Page 90 of Never Date A Player
Lewis ducks his head to my ear and holds me tight. “Don’t leave me, Gen. Give me a chance to show you what you mean to me. This last week has killed me. I’ve missed you so much.” He squeezes me tighter and kisses the top of my head. “Please, just—I want to tell you everything.”
I nod, my face muffled by his broad, warm chest. Lewis has been there for me when I’ve least expected it. I thought I wasn’t important enough to him, but I don’t know anymore.
The safe thing to do would be to tell him no and walk away, to hold my heart close like I always do.
Apparently, I’m no longer playing it safe.
Chapter Thirty
Well, damn.
I won the mudder.
Not the entire race. That went to some male triathlete who’s, like, the best in the country and did the mudder for shits and giggles—and for the five-thousand-dollar grand prize. I won best time among the women. Granted, there were a tenth as many women participating as men, so my odds were better but still, I received a thousand dollars for the women’s first place.
My mom and Jeb and their significant others followed the race via some app for spectators. They knew all along that I had a chance at winning. Lewis was in line for fifth place, my mom said, but he helped me at the last minute. If he’d stayed in fifth, he would have earned prize money comparable to mine. A thousand dollars isn’t chump change, and he gave it up. For me.
The medics on site told me to see a doctor for my hand, explaining it was likely broken. They put my arm in a sling, bandaged my cut knees, and removed the splinters. Once Mom received Lewis’s sworn promise to take me to the hospital for my hand after the festivities, she and Fred left to get food with Jeb and Simone, the four of them like long-lost pals. Totally bizarre, and I’m not sure what to think of it, so I’m trying not to.
I drink about a gallon of water and one beer. The beer was obligatory, a mudder tradition. For a minute, I worried it would make a reappearance. Turns out pushing your body to the limit, then pouring alcohol down your throat, is not a good idea.
Cali holds out my purse. She applied eye black at some point to get into the spirit of the race. “You sure you don’t need me to stick around? Go with you to the hospital?”
I sling my small bag across my chest and shake my head.
“We’ll make sure she gets home,” one of my drunken teammates shouts way too loudly. None of them placed, but they drank after the race like they had.
No way am I getting a ride from those drunken asshats, but Cali and Jaeger have plans and I don’t want to interfere. “I’ll be fine,” I tell her.
My team and I mingle for an hour with other Alpine Mudders, basking in the glory of having trained like a Navy SEAL, or a Green Beret, or whatever this race is about. For me, it was about stepping outside my comfort zone and holding my own in a male-dominated environment.
Nessa and her secret Buddhist wisdom. She was right. I am stronger. That strength began the moment I decided to face a fear. It snowballed, shaped me. I couldn’t face one without facing others. Which brings me to Lewis.
He is the embodiment of all my fears—of opening up, of having my heart crushed, of trusting. I’ve jumped at every opportunity to push him away, but he’s asked me to give him a chance. He’s been there for me in ways no man has. That’s why I’ll listen to what he has to say.
And because I love him. The person he is, the way he makes me feel—all of it.
Off to the side, Lewis hesitantly chats with another mudder who’s unabashedly sticking her double-Ds in his face. I don’t blame the girl one bit. With caked-on mud, blue war paint, and muscles bulging from competition—really, the entire package—Lewis is a little mysterious and a lot hot. I drool in his presence; of course other women do too.
He sips water, glancing at me every few seconds through the throng.
My drunken teammates are celebrating in a corner. I grab more water and make my way back over.
“It’s the girl who won!” A goofy guy wearing a green headband waylays me as I pass, slipping his arm over my shoulders. “Dude, you crushed me on one of the uphills.” He lists to the side, obviously having dabbled in free alcohol for a good while, and steers me toward the keg, in the opposite direction of Zach and the others. “What’s your?—”
Lewis grabs my good hand, leans down, and throws me over his shoulder, my purse digging into my side. “She’s with me,” he calls to the guy as he strides away.
What the hell?
I glance back. The guy quickly shakes it off and approaches a half-naked woman doing a body shot.
“Hey.” I slap Lewis’s back, my gaze catching distractedly on the muscled ass carrying me away. “What are you doing, caveman?”
“Taking you out of here.”
I agreed to listen to him, not to be his girlfriend, though who am I kidding. It’s what I want. “What about the girl you were talking to? Sure you don’t want to see if you can get her digits?”
“Oh, I know I can get her digits.”
