Page 50 of Playing the Neutral Zone

I looked down at her face, brushing her hair behind her ears.

“Why are you so sad, Scarlett?”she asked.

“Mia, go to your room,” Levi barked, causing both of us to jump.

“But, Daddy, Scarlett promised to take me to the park and now she is sad.”

“Mia, to your room now!”Levi yelled, raising his voice.

Mia looked up at me, tears now streaming down her face, and slid off the bed, crying as she ran past Levi and slamming the door to her room.I could hear her cries in the distance as I looked at Levi.

“Levi, please, let me explain,” I cried.

“Reliably Unreliable, that’s what you think of me?”

“Levi, I swear to you I never submitted that article,” I cried, moving toward him, wanting to hug him and apologize for what Carol had done.

“Don’t come near me.”he said, backing away.“I should have fucking known better than to get involved with you again.I found it odd you were out here to begin with, and that was why I guarded myself and acted like an ass.Apparently, I had been wise to do so.”

“No, you weren’t.I didn’t do this, believe me,” I cried, my throat getting tighter as I stood there.“I wrote about your career, highlighting all the amazing moments.”

Levi ran his hands through his hair, turning away from me for a moment, before he turned back to face me.

“I allowed you into my life, into Mia’s life.I let you into our world, to have you do this?You’re going to find out just how reliably unreliable I am.Now, because of you and the shit you’ve caused, the interview you ran, I have to fight Skylar for custody of Mia.”

“Levi, please, let me explain.Let me prove to you I didn’t do this.”

Levi was quiet as he glared at me while Mia cried in the distance.I hated hearing her cry, and I hated the way I felt right now.She was crying because of me.My chest hurt, my head felt fuzzy, and I felt sick to my stomach thinking about how much hurt I’d caused the pair of them.

“I don’t want to hear your bullshit.I think it’s better for everyone if you just take your shit and get the hell out.”

Tears flooded my eyes as I stood there looking at Levi.“You don’t really mean that, do you?”I sniffled.

Levi turned away from me, not saying anything.

“Levi?”

“I’m taking Mia to the park.We’ll be gone for an hour.When we get back here, I don’t want to see anything that reminds me of you in this apartment.Don’t call me, don’t text me, don’t talk to me at games, and if you don’t have that article retracted, not only will theIce Insidersbe hearing from my lawyer, but you will be as well.”

Immediately, he made his way to Mia’s bedroom and went inside.He was in there for a few minutes before I heard her sobs stop, and then they appeared in the hallway, Mia looking over Levi’s shoulder at me.She lifted her little hand and waved, wiping at her tear-filled eyes as he carried her away from me.

Then they were gone.

Chapter 14

Levi

After I’d put Mia down for the night I got on the phone with my lawyer, not only about the article, but about custody.He immediately started working on things, and now all I needed to do was to calm down and let him take care of things.

I’d just sat down on the couch with a cold beer when someone knocked on the door.

“That had better not be Scarlett.”I mumbled to the empty room, getting up, making my way to the door.

I pulled it open to see Dylan, Knox, Colton, Lucas, and Clay all standing in the hallway.Clay held a case of beer, Dylan held two boxes of pizza, and someone must have a box of wings because I could smell the sauce from The Rusty Anchor.

“What the hell are you guys doing here?”I asked, knowing that tonight was one of our two nights off before we were hitting the road for four days.

“Well, we saw the article, figured it might be best if we come on by as opposed to texting.”

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