game

Her sweet gasp catches me by surprise, and I clench my teeth. It’s hard to focus, and Ineverhave a hard time focusing. A hot swallow works down my throat when I lift her up and slowlyplace her feet on the floor. My hands linger for a second too long, and I hate that she notices.

I step away quickly and run my hand through my hair.

“What else do you need?” My question is gruff, and it confuses her.

I stare at the furrowed lines along her forehead and follow her line of sight. “Just my photography stuff.”

“Photography stuff? You’re a photographer?”

She laughs sarcastically, and for some reason, it bothers me.

“Not officially.” Suddenly, she looks embarrassed. Pink tints the apples of her cheeks before she half-limps over to a black camera lying on top of her makeshift bedside table that I’m pretty sure is just an old cardboard box turned upside down.

I wait and watch as she scoops it up and places it in a case. There are a few other odds and ends that she grabs, and then she sighs. She glances at me over her shoulder. The setting sun shines through the one window in her little apartment, and the glow casts her in the softest light, making her look less like the woman who tried to blackmail me and more like someone who is seemingly…innocent.

She hobbles down to her knees. There’s a rustling of papers before she stands back up and is holding a thick pile of photos in her hands.

“Okay, I’m ready.”

I raise an eyebrow and stalk over to her. She moves out of the way when I bend down to grab the pitiful—yet innovative—bedside table and flip it right side up. I open the flaps and dump the cockroach onto the floor, watching it run and hide.

“There.”

Scottie slowly drops the photos and some envelopes into the box, and although I know I shouldn’t, I take a look.

The photographs are mostly old and faded. One catches my attention, and I can’t seem to stop staring at it. It’s a manwearing a Chicago Blue Devils T-shirt, and I think it’s the same one she wore to the game she came to. It’s not nearly as worn in the photo as it is now, though. He’s standing in the stands of the arena, and a little girl is on his shoulders with blonde pigtails and a huge smile.

I think it’s Scottie and her dad.

Feeling like I’ve intruded on something I shouldn’t, and shockingly feeling a little bad about it, I shut the cardboard box.

When I look back at my new wife, I’m not surprised to see that she’s nervously nibbling on her lip. I try to fall back into my usual unapproachable, aloof self and ignore it. Scottie and her nervous habit of nibbling on her lip will not thaw my cold exterior.

“Well, let’s go. We’re gonna have to stop at City Hall before we go home,” I announce.

Wanting to harden the soft spot I start to feel for her, I decide to take a dig at her place.

“Do you want to take your pet?”

Confusion crosses her face. “What pet?”

I gesture to the corner of the room where the cockroach ran to. “Your cockroach?”

Her eyes burn with anger, and I smirk the entire time I follow her as she limps out of the shithole apartment.

Seventeen

SCOTTIE

Shit.

I stop and curse my sore ankle when I notice the dour look on my landlord's face in my attempt to sneak out of the complex after Emory.

“What do you think you’re doing, girl?”

Nothing in my life comes easy.

Of course Gerald would be here, of all days, to question me moving out.

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