Page 58 of Game Changer

My phone rings, and I see Riley’s name and hitaccept. “I’m not talking about Boone.”

“Bzzzzz, wrong answer. I need to know how Lily is, and she’s a Boone.”

“We,” I hear Hudson in the background. “We need to know how Lily is.”

“Lily is as sweet as ever and currently asleep in my bed.”

“She have her training panties on?” Riley asks.

“She doesn’t, but what’s the worst thing that can happen? She pees the bed, and I have to change the sheets.”

“Or get a new mattress.” Riley snort laughs.

That wouldn’t be that bad of an idea. Although the mattress is mine, it was in my old place with my ex.

“Oh my God, you haven’t replaced that thing, have you?” Riley gasps.

“Why are you in my freaking head?”

“Look, I can’t tell Lily a story tonight, so I thought I’d share one with you.”

“Do you have a fever?” I ask. “Because you’re acting?—”

“That night that Hudson kicked me out of his house when he found out the secret I was keeping,” she starts.

“You needed some time with your thoughts,” Hudson says in the background, and I then hear athwackand an “Oof! and then Hudson chuckles.

Riley continues, “I’m not going to say any names, but the man who drove me home said if he had a hot piece of ass who’d given me her heart, he wouldn’t mind the thirty-minute drive into class every day.”

“He said what?” Hudson snarls, but she continues without missing a beat.

“I informed him that I love my girl time as much as he loves his golf and that I prefer the bed to myself at night so that I don’t get stuck with the wet spot.”

“Jesus, Riley.” I laugh in surprise, which makes no sense because that is really not surprising coming from Riley.

“My driver made a joke. I whacked him in the gut and told him he was no better than any asshole out there, and his ‘I’m a girl dad’ BS was just that. A real girl dad is a man like Cory Sparks. His response was a faraway smile as he said, ‘He’s got one hell of a girl, too.’ I called him a dipshit and asked how he would feel one day if Lily gets her heart crushed and some shit-hot football player tells her she’s got the kind of face any man would dream of falling to sleep looking at, that her body is sexy as fuck, and what else was it? The ultimate stepmom?”

“You didn’t!” I gasp, feeling betrayed by her telling him what I’d told her in confidence.

She continues, “He told me those were facts, and I informed him I could see how an idiot would think that, but an asshole would kiss her.”

I palm my face, because I can’t believe she outed me like that.

“My driver informed me that it was supposed to be a quick peck, and that he didn’t know she tastes like sugar. You know Icalled him a moron for that, too, because hello … what is wrong with boys?” she huffs, and I fold over my counter , placing my cheek on the cool counter and groan. “He then told me if Lily’s mom weren’t getting her shit together, that Sydney Sparks would be in for a world of hurt, but in a good way. I told him to leave you alone and let you heal. He responded with a whisper, ‘She’s going to make the right guy the happiest man in Blue Valley.’ He sighed and then said ‘But enough about sugar tits.’”

“He did not say that,” I groan.

“My point? He freaking adores you, calls you Cupcake to your face, sugar tits behind your back, and basically every free moment he has, he’s sitting at your shop, so I’m going to tell you, Sydney Sparks, to grab the bull by the horns and suck all that love he’s dying to give to you up, or cut that leash now.”

“I do not have him on a leash,” I defend myself.

“Syd, babe, you do,” Hart says. “Not gonna lie and instead say I’m so stoked and rooting for two of my favorite people to get their happy beginning.”

“It’s ending,” I correct him.

“Like hell it is, and anyone who sells that shit is pushing the wrong drug. I want the beginning, the now, until the very end.”

I set out all of Lily’s things on the island so that when she wakes up, she can pick out what pajamas she wants to wear. I then send a text, asking for coverage tomorrow and possibly Friday, and within just a few minutes, I am approved for both.

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