Page 19 of The Players We Hate
I dropped my dirty clothes into my hamper, now dressed in my sleep shorts and tank top, and climbed into bed. “Good night, Alisa.”
She smirked, flicked off the light, and tossed a neon pillow at me. “When you’re ready to spill, I’m ready to hear it.”
I didn’t say anything. Not that night. Or the next day or even the day after, because I didn’t have the words. I didn’t know what it meant, or how to explain it, or what it would change if I did.
It’d been a week.
Seven days since Talon kissed me and pulled me apart. Since his hands mapped my skin like he wanted to memorize it. Since I gave him something no one else had touched—and he never asked for anything in return.
And not a single day had passed when I hadn’t thought about him.
Every night since, I’d tossed and turned in my sheets, restless with memories that came uninvited. My body still hummed when I thought about the way he growled and told me to let go. My heart still stuttered when I remembered how gentle he was when I needed it. He grinned when I fisted the longer hair on top and gave it a hard pull.
I couldn’t stop replaying it—every glance, every breath, every second of that night.
The worst part? He hadn’t texted.
I knew he had my number. I watched him take my phone, smirking as he typed something into it and sent himself a message. I found it when I got home—a dumb emoji and a smug little line that said:Don’t pretend you won’t think about this later.
I’d thought about it every night.
But he hadn’t called. Not once.
The silence made it pretty clear that night didn’t mean the same thing to him. Maybe I was just another fling, another body he wouldn’t think twice about.
It stung, sure, but I couldn’t bring myself to regret it.
Not the way his hand curved around the back of my neck, careful as if I were breakable. Not the way he whispered my name, savoring it more than anything else in the world.
Yeah, the silence burns, wondering if I’m stupid for thinking it could be more. Still, I can’t regret it.
Not even close because, for once, I wasn’t the girl chasing perfection. Not the governor’s daughter. Not Wells Perry’s sister.
I was just me.
And with Talon, for one night, that was enough.
The buzz of my phone on the nightstand broke the silence, pulling me out of the spiral I’d been stuck in all week. I blinked, heavy from another restless night tangled in sheets and memories. Rolling over, I glanced at the screen, and the name flashing there knotted my stomach instantly.
Mother: Dinner tonight. 7 sharp. Driver will pick you up at 6:15. Please be ready.
A follow-up landed almost immediately.
Mother: This is a reminder. Not a suggestion.
I exhaled slowly, her words pressing in until my chest felt tight.
Right. Friday.
Dinner.
The one I’d spent the past six days trying not to think about. The one that guaranteed I’d be seated at a long, glass-topped table for a family dinner while they were in town for my brother’s game.
With the election around the corner, it wouldn’t just be a meal. It’d be another round of strategy dressed up as small talk, with a mother who treated emotions as weakness and conversation as a campaign.
And now I had less than six hours to pull myself together and play the part I was born into.
Daughter of the governor. Sister of the star defensive end. Thewell-behavedPerry.
