Page 85 of Freak Show

Titus shrugged one big shoulder.

He looked just as tired as I felt.

I’d bet my right arm that he missed the holy hell out of Annabelle, just like I was missing Briley.

“You know,” Joe said casually. “You’re too old to be this jaded.”

Titus looked over at Joe.

“I don’t think that my age has anything to do with how jaded I am,” he admitted. “I’ve just had a really shitty week. I can’t stand the owner, and it feels like sometimes we have to go to all of these extra events just so she can get a leg up in this world.”

“Amen,” Ashton said as he sat down. “Fuck, I’m tired.”

We all sat at the table in silence for a solid ten minutes before I said, “How long do we have to stay?”

“Fuck if I know,” Joe said.

“I say we leave. What’s she going to do? Fine us? This event wasn’t even in our mandatory event attendance sheet we signed at the beginning of the season,” I pointed out.

“I’ll go ask the coach the time limit.” Ashton stood up and walked away.

Joe got up and walked to the bar, leaving me alone with Titus who’d barely said three words the entire night.

I was so freakin’ bored.

And I almost thanked the stars when my phone rang, giving me something to do.

Ari’s name lit up my screen, along with a photo of her and me in the gardens by our hotel at the last game that she’d attended.

My first smile that night lit my face as I said, “Hey, Ari baby.”

The first thing to register on the end of the line was her sniffling.

“Ari?” I asked, sitting up.

The smile that filled my face quickly fell off the moment she said what she did next.

“Hey, baby,” I said again to the silence.

There was a pause at the end of the line and then, “I thought you’d at least give me a few weeks before you moved on.”

I frowned.

What was she talking about?

“What?” I asked, sounding just as confused as I felt.

My phone beeped, and then I was looking at a picture of myself and a random woman I’d never met before.

The second one came through right on the heels of that. Me kissing the random woman. Deeply and passionately.

In a tux, with someone that I didn’t know in my arms.

Hell, in the photo, I still had Briley’s bracelet that she’d made me before I left on my wrist.

Something inside of me dipped at seeing that photo.

Goddammit, that was just a normal thing for the media to do.

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