Page 56 of The Wrong Game

“Sorry, Doc,” I said when he passed by.

He gave a sympathetic, tight-lipped smile, clapping me on the shoulder. “It’s okay. Just clean it up.”

I forced a breath, hating the way my chest ached with the words he’d spoken as I started sweeping.

She’s just a girl.

I didn’t try to find Belle again, and I didn’t look to see if Gemma had already climbed into a cab outside with Andy. I just swept up the shattered glass, wondering how I’d gotten so caught up in a woman who couldn’t care less about me, wondering how a night could do such a one-eighty in such a short amount of time.

Maybe Gemma wasn’t different at all.

Maybe she was just like everyone else.

And maybe, though it stung my chest like a branding iron, I needed to do just what she wanted me to.

I needed to let her go.

Gemma

I made a mistake.

I made a huge,hugemistake.

Of course, that realization didn’t hit me until it was ten minutes past way too late.

It didn’t occur to me that I was making bad choices when I sauntered over to that table full of guys, hell bent on proving my point to Zach that I had not gone to that bar for him. At that time, it was just a game — which I’d recently discovered that I apparently loved to play. I just wanted to tease him, to let him know who was in control when it came to whatever it was that was happening between us.

I still had a plan. I still didn’t want to be in a relationship. And he was still wasting his time.

However true all of that might have been, I made a mistake walking up to that table of guys. Even if it had been a fun night, cheering on the Bears to a victory over the Packers and throwing back tequila like it was water, I should have realized I was playing with fire.

I’d had a dream about my ex-husband less than an hour before I’d walked into that bar, and I shouldn’t have had as much as I had to drink. I shouldn’t have drank at all. I should have just stayed home, should have let Belle come up, should have faced something —anything— instead of just avoiding.

But that was my modus operandi, and while I’d successfully avoided the mess of my past, I’d somehow found myself in an even bigger, smellier pile of mess in my present.

Andy grabbed my ass as I thumbed through my phone for an Uber, and my heart pounded in my chest, drowning out the tequila.

I don’t want him touching me.

I don’t want him to come home with me.

I want Zach.

That last thought hit me like a truck, and I shook it off, blaming the alcohol. I was just emotional after blowing up at him. Belle I could apologize to, but he would be a different story.

Maybe I should go apologize to him now…

That thought stunned me, and my thumb hovered over where I needed to tap to officially order us our ride.

“I can’t wait to get you home,” Andy said, nuzzling into my neck.

I pushed him off, stumbling back toward the bar. “Change of plans.”

“Wait, where are you going?”

“I need to talk to someone.”

I was almost to the door when Belle bounded out of it, colliding with me as we spun in a tornado of hair and slinging purses.