Page 77 of Blindside Sinner

Beck looks down at me, head cocked to the side.

“Well, you won it. And it’s been paid for. The wire transfer was completed first thing this morning.”

If she’d been unenthused before, now, she’s practically comatose.

Me? Well, I don’t know what I’m feeling.

“Uh… okay.”

“I’ll email you the rest of the information. Have a good day.” She hangs up without waiting for a goodbye.

“What was that?” Beck says as soon as the call ends.

I feel weirdly dizzy. “I, uh… won a date? With some fancy doctor? I don’t really know what’s happening.”

His face goes through a kaleidoscope of emotions in the blink of an eye. Then he shakes his head and marches out the door.

I’m still standing stupidly in place when I hear the engine roar to life. By the time I get my feet moving again and go outside, the car is gone.

Looks like Beck and I are right back where we started.

39

BECK

The angry snarl of the car matches my mood.

I shouldn’t give a shit that she won a date. That shebidon a date. That she’sgoingon a date with Dr. Fancy Fuck.

This is a good thing, actually. It’s a reminder of one key fact.

Sloan Reeves isn’t my fucking concern.

I shouldn’t have been listening when she took the call, but she took the call in my damn house, after all. There are rules, decorum, that should be followed. And if I happen to overhear a conversation probably not meant for me to overhear, then it’s on her.

Unless maybe shewantedme to overhear. Why else would she take a call like that in my kitchen? Is this all part of some game I didn’t even know we were playing?

Fuck me. She has my head all twisted and bent around things I shouldn’t give a fuck about. Things Inevergive a fuck about.

What is wrong with me? I don’t care who she dates. She isn’t my property and if she wants to swap spit with every guy this side of the Pacific, it’s her business. She’s not mine and I don’t care.

I say that out loud under my breath just for good measure. “I. Do. Not. Care.”

But it sounds limp and unconvincing, even to my own ears.

I jam the gas pedal into the floor and speed up. For that brief window of glorious, twelve-cylinder acceleration, I leave my thoughts in the dust.

Then a set of red-and-blue lights in my rearview window drags me right down to earth.

Goddammit.

I grimace and sigh as I pull over to the side of the road. By the time the officer walks up to the car, I have my license and insurance already in my hand. That’s unlike me—the pre-Sloan version of Beck would’ve flashed a dazzling smile and tried to celeb my way out of the situation. This new Beck is responsible. Law-abiding.

It makes me sick.

“Problem, officer?” I say as I hand the documents over.

His professional scowl disappears when he reads the name on my ID. “Beckett Daniels! I’ll be damned. Team looks good this year.”

---