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I breathe out a tense breath when I find four missed calls and twice as many text messages on my phone. All from Nadia. All received since I last checked at half time.
I’ll admit, I probably shouldn’t have been peeking at my phone during Maxwell’s motivational captain speech right before heading out the tunnel before the third quarter, but my priorities are a little out of whack tonight.
The guys are yelling and arguing and hitting things around me. I ignore it all, huddling in the corner and swiping back to that picture of my new accidental wife curled up beneath my sheets this morning. She looks so freaking gorgeous. Messy hair. Smudged makeup. A sexy smile in her sleep. She looks so extraordinarily happy.
My eyes are busy tracing the perfect angles of Nadia’s face in the picture when my phone suddenly rings in my hands. I flinch, losing my grasp, and I almost drop my device before bobbling it.
Shit—it’s her again.
My gut clenches, my heart racing faster than it was when I was out there tripping on the field not ten minutes ago.
I’ve been avoiding her calls all day. There. I said it.
A few days ago, I would have been diving headfirst into a shark tank to grab my phone if I knew Nadia was on the other line. And now, I’m avoiding her. I’m the world’s biggest asshole.
I know I’m being an absolute tool, but the thing is—I don’t have the slightest clue how to deal with our ‘situation’.
I let the call go straight to voicemail just as our head coach barges into the locker room and barks out my name.
“Westbrook!!!”
I groan, tucking my phone away, prepping for the verbal beatdown that’s coming my way.
“What the flipping fuck was that?! Did you forget which end zone was ours, or what?! Because nothing else explains the pisspoor show you just put on out there on the field!” Coach Robinson screams at me in front of the whole team until his own face turns violently red. He looks like he’s about to have a yelling-induced heart attack.
“Sorry, Coach,” I mumble.
“And the rest of you talentless halfwits…” The man turns around to berate the rest of my team. But he seems particularly partial to me today, cursing my name every few sentences before eventually slamming his headset against a wall and storming back out of the locker room.
He may be gone but all the tension he brought in with him still lingers in the air, though. Anger bounces off all the guys and most of it seems to be aimed in my direction. Great.
Standing by my locker, I yank my shoulder pads off over my head and toss them on the ground, only to find Jace standing right in my space.
Knox strolls up right beside him. “Dude, that wasn’t you out there today,” he says. “What the hell is your problem? Everything okay?”
“Everything’s peachy,” I mutter, rifling around in my duffel bag for I don’t know what. I check my phone screen one more time. “Except for the fact that I accidentally got hitched to someone last night.”
Shit. Did I just say that? Why do I have such a big mouth?!
Right then, my phone rings again. Nadia. She’d murder me in cold blood if she could see me standing here, spilling our business to my teammates. I flinch and shove the device under all the sweaty shit in my duffle bag.
But not before Knox catches a look at my screen. “Someone?” he questions, drawing closer and lowering his voice.
Jace scratches his sweaty head. “Wait. Weren’t you with Nadia last night? The wife and I saw you two looking extra cozy at the gala. You were so locked in your little bubble that Sera forbade me from even coming over to say ‘hi’.”
My two teammates go wide-eyed as they put two and two together.
I clamp my mouth shut, choosing silence. Because anything I say now will only dig my ditch even deeper.
Fuuuuck.
Knox watches me with a tight forehead. “That ‘someone’ you accidentally married last night wouldn’t happen to beour team’s lawyer, would it?”
When he puts it like that…Fuuuuck.
I feel my face turning redder than Coach’s when he was in the midst of his yelling-induced heart attack earlier.
Knox’s jaw drops, and the horrified look on his face would be funny if I didn’t feel a little nauseous myself.
