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Because it totally didn’t.

Right?

The woman who had interrupted us turned to Natalia. “Wait. What about Whitley?”

Natalia’s eyes lit up. “Right. He did date Whitley for, like, four months.”

Finally! A lead! “Who’s Whitley?” I was shooting for casual and not overeager.

“They dated a couple of years ago. She was a Lumberjill who got cut for dating him.”

“I thought she got cut for putting on three pounds,” the second woman interjected.

“And why did they break up?” I tried to get them back on track.

“Nobody really knows,” Natalia said. “Last I’d heard she married some accountant and moved to the suburbs. What was that guy’s name? I think I got an invitation to the wedding.”

“Something Schultz?”

That was good enough for me. Whitley Schultz. His ex-girlfriend. She had to have some dirt.

I had just excused myself in order to do a quick Google search when a text popped up on my screen.

My lungs stopped functioning when I saw that it was from Evan.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I walked off to a corner of the room so that I could respond.

“The hotel” was the Davenport, located ten minutes from my condo. The Jacks always stayed there the night before a home game, as did their opposing team (on a different floor). But they had very strict rules, the main one being no women in their rooms. Which included their significant others. And they had a curfew.

I mean, it didn’t matter to me one way or the other. It wasn’t like Coach Sitake could kick me off the team.

But was Evan willing to risk getting in trouble to talk to me? That gave me a weird, twisty feeling in my stomach that I didn’t recognize.

Why? Shouldn’t he have been like most men, running for the hills and screaming to anyone who would listen that he didn’t believe in commitment?

Maybe he was afraid of what I might say and how it could hurt his perfect reputation.

That my plans consisted of putting on yoga pants, clearing out some DVR space, and working on my knitting was none of his business. I did need the knitting practice—I was truly terrible at it. My loops were always uneven, and so far all I’d managed to make were lopsided scarves that nobody in my family ever wore. Maybe because of the scarves’ weird holes.

Plus, I didn’t want him to think I was readily available whenever he wanted to see me. Because that would be pathetic.

Almost as pathetic as pretending to be engaged to him just for a story.

I shouldn’t go. What if someone saw me? Took a picture of me sneaking into the hotel? There would be no clean way of getting out of this then. Even though Brenda wanted me to stay engaged.

It was all really confusing.

And I wasn’t sure that I was ready to see Evan again. I had all these conflicting emotions where he was concerned. An anger I couldn’t let go of fought with the overwhelming attraction I’d felt for him ever since we’d first met.

If last night had proved anything, it was that I still thought he was the most handsome man I’d ever known, and not even my residual anger could keep me from desperately wanting to kiss and touch him.

I didn’t know what that said about me.

As if he sensed my hesitancy, he texted again.

He sent me a laughing emoji, and I let out a deep sigh. My curiosity insisted that I go to find out what Evan was thinking and why he thought it was important to talk to me.