Page 17 of Learn the Play
With my dream girl.
Chapter Six
Bellamy
It's been two weeks since I slipped out of my hotel room, quiet as a mouse. Two weeks, and I haven’t stopped thinking about the man I left behind. His presence still lingers in my thoughts, a quiet echo that refuses to fade. No matter how hard I’ve tried to forget him, I can’t.
It’s as if my mind and my body have decided that no other man exists in the world, at least not for me. I’ve never had the kind of connection with anyone as I did with Reid. It’s alarming and surprising, because let’s face it, men are jerks. Okay, maybe not all of them, and yes, I can admit that my opinions are skewed because of my father, who put his career above his family.
I don’t know what it’s going to take to get this man out of my head. The memory of my time with him is distracting me. Yesterday, my boss, Grant, was standing at my office door, watching me stare off into space. I’ll give you one guess as to what I was thinking about. Luckily, Grant Riggins and his brothers are laid back and easy to work for. He teased me for it, asked me his question, and then disappeared back into his office.
Something's got to give. I can’t keep this up. Reid was just a man. A man who will forever hold a piece of my past, one I’ll never forget, but it was my choice to sneak out, so I need to deal with the consequences and stop thinking about a stranger I’ll never see again.
My phone rings, pulling me out of my thoughts, and I answer without seeing who it is.
“Bellamy? I expected your voicemail,” my dad greets me. From the sound of his voice, he’s happy he reached me.
Inwardly, I groan. Fucking Reid and his sexy abs. He distracted me again, because my dad’s right, he would have gotten my voicemail otherwise. “Hi,” I say, trying to keep the annoyance out of my tone.
“It’s so good to hear your voice, sweetheart.”
Good thing he can’t see me rolling my eyes. “What’s up?” I ask, not bothering with pleasantries. Not with him. He made his choice.
“How have you been?” he asks.
“Fine.”
He sighs, and the sound is heavy even through the line. “Listen, there’s this work thing—the one I mentioned to you last summer. I’d really love it if you would come. It’s family day,” he explains.
“I wish I could, but I’m busy.”
“I didn’t tell you when it was,” he counters.
“Work is swamped right now, Dad.”
“It’s the first week of July—in two weeks. Sweetheart, I’d really love to see you,” he says, and I can hear the longing in his voice, but he’s about fifteen years too late.
“Sorry,” I tell him, even though I’m not. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to forgive him for leaving us. He put his job first, leaving Mom and me on our own.
“I’ll send you the details, in case you change your mind. I really hope you do.”
“We’ll see,” I tell him, just like my mom used to when I’d ask for something when I was little and she damn well knew I wasn’t going to get it. I should feel guilty for giving him an inch of false hope, but in his gut, he knows that I won’t be there. It’s going to take a hell of a lot more than an invitation to a work thing, as he called it, to move our relationship forward.
Sure, he calls and texts frequently, but it’s the effort he puts into coming to see me that he’s always lacked motivation for. Calls and messages are fast, and he can get right back to work.
“You can bring a friend, or if you’re seeing anyone…,” he offers, his voice trailing off.
“Not seeing anyone,” I tell him with a sigh. And the last man I did see is the only reason I answered this call, but I keep that to myself.
“I hope you’ve been well,” he says, and the longing once again present in his tone giving me pause.
“Yeah, I’m good. I was in Los Angeles two weeks ago for a college friend’s wedding,” I tell him, tossing him a bone of information about me. It’s not something I usually do, and something twists in my gut when his tone tells me he’s glad that I did.
“That’s wonderful. I hope you had a great time, and I’m sure it was nice getting to catch up with a friend from college.”
“She was kind of a bridezilla,” I confess, because the alternative is blurting out that I met a man, spent an incredible night with him, then ran scared at what he made me feel in just a matter of hours. Not a conversation I want to have, especially with my father.
“Oh, well, did you get to visit the ocean?”
