Page 76 of Hate the Game (Playing Dirty #1)

***Savannah***

Oh, my poor, stupid heart. It jumped at my chest wall in a pathetic attempt to get to the three men standing in front of me. It ached and demanded I offer it up on a silver platter. It had zero sense of self-preservation.

I swallowed down the urge to anxiety vomit again and did my best to appear okay.

I knew it wasn’t working by the way they all stared at me like I’d crack open and bleed out all over their shoes at any moment.

I announced that I needed to see Coach Carrington and felt a sense of accomplishment when my voice only shook a little bit.

I hadn’t expected them to be waiting outside of his office. I’d held my breath on the stairs on the way up to his office, hoping I wouldn’t run into any of them coming or going from the weight room or wherever. Once I’d reached the administrative floor I thought I was safe. The joke was on me.

“Why do you need to see him?” Jax watched me with his head tilted to the side, studying me so closely that my skin itched.

I hugged myself tighter and leaned against the wall opposite them.

It felt awkward and stilted in a way it’d never felt before, not even in the beginning.

It was painful to know that everything was exposed and we were all just standing there with the elephant in the room threatening to crush us. Or at least me.

“I need to talk to him about Marla.” My body felt the weight of the last week settling over me all at once and it suddenly felt like the hardest chore to remain standing.

I sighed. “Y’all know about the article.

She’s pushing to keep the article mean. I thought…

I thought if I could talk to Coach Carrington and tell him why I thought Marla was doing all of this he’d talk to her and get her to calm down… It’s probably a stupid idea.”

“It’s not a stupid idea.” Ryder straightened and rolled his shoulders. “We need to talk, Savannah.”

I couldn’t look at him. “It’s fine. Cass told me. You don’t need to explain anything. I started the game. It’s not y’all’s fault that I turned out to be really bad at it.”

“It’s true.” When I glanced up again he was standing right in front of me, a wall of muscle. “We were angry when we found out and we were stupid. It stopped being about that almost right away, Savannah.”

“I… I just need to talk to Coach. I don’t think I’m ready to hear this yet.”

“Too bad.” Jax gripped my chin and forced me to look up at him.

“I’m not going to watch you stand here and not do everything I can to stop your pain.

It was real for me, for all of us. That’s what you need to hear first. We started out as assholes but you surprised all of us.

We care about you. We should’ve done things differently.

We should’ve laid it all out as soon as we felt something for you. ”

I frowned and shook my head, dislodging his hand. “I don’t believe you.”

“Then maybe we shouldn’t believe that you care about us.” Cole shifted closer, his entire body tense. “Maybe you were just playing us the whole time.”

“That’s not true!” I lowered my voice and tried to contain my anger.

“It isn’t. It’s not true. I never meant to take anything this far.

I fought it. Do you think it was easy to choose the three of you when I knew what was on the line?

I did, though. Of course, I care about you.

I messed up and crossed so many lines because I couldn’t help caring for y’all. If anything, I played myself.”

“I’m sorry, Savannah.” Jax slid his hand down my throat and stroked his thumb over my raging pulse. “That’s the second thing you need to hear. I’m sorry that what we did hurt you. We should’ve-”

The sound of arguing came from Coach Carrington’s office and the guys seemed to ignore it. Jax kept talking with just a little hitch in his speech.

“We should’ve sorted things out as soon as we felt anything for you. We messed up but-” He raised his voice as the sounds coming from the office grew louder. “But we do care about you. We don’t want to lose-”

The sound of things falling over stopped him but Ryder took over, speaking over the sounds. “We don’t want to lose you, Sav. I don’t want to lose you. I miss you. I-”

A loud thud broke their concentration and Jax swore before going for the door. “Just need to make sure they’re not killing each other.”

“Who’s in there?” It didn’t sound like Coach Carrington was going to be in the mood to help me. I didn’t know what the hell was happening with the guys but I knew I might as well kiss my future career goodbye. I’d never get the raging coach to get along with Marla. He seemed crankier than ever.

Hand on the door, Jax looked back at me. “Fair warning. We hacked your email to get Marla here to make up with my dad. She’s in there.”

I gasped and rushed forward, all but pushing him into the door. “If she doesn’t forgive him I’ll never be able to turn in a good article about y’all.”

Jax swung the door open and we all kind of just spilled inside the office and looked up to find Coach Carrington and Marla locked in a passionate embrace on top of his desk.

Jax let out an amazingly high-pitched shriek for a guy with a deep voice and I slapped my hands over my face so hard that it stung.

Marla shouted for us to get out but something she said made me freeze. “Send in your positive article, Savannah. I need it on my desk tomorrow morning. I want to know what you’re thinking right away.”

“Get. The. Fuck. Out!” Coach Carrington sounded more than a little strained as he shouted at us and I wanted to gag at the potential reason why.

“Gross, Dad. Jesus.” Jax backed into me and I stumbled into Ryder. We left the office in a crush of bodies that threatened to crush me until we were moving down the hallway and Ryder plucked me up and held me against his chest.

We were in the stairway, halfway to the exit when I lost it.

I laughed so loud that it reverberated in the small space.

We’d just caught Jax’s dad with his penis in Marla.

From the sounds they were making it’d been wild.

Slowly the screaming I’d heard transformed and made more sense.

Those had been screams of pleasure. Apparently, Coach Carrington could still make an impact on a woman.

Once we were outside, in the sunshine, walking briskly away from the scene of the crime, the guys started laughing with me. Jax looked like he had to shake off the image of the whole thing before he could really laugh about it. I was sure he wasn’t thrilled by what he’d seen.

It seemed to occur to each of us at the same time that we hadn’t spoken in a week and that we had big issues to deal with. I still wasn’t sure I wanted to but they didn’t give me a choice.

Ryder held me tighter and carried me across the back parking lot to Cole’s truck.

When he felt me stiffen he growled at me.

“No. No, we’re done with all of the bullshit between us and we’re done with the lies.

You’re coming with us and you’re going to hear us, dammit.

After we’ve said what we need to say, if you still hate us and want to run, that’s fine, but you’re going to hear us first.”

Hated them? We were both in for a surprise if they thought I hated them. “Okay. I won’t run.”

For the moment, I swore to myself silently.