Page 49 of The Games We Play
“I knew it.” Her eyes glowed with mischief, her tone smug. “You two mysteriously vanished, and no one could find you. Oh my God.” She sat forward, gripping the armrests. “So, let me get this straight—you and Penny have been sneaking around behind everyone’s backs for seven months?”
“Well,were,” I corrected. “Past tense. That’s why I’m here.” I exhaled sharply, rubbing a hand over my jaw. “Like I said, I fucked up. Penny and I haven’t really spoken in like two months. Up until last night.”
Aspen’s expression shifted, curiosity melting into confusion. She shifted in her chair, smoothing out her dress as she crossed her legs.
“Nothing ever seemed off when we were all together?” she asked, reaching for her water.
I let out a slow breath and wandered toward the kitchen, gripping my beer like it was the only thing keeping me steady. I didn’t want to sit, but I needed something solid under me.
So, I did what any self-respecting man in crisis would do—I leaned against the counter and crossed one ankle over the other to brace myself for the rest of this conversation.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said, waving a dismissive hand. I took a long pull from my beer, letting the burn of regret settle in my chest. “I need your help getting her back.”
Aspen blinked at me, unimpressed. “I feel like I’m missing alotof information to be able to help you.”
Groaning, I set down the beer and then dragged both hands down my face, like I could scrub away the sheer stupidity of this situation. God, I needed a cigarette to cope with this shit.
I shouldn’t have come here. I should’ve sat with my own failure a little longer, figured out how to grovel on my own.
But no, here I was.
“I’m not going into detail,” I said, my tone a little too sharp, but I didn’t care. “But I hid something pretty… big from her. Penny and I had a conversation last night, and it ended with her telling me to—and I quote—‘grovel, bitch.’” I even threw in air quotes for dramatic effect.
Aspen snorted. “That definitely sounds like something she’d say.”
I nodded grimly. “So, here I am. How the hell do I grovel? What do I need to do?”
Aspen inhaled deeply, letting out a long, drawn-out sigh like she was already exhausted for me. “Okay, since you won’t tell me what you did, can you at least rate it on a scale from one to ten? How bad are we talking?”
My jaw tensed. I rolled my neck, trying to shake off the weight pressing down on me.
“9.5.”
Aspen let out a low whistle, leaning back in her chair. “Damn. Yeah, you did mess up.”
“No shit,” I grumbled, pushing off the counter. Frustration simmered under my skin as I stalked toward the dining table, yanking out a chair and dropping into it with all the grace of a guy who’d just realized he was completely screwed. I slammed my beer onto the table for extra emphasis.
Aspen, meanwhile, looked thrilled.
“Is that why she had Theo and I come with her that one day? With the glitter?” Aspen’s grin was front and fucking center. There was no hiding how amused she was.
“Yup.”
She let out a laugh, nodding in understanding.
“It’s gonna be fine,” she assured me, sitting up straighter. She reached into a woven basket on the table, pulled out a notepad and pen, and pressed the tip against the paper. “We’ll come up with a plan. I’ll help you by using what she loves, stuff that’ll actually work to win her back.”
I’d expected Aspen to talk me through this, maybe drop some half-baked advice and send me on my way. What I hadn’t expected was her grabbing a goddamn notebook like this was a full-blown strategy session.
I narrowed my eyes. “Like what?”
Aspen didn’t answer right away. She was too busy biting her lip in concentration, scribbling things down like some kind of evil genius plotting world domination.
I leaned in slightly, trying to get a look at whatever the hell she was writing. When that didn’t work, I sat up straighter, my eyes bouncing between her face and the words on the page.
Whatever was coming next, I wasn’t sure if I would be relieved or terrified.
“Groveling is going to require you to take everything you’ve ever done in the past to win a girl over and throw it in the trash,” Aspen said, pausing her furious note-taking to look me dead in the eye.
