Page 88 of Penalty Kick

It was harsh. Dash couldn’t help but huff out a small laugh though. Slamming the door in her brother’s face. That was his girl and all her attitude. Fuck, he missed it. It’d been less than twenty-four hours, and he’d give anything for that door to be slammed in his face.

“Thank you for trying. I appreciate it. My—” Dash cut himself off. He couldn’t think of Talia as his girl anymore. Because she wasn’t. She walked away from him.

“Give it time,” Chance said. “Let her have her moment, then you’ll get the chance to talk to her. We’ve all been there. Well, except this guy.” Chance hooked a thumb in Elliot’s direction. “But his turn is coming, I can feel it!”

“You can stay over there with that crap,” Elliot retorted. “Delaney's got you watching too many chick flicks.”

“I’ll gladly watch nothing but chick flicks for the rest of my days if it means I get to see that girl’s smile.”

“Blegh.”

Dash laughed. The feeling was new to him, but thanks to Talia, he knew exactly what Chance meant.

“Talia introduced me to Dirty Dancing.”

“Oh, Swayze, good one. You do the lift?”

“But of course.”

Chance held out his fist for a bump, Dash happily obliging.

“If you won’t tell Gunnar, will you at least tell Cowboy?” Liam asked, circling them back to the matter at hand.

“Tell me what?”

The whole group jumped, startled by Cowboy’s thick Texas accent. Where had he come from?

“Nothing,” Dash answered quickly. By the look on the boss’s face, a little too quickly.

“I was there yesterday. I’ve got good money it wasn’t nothing.”

Dash sighed, nodding in acquiescence.

“Might want to pull up a chair,” Elliot advised.

Cowboy gave them a wary look, grabbing a chair from the table behind him and spinning it around before straddling it. Leaning forward, resting his arms along the top of the chair's back, he gave Dash another nod.

“Spill.”

Dash did just that. Starting from the beginning, he told Cowboy everything he could think of. From Talia spraining her ankle, him filling in at Bunz, Tanner’s bullies at the ice cream shop, everything. Okay, almost everything. Guarding Talia’s secret, he left out the virginity detail, reducing that whole part to a simple “we hooked up.” It was more than enough to convey the meaning, while still helping him understand the depth of Talia’s hurt. Or at least that’s what Dash hoped he was communicating. Cowboy listened intently, head bobbing along as Dash went, never stopping him or giving him a judgmental look. Even when he got to the part about the blackmail.

“Just how much does she want?” Cowboy asked when Dash was finally done.

“A lot. Most of my salary. All of what I send to my mother and sister for Maria’s school fees. It would be a choice between paying her and Maria’s enrollment next semester.”

“Fuck.”

Yeah, fuck…

“You know…” a sweet, melodic voice said. Dash looked up to find Theo standing to the side of their table, arms crossed, a knowing smirk spread across her face. “When you said let’s grab breakfast before the Wednesday media availability, I somehow assumed it was a date. Not me being left alone with my phone while you talked to your players. Oh, and hi boys.”

“Theo,” they greeted in unison.

“It was, but then something came up,” Cowboy told her. Turning in his chair, he narrowed his eyes. Dash thought he looked like he was up to something. “Remember that hockey player you were telling me about? The one that Dana knows or whatever. Who ran into that trouble in Vegas?”

“He’s a baseball player, in Boston. Dana still has friends with the team thanks to that Tommy John story from forever ago,” she said, referring to Dana Marini, a powerhouse female sports reporter who also happened to be Theo’s boss and mentor. “Guy went to Vegas for a bachelor party and knocked up a stripper. He claimed she was blackmailing him, but no one really believed him. Dana for a second thought there might be a story there, because there was a hockey player in Washington who was accused of assaulting a woman at the same establishment a couple of months later, but they settled that out of court and no details were ever revealed. Why?”

Dash’s ears perked up as Theo spoke, some of the details starting to hit home. There were at least two other professional athletes out there that had similar stories. It might mean nothing, but it could also mean something. Stomach doing a flip, he let himself get hopeful that it might mean something. He needed some hope right now.