Page 25 of Never Dance with the Devils

“Angeline told me what a big deal those jerseysare, that you don’t sign merch anymore because someone was falsifying signatures,” Kayla says quietly. “I appreciate your doing that for the foundation. Thank you.”

It’s not a question and she’s not expecting an explanation, but I want to give her one anyway. I let out a heavy exhale as I dip my chin in a faint nod. “Yeah, we were already having issues, but when I started pushing back on what Eliza was spending—nothing major, just asking if she really needed more shoes when she had a closetful she’d never worn—she found another way to monetize me. But the truth is, that wasn’t the worst of it. I would’ve given her all the money?—”

“You basically did,” Maddox hisses.

I chuff out a bitter laugh, admitting, “He’s not wrong. By the end, I just wanted to be done with her, and I would’ve written that check for my entire bank balance if it would’ve made her go away. Because it was the more insidious stuff she did that hurt more, like making me doubt my game, question my teammates, and not trust myself. I’m good on the ice, but off? She played me… no, sheoutplayedme, and I never saw it coming until it was too late.”

I stare at the flowers Maddox placed in the center of the table for our dinner date, letting my vision go hazy, and he takes over the rest of the story for me.

“She told the WAGs—the wives and girlfriends of the guys on the team—that Riggs was controlling, like he wouldn’tlether go places with them and he didn’tallowher to buy things, and that his on-ice roughness was nothing compared to how he was at home.” Knowing this is the part I hate the most, he slowly adds, “And how he was in the bedroom.”

Kayla gasps, her hands covering her mouth. “She did not.”

I nod solemnly. I’m not one of those guys who bases his whole personality on sexual prowess. Hell, up until my divorce, Eliza was the only woman I’d ever been with and I never breathed a word about our private lives to anyone. Considering we learned how to be lovers together, I didn’t figure it was anyone else’s business but ours. It wasn’t until later, when a teammate told me that his wife was asking him uncomfortable questions, that I found out Eliza had been telling people a whole bunch of stuff, most of it outright lies. But there was just enough truth to it—like that my dick is big, and I’m quiet by nature—to make people believe that I was an uncaring, aggressive partner who got off on hurting her.

“It was ugly, real fucking ugly,” I say in what’s probably the understatement of the century. “Thanks to my lawyer and Coach, most of it stayed out of the press, and eventually, her lies caught up to her and people figured out that she was full of shit. Still, it changed how they looked at me for a long time. Some of them still look at me differently.” That’s what I hate the most—the questions in their eyes when teammates or their wives look at me. I can see the doubt there—was she telling the truth, is he telling the truth, or are they both liars?

“This guy doesn’t exactly help that,” I say, tossing a wave toward Maddox and trying to lighten the heavy pall I’ve thrown on our date. “People joke that he’s my handler, keeping me from ruining some poor, unsuspecting woman’s vagina with my dick, and he goes all Chuckles McFuckstick over here, laughing and saying it’s like trying to tame an out-of-control firehose and takes all hands on deck.”

I glare at him for that one, remembering the overly animated demonstration he gave of “me” holding my dick while it danced around wildly like one of those car-wash inflatable things, complete with machine-gun sound effects that I think were supposed to be me blasting cum everywhere. Yeah, not his best response to a locker room tease, though nobody has said that particular taunt ever since, so maybe it did work a little.

Maddox grins, holding his hands out like ‘what?’ as if he’s the picture of innocence. “Hey, if they want to believe anything they hear, that’s on them. What’s important is that we know the truth.” He winks, trying to irritate me.

Kayla has gone silent, her face blank despite Maddox’s playfulness, and I can’t help but think that, even from back home where she lives again, Eliza is still ruining things for me. She’d be thrilled about that, and while it should make me angry, I’m just sad about it. I dealt with my anger a long time ago and, for the most part, don’t give my ex-wife a second thought anymore. Except when I have to explain how I came to be the man I am today, because good and bad, she had a big part in that.

“I’m sorry she fucked you over,” Kayla finally says, her voice quiet but strong as she reaches out and lays her hand over mine on the table. “I had someone do that to me too, and it hurt.” She lets out a bitter laugh. “It still hurts sometimes.”

“What happened?” I flip my hand over to take hers into mine and press kisses to her knuckles, one by one.

Her lips thin, and thinking I’ve pushed too far, I mentally yell at myself for not letting Maddox handle this shit. He’s so much better at it than I am, tap dancinghere and there, lightly digging deeper without leaving things scorched in the wake of an interrogation into your deepest, darkest secrets. That’s how he got me to open up, so I should’ve let him take the lead with Kayla too. Because despite having just laid my biggest shame bare, she’s not obligated to give me her story in return. I might want to know everything about her, but that’s one of my many issues and not her problem.

But then she slowly reveals, “We weren’t married, but in my innocent naiveté, I thought we were heading that way. We were young and looking at post-graduation internships. I was trying to decide if I was going to take the ‘easy route’ at Blue Lake with Dad or strike out on my own somewhere else.” She glances off to the side like she’s mentally gone back to those days, but when she looks back, her eyes are crystal clear and her voice is steady as she says, “I overheard him talking to someone I thought was my friend. Their tone made it immediately obvious they’d been fucking behind my back, and he was reassuring her that he was only with me because of my last name. He thought it’d make him a shoo-in at the company, and then into the family. He told her I was too stupid to even suspect and that they could work together to suck me dry.”

Worried I was coming on too strong as she spoke, I sat back to give her space, resting one ankle on my other knee as I listened intently, but when I hear what Kayla’s ex said, both my feet hit the floor and I snap, “Excuse the fuck outta me?”

With a completely different reaction, Maddox clasps his hands beneath his chin and grins wide. “Puh-leazetell me you’re not one of those ‘take the high road’ types. I want to hear that your vengeance was messy anddramatic, leaving him on the floor in the fetal position, whimpering your name as you left with his testicles in your tote bag.”

Her smile is soft and sweet, two things she is not. “A lady never tells.”

Deeply disappointed, Maddox curses, “Aww, shit. Well, tell us his name. We’ll avenge your name, Princess.” He’s entirely serious even though it might sound like he’s joking. I can tell the difference with him, but I’m not sure Kayla can… yet.

“I didn’t sayI’ma lady,” she teases with a devilish smirk, “just thatalady never tells.”

Maddox and I meet eyes and then instantly scoot to her sides, wanting to get as close as we can. “Story time,” he begs. “This is gonna be good, I can feel it.”

When he full-body shimmies in excitement, she laughs, a bright and tinkling sound in contrast with the topic, and I know he’s right. “I’m not proud of this?—”

“But you’re not ashamed of it either, are you?” I interject.

Her lips purse delicately as she neither confirms nor denies. “First off, in my defense, this was years ago. I’d like to say I would handle things differently now, but at the time, petty felt pretty good.” Having given her disclaimers, she grins, the gratification looking so good on her that I can’t wait to hear how she dealt with the asshole who fumbled a catch like her. “Like I said, we were weeks away from application deadlines. I encouraged him to apply at Blue Lake, and only Blue Lake. Talked up that we could enter the company together, work our way up together, really laid it on thick. Meanwhile, I planted seeds with Dad that I was breaking up with Bradley and it would be reallyawkward for us to work at the same place, which technically wasn’t a lie.”

“Diabolical,” I whisper. Kayla’s eyes jerk to mine sharply, but she relaxes when she sees that I mean it as a compliment.

“It wasn’t all that dramatic, I suppose.” She sighs. “I began at Blue Lake and Bradley obviously didn’t get accepted. He had to apply for internships with the next cohort, explaining over and over why he’d been sitting out for an entire year. If he answered honestly—that he’d bet heavily on a long-shot internship that hadn’t come through—it made him seem like a gambler who couldn’t accurately calculate odds for himself. If he played it off like he’d taken a break, he was perceived as unambitious and lacking the aggressiveness needed for the cutthroat business world. He was screwed either way.” She shrugs lightly, unapologetic. “He’s fine now, at the level he probably should’ve always been, and I’m…” Her eyes sparkle. “Where I belong too.”

“Yeah, you are,” I praise, gently running my palm up her thigh, and she smiles fully, hearing that I mean that more than just professionally. She is right where she belongs—here with us.

“It took me a while to realize that while he’d broken my trust—an unforgiveable character flaw—I had some blame in that situation too. Our whole relationship, I’d been trying to fix him, forcing him to live up to the potential I thought he had, whether he wanted to or not. I had this image of what we could be, what our life could look like all planned out to the nth degree, and I never stopped to wonder if he wanted that too. I certainly never asked him.”