Page 149 of The Girlfriend Zone

Seconds later, there are footsteps, and Asher’s voice cuts across the room. “Hey, you slackers. Chanda says to get out there and make it look like you just arrived at work. Leighton’s taking pics of the suit walk. And Little Falcon isn’t wearing his sandals. He can learn,” Ashersays, gesturing to Tyler’s feet and his visible socks with…are those illustrations of cat butts with his wingtips? For fuck’s sake. He’s always been a troublemaker.

But I guess today trouble is good.

I grab my coffee cup and head down the corridor so I can look like I just arrived. Leighton’s already there, camera in hand, snapping shots of us like nothing’s out of the ordinary. She’s calm. Composed. Cool as ever. Like she always is behind the camera, where she’s in control.

Yeah, it all went well with her dad.

Ford’s heading down the hall, AirPods in, listening to some audiobook, like he always does before games.

Christian’s striding toward the locker room, poised and confident, a true captain.

Max’s game face is on, like always.

After the photos are done, I head back to the locker room, ready to text Leighton to ask how the talk went, but I spot her in the stairwell, pacing the narrow space, camera still in hand. She looks up when she sees me, relief and hesitation flickering across her face.

I step closer. “What’s going on?”

She stops pacing and exhales. “I was waiting for you. I didn’t want to text this.”

Something about her tone sinks like a stone in my gut. “Tell me what?”

“I didn’t talk to him. He wasn’t alone,” she says quietly, her fingers tightening on the camera strap. “Clementine was in his office.”

My pulse races as my blood chills. “And?”

She swallows hard, locking her eyes on mine like she’s bracing herself. “I heard them—well,sawthem talking. The door was cracked open, but it was enough for me to see their faces. They were talking about a trade.”

The word slams into me like a hit I didn’t see coming. “Who?”

She’s silent for a few seconds too long. “Your name came up, Miles.”

Everything stops. My pulse pounds in my ears as I stare at her. I know trades are always a possibility, but distantly. They don’t groom someone to be co-captain just to trade them. But also, I don’t have a no-trade clause, given that I was picked up on waivers. In a few short years here, I’ve rebuilt my career into a solid, dependable, reliable one, and now…it’s in peril?

“I’m sorry. I didn’t want to tell you before the game,” she says, her voice small. “But I couldn’t…not tell you.”

I look at her, forcing calm into my voice that I don’t feel. “You did the right thing.”

But I’m not calm at all. I’m reeling. Does Coach…know about us? Is that why he’s thinking of trading me? Did he put two and two together when Leighton told him yesterday that she was staying with me? Then…I go cold everywhere. He must have figured it out for sure when she scheduled breakfast with him.

“Are you okay?” she asks with so much concern it nearly breaks my heart.

I have no idea how to answer, and when I hear Asher calling distantly—“Get your ass on the ice, Falcon”—it’s simply time to go.

“I have to?—”

“I know,” she says.

Then we leave, heading in opposite directions, and that feels like a harbinger.

47

APPROPRIATE

Leighton

As my mom texts me that she’s heading to Eleanor’s suite for the game—what an unexpected treat—and asks if I want to join, I burst into laughter that feels wholly inappropriate for what just went down. Of course I don’t want to join her. That’s soher,barely caring that I’m here to work.

Fine, I’m not the main game action photographer, but I do have to capture the players tossing more crocheted dogs into the stands at the end of warm-ups, and it feels like the definition of irony. Me doing something sweet and innocent when I was anything but.

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