Page 122 of Triple Pucked
I want it as far from me as possible.
My eyes sting with tears, which I don’t deserve to shed.
My voice is raspy, however, like I’ve already wrecked my throat with sobbing. “It’s all on there. I’m so bloody sorry. I just can’t…I c-can’t s-say it out loud. Please?”
“It’s okay,” Robyn says far more gently than she should.
But then, she hasn’t looked through my phone yet.
D’Angelo stoops to sharply pick up my phone like he wants to touch it as a little as I do. Eden prowls to stand at his shoulder and peer over it, dragging Robyn protectively against him.
D’Angelo scrolls with an increasingly darkening expression through the texts.
I rest my back against the wall, pulling my knees tightly against my chest. I hug my arms around them, trying to stop my breathing from tipping into a panic attack.
It’s agonizing watching someone else read through those texts.
Shame curls through me, flaming my cheeks.
I duck my head, wishing that I could disappear.
Waiting for judgment, punishment, or rejection, is always the worst part.
I can’t bear to look at their faces and see the moment that they turn cold.
I can’t bear to see the love drain from their eyes.
“When I am a bad boy I deserve to be punished because…” D’Angelo starts to read out my essay with so much fury in his voice that my head snaps up.
Anguished, I rush to explain, “Blythe made me write it before the last game. She always liked to make me write essays like that. She has photos and videos of me, darlin’, and she said that they were ready to publish inthousandsof places, along with her story about my time as her sub if I didn’t.”
“That’s why you were so distracted,” Eden says.
I swallow. “I’m sorry.”
I can’t read D’Angelo’s expression, and that’s making me shake harder.
I dare to glance at Robyn. I expect judgment or maybe pity. But instead, there is only understanding in her eyes.
She abandons the phone and drops to crawl across the floor toward me. “I want to hug you so fucking much right now. Is that okay?”
I blink at her in confusion.
Does she still not understand what’s going on? What I’ve done?
But I want her touch just as much. Selfishly, I nod.
Robyn dives to wrap her arms around me, dragging my head onto her shoulder.
“It’ll be all right,” she murmurs. “I swear. It must have been frightening and lonely having this weighing on you. But it’s out in the open now. We’re in this together with you.”
With Robyn’s warm arms around me, I can let myself believe that.
“What are these emojis?” Eden’s voice is low.
“A code,” I force myself to reply. “Blythe would use them to tell me what to expect would happen in a scene, before I met up with her. I hated the ace of hearts the most because it’s the punishment card.”
“She must have sent you over hundred threatening texts over the last few weeks,” D’Angelo says, icily. I stiffen. “Interesting. Do you have a different definition forcontacting directly? Maybe you need it to be an engraved handwritten note to count?”
