Page 18 of Roughing the Princess

I laughed. He was so drunk.

“I actually lost my virginity listening to one of your songs. And I was thinking about you the whole time.”

He did not.But usually drunk ramblings were true.

“I don’t want to just text you. I want to kiss you. I want to feel you. I want to give you everything you need. Everything you want. I’ll treat you right. I’ll treat you better than anyone else. I won’t stand you up.”

Ouch.But I deserved that.

“Princess.” He sighed. “I’d wait here all night for you. But our plane leaves soon. And I have to be on it. You’re going to be the death of me, you know. But at least I took my shot.” My phone beeped, signaling the end of the message.

I pulled my phone down and held it to my chest. He was drunk. He probably wouldn’t remember anything he said. But I’d never forget a single word of it.

He wasn’t playing me. This wasn’t pretend. Talon Kendrick loved me. Apparently he’d been in love with me since he was a teenager.

But he’d also said he’d taken his shot. That was it. He was done. But I didn’t want it to be the end of our story. Not when it felt like the beginning.

Chapter 6 – Everything You’ve Heard is True

Talon

One Week Later

Tova and I still texted. She’d given me some lame apology about having to work late the night she’d been supposed to go out with me in New York. But I knew the truth. She didn’t want to meet up. She’d stood me up. And a man could only have his ego bruised so many times.

Texting her should have felt different after that. But it didn’t. She was still flirty. I was still flirting with her. I was fucking pathetic.

She had no intention of ever meeting me. I was such an idiot. But I still lived for her texts. Hoping she wanted to pull another prank on me and send me a second lingerie selfie. But I hadn’t heard from her all day.

I turned on the TV to watch my brother’s interview. He usually did a lot of promo for the team in the lead up to game days. He was good at stuff like that.

I’d tuned in just in time. Jasper appeared on the screen. He was just down the hallway recording this. It was weird watching it on TV knowing he was in the same house as me.

I stared at the screen. Maybe Tova hadn’t been joking when she first texted. Maybe she did think she was talking to the big beefy brother. Maybe she had a thing for Jasper.

“We’ll talk about the game in a second,” the interviewer said. “But everyone is dying to know about your brother.”

Wait, what?

“After that podcast the two of you did about Tova Saber, the internet can’t stop speculating. Do you have any insight as to what is going on between Talon and Tova? Everyone’s dying to know.”

I scoffed. There was nothing going on. Tova was just teasing me. And I wouldn’t say the internet was that into it. Because it was all speculation. We hadn’t given any official updates. And thanks to her standing me up, there were no photos of us together.

Jasper smiled. “It’s not really my place to comment on that. Talon’s love life is his business.”

“But you brought up his personal life on the podcast.”

“I did do that. But really, his private life is private.” His smile grew.

Thesmile. The shit eating grin that meant he was about to do something terrible.

“But I guess since you asked, I can confirm that Tova and Talon have been texting. Actually, they’re dating and everything you’ve heard is true.”

What the fuck, Jasper?!

I stood up from the couch. I was going to kill him.

The interviewer looked like he was going to ask another question.

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