Page 38 of Player Problems

Baylor flips him off, but otherwise ignores him, grabbing my hand to drag me up to my apartment. Isla and Wells trail behind us, sharing whispers and pointed glances in our direction, but my mind is still spinning too fast to really comprehend why.

We open the front door to rather loud and expectant meows as Potato rushes to our feet and Karma lazes on the counter, her green eyes pointed in our direction.

“You got kittens?” Isla exclaims, pushing Baylor out of her way to scoop up Potato in her hands and cradles him to her chest. “Aren’t you just the cutest little thing ever?”

Wells laughs before it cuts off sharply and he glares at Baylor. “You got a cat?”

Baylor smiles wickedly, pointing to where Karma still glares at us. “That’s our new team mascot, Karma,” he says, making Wells roll his eyes in a way that I know he recognizes where Baylor got the name from. “Isla, you’re holding your new roomie, Hash Brown.”

I smack him in the chest. “His name is fucking Potato.”

fifteen

RULES & RETORTS

Wells’ eyes drill into the side of my head, but Karma and I both pointedly ignore him.

“You love your truck.”

I scratch behind Karma’s ears, making her purr. “And?”

He shakes his head as he pulls into our driveway. “What do you meanand? You don’t even let me drive your truck and we’ve been friends since we were in diapers.”

I scoff, hopping out of his Jeep and gathering Karma’s stuff. She hisses at being jostled, but I blame Wells instead. “See, even Karma thinks you’re being overdramatic. You’ve never needed to drive my truck.” I slam the door between us and begin to walk up the driveway. “Also, you’ve never sucked my dick.”

“That’s all this is? She sucked your dick a couple times and now you've forgotten that you don’t let anyone drive your truck?”

I open the door, ignoring him. A friend had a problem, I helped solve that problem. Not sure what the whole fuss is about. “Honey, I’m home,” I call out into the house, expecting James and Beau to be around.

“There you fucking are,” James says as soon as he walks into the living room and sees me.

Followed closely by Beau who huffs in disbelief. “You really fucking brought a cat home?”

I grin, lifting Karma up like she’s Simba in the Lion King. “Meet Karma, our cutest little housemate.”

In only a matter of seconds, both guys are already wrapped around her little furry paws. Cooing at her and attempting to pet her, though she doesn’t let them.

“You storm off, disappear for an entire day, miss our morning run, and come home with a kitten? What the fuck, Levine?” James asks, still trying to pet Karma as she swats his hand away from her.

I sigh, falling to the couch and lifting my feet to the coffee table. “I didn’t want to talk about it yesterday, and I still don’t want to talk about it today.” Wells takes a seat beside me, a solemn expression on his face.

“Fine,” he agrees, surprising me. “We will agree not to talk about it, if you agree not to disappear again. We were worried about you, man. If Tor hadn’t texted Isla that you were with her, we were gonna send out a search party.”

She did? “Yes, Mother,” I say instead of acknowledging that. A part of me does feel like a dick for worrying them, a bigger part of me is thinking about my day yesterday.

Clapping his hands together, Wells nods his head. “Okay then, we’re in agreement. Now, can we talk about you and Torryn?”

I look over at him, puzzled at what he means. “What’s there to talk about?”

The three of them exchange looks, but it’s James who speaks up first. “You avoided your friends all day and ran to her for comfort. That seems like more than just someone you hooked up with a couple times.”

“You also pushed Jayden into a bush for insulting her,” Beau adds.

Wells smirks. “And let her borrow your truck.”

Whoever said girls were the more dramatic gender never met my housemates. I shake my head, laughing in amusement and disbelief. “You guys are being so weird about this. First of all, I didn’t runtoher. I ranintoher. More accurately, I ran into Wilder who she happened to be tutoring. She was free, I was free, we were both horny, and the rest is history. And Jayden was being a prick, he shouldn’t talk about any woman like that.” I turn my attention to Wells. “As for your obsession with my truck, I’m sorry I’ve never let you drive it before. The next time someone smashes your Jeep to bits, I’ll be sure to volunteer my help for you as well. That’s all it was. A friend had a problem, and I had a solution. Easy.”

James and Beau’s eyes both widen and James leans over to whisper in his ear. “I don’t think he actually would though.” I flip him off.

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