Page 299 of Branded
A door clicked shut.
My gaze caught on a drawing of a dog on the fridge.
Of Sparky written in childish scrawl beneath it.
Christ, I was in deep.
And I didn’t give one fuck.
“Thanks, man,” I said a while later, hopping out of the back of the car, making sure the door latched before taking off for my SUV still parked in the lot.
It was the only car left.
Which wasn’t a surprise, considering the sun was just beginning to rise in the east, a narrow strip of light filling the horizon. Late. Much later than I normally stayed up, and the team’s schedule meant that I regularly kept odd hours, especially with travel and trying to wind down after games. One of which I had that night and that meant I needed to sleep at some point, to rest up and focus on my actual job.
Not on what my mind wanted—which was, for the record (in case anyone was unaware of the fact), Jules.
Sighing, I reached into my pocket for my keys and froze when I encountered a thick, crumpled piece of paper. “What?” I muttered, tugging it out.
And suddenly, I wasn’t tired.
My body was exhausted, yes. Was telling me it was time to get in bed and sleep.
But now I was mentally wired.
Because Jules was playing with me. I grinned at the much-abused hundred-dollar bill. She was playing with me, and she’d shared?—
Something that had the smile sliding right off my face.
Because what she’d shared made my blood fucking boil.
She’d been with that douchebag, with Nate fucking Miller, prime asshole in the league and one of the top producers on the Sierra.
And she was living in…
Well, I wasn’t so much of an asshole as to describe her apartment in negative terms. It was a home, and it was clean and bright and cheerful. She’d created a great place for a kid to live. But it was small, and a bit worn down, and she worked her ass off into the wee hours of the morning on a regular basis.
Hands clenching into a fist, one around the hundred-dollar bill, crumpling it further, the other around my keys that sent a sharp bite of pain up my arm.
“Fuck,” I muttered, yanking open the driver’s side door and dropping into the seat.
Nate fucking Miller.
God, the man was a jackass—a cheap fucker on the ice and apparently off it as well, considering that Jules had to hustle hard, and she and Ethan were living in that small apartment with the worn cabinets and cracked plaster in the corners and?—
I was going to crush that motherfucker the next time we played.
A jab at the button to start my car. A quick movement to back out of the spot.
And then I was driving home.
Or maybe I should rephrase that.
I should be driving home.
Instead, my car just sort of…pointed itself back in the direction of Jules’s place.
She would have barely gotten any sleep at this point and Ethan had to wake up to go to school and?—
