Page 164 of Face Off
It’s half personal, half professional.
I feel like I’m drowning.
Don’t know what to do.
Daddy Dallas
My place. Now.
Maven and June are out for the afternoon. We can have some privacy.
You remember the address, Hud?
Hudson
I do. I’ll be there in fifteen.
Plant Daddy Reid
I’m already on my way.
I paceacross the floor in Dallas’s living room. My mind is running a mile a minute and my heart is sitting somewhere between my chest and my throat.
“Okay.” I stop in front of the coffee table and chug the beer Dallas popped open for me. Thank god we don’t have practice tomorrow, because depending on how this conversation goes, I might need something stronger. “Okay.”
Dallas, Reid and Hudson sit on the couch, watching me. None of them have said a word, and I think they’re waiting for me to make the first move.
“I—there’s…” I scratch my ear and run my hand through my hair. “She—” I shake my head and look at Dallas. “How the fuck do you do this every day?”
“Do what, exactly? Talk in broken sentences and make no sense? I sure hope I don’t do that every day.”
“I meant with Maven. How do you tell her how you feel every day? Do you just fucking say it?”
Dallas blinks. “Are you in love with my fiancée?”
“No. God, no. Fuck.” I laugh and tip my head toward the ceiling. “That would probably be easier than all of this.”
“It’s like we’re playing a drunken game of charades,” Reid grumbles, and he pushes his glasses up his nose. “Start from the beginning, Mav.”
The beginning would be a hotel room in Chicago where I kissed Emmy for the first time.
It feels like a lifetime ago.
“Right. Well. Emmy and I are sleeping together. It’s a little more than sex, though. We’re dating, actually, and Coach just told me she might get traded. I—there’s this tightness in my chest when I think of what it would be like if she’s not here and I think I might… I don’t know… how do…”
Dallas grins. He stands up and looks down at Reid and Hudson. “We know what this is, right?”
“Easy diagnosis.” Hudson leans back on the couch and smiles. “I’ve suspected it for a while now.”
“Does he really not recognize it?” Reid asks.
“First timer,” Hudson says. “We have to cut him some slack.”
“Nothing like the first time,” Dallas agrees.
“Dude. It’s only happened to you once,” Reid argues.
“So? I can still say it,” he argues.
