Page 75 of End Game
“Doesn’t me being nice make you happy?” he asks.
“Yes. Mostly. But it also makes it harder,” I admit, looking at him out of the corner of my eye. “Could you be likeable yet irritating? Can you find that balance?”
He laughs, leading me to Beecher Street. It’s a little side street that houses a few businesses and lots of little homes built in the early nineteen hundreds. The houses have hanging ferns dangling from porches and yapping dogs in the yards. It’s adorable.
Beecher Street rises as we reach the middle and sitting on top of the crest is a railroad track. On the other side is the only doctor’s office in town, the post office, and Crave.
As we near the bar, Branch shoves his hands in his pockets. “I want to tell you something.”
“Okay.”
“I guess it’s half tell you, half ask you.”
“Okay,” I laugh.
“When you left the cabin that weekend,” he starts slowly, “you saw something online about me, didn’t you?”
The image of him with that girl on his lap, one I’d mostly forgotten since the appointment with Bai, pops in my brain. My stomach churns.
“I thought so,” he mumbles.
“It doesn’t matter,” I point out. “You and I were nothing then. We’re nothing now,” I add for good measure.
“Then why did you leave?”
“Let me askyoua question.”
He doesn’t answer, but gives me a look like he’s not sure he wants to go this route. I go on anyway.
“What if the night you and Finn went to Crave, Poppy and I had gone out and I had slept with someone? And then you and I still hooked up the next day like we did. How would you feel about that the next morning?”
“Well,” he draws out. “I’ve actually been in that position more times than I care to admit.”
Curling my lip, I try not to show my total disgust.
“I’ll be honest, it didn’t generally bother me because I didn’t expect to see that girl again anyway,” he admits.
“Well, all right then.”
“What do you think happens on road trips, Layla? Hell, there are guys on my team that have little set-ups for each city in our league. There’s a girl in every zip code we routinely go to just waiting for that direct message.”
“That. Is. Disgusting.”
He laughs. “That. Is. Life. On. The. Road. Sure, there are guys out there who avoid it. There are a few—very few—that have something at home strong enough to keep their dick dry. The rest just do what they can to not give their wife enough ammo to void the pre-nup.”
I shiver before I realize it, imagining living a life like that. Constantly worried. Constantly second-guessing. Constantly having your self-esteem whittled away. Just thinking about a life marred with insecurity and self-doubt makes me anxious.
“Callum didn’t make it out to be that bad,” I admit. “Lord, now I only imagine how dry his dick wasnotwhile we were together.”
Branch laughs. “I’m sure it wasn’t. But now you know why the league divorce rate is over eighty percent.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“Afraid not. Doesn’t seem fair, does it? To anyone. It’s fucked up on so many levels.”
We stop in front of a little bench at the end of a dead end street that faces the water’s edge. Branch sits and I follow suit.
“That’s why I won’t get married. Not at least until I retire.” He looks at me out of the corner of his eye, gauging my response. “I don’t want that on my conscience, and I don’t feel like it’s a good thing to do to someone, especially if you think you like them enough to consider such a thing.”
