Page 81 of Well Played

Levi: He’s texting you right now?

I could feel his anger through my phone.

Tanner: Are you there, or are you just choosing to ignore my texts? I’m getting a complex.

It occurred to me that I’d yet to actually respond to Tanner. Before I could type anything, Levi chimed in.

Levi: That’s not surprising. When we were out back tonight, he kept asking me questions about you. He wanted to know whether you’ve been seeing anyone. I felt like telling him about us right then and there. But I fucking couldn’t.

My heart began to race.

Levi: You there?

Presley: Yes. I’m just feeling overwhelmed right now.

After about a minute, he responded.

Levi: Alright, baby. Get some sleep. Hopefully he’ll leave at some point tomorrow, so we can have some alone time and process this together.

Presley: I hope so.

Levi: Sweet dreams.

Presley: You too.

I clicked on Tanner’s name and finally responded to him.

Presley: I’ll talk to you tomorrow.

The dots danced as he typed.

Tanner: Cool. Thank you.

I needed to shut down any further communication with Tanner tonight.

Presley: Going to sleep.

Tanner: Sweet dreams.

It wasn’t lost on me that his brother had just told me the same thing—“Sweet dreams”—a minute ago. There wouldn’t be any dreams tonight, unless they were nightmares about the predicament I’d gotten myself into. I probably wouldn’t be gettinganysleep at all.

CHAPTER 20

Levi

I popped into Alex’s room the next morning. It was his first day of peewee football practice, and the plan had always been that I would take him.

“You ready to go to practice?”

“Dad’s gonna take me,” he said.

Not gonna lie, my heart sank a little. “He is, is he?”

“Yeah, I am.” Tanner’s voice came from behind me. “I figured you’ve been filling in long enough. I have a lot of making up for lost time to do.”

I understood that, but I still felt like crap. Alex and I had bonded in Tanner’s absence. Now that his dad was here, it felt like he didn’t need me anymore. And you know what? That would have been perfectly fine if I didn’t worry that Tanner was gonna somehow break his heart and flake out again.

A few minutes later, they were both gone, and the house was quiet for what felt like the first time in forever, even though it had only been a day. The only good thing about Tanner taking Alex was that it gave me a chance to finally be alone with Presley.

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