Page 12 of Who’s Playing You (In The Nick of Time #1)
NICK SOBA
Trickie Nickies
The Love Machine:
Hey-yo, fuck face! Why have you fallen off the face of the planet? What is going on with you? Like for real, brother.
The Holy One:
I second that.
I sighed when I read the texts that filtered in through my phone on Friday night. It’d been about a week since I last replied to them. Sure they had been texting in our group chat, but I hadn’t been responding.
Honestly, I’d barely even spared the messages much attention at all.
Between training with The Rage and showing up every nay-sayer asshole who’d doubted me or talked shit about me, as well as proving why I was in fact the mother fucking number one draft pick that was about to turn this whole fucking team around, Scottie had also been keeping me busy.
She was a busy little bee this week, prepping for our meet cute.
Fortunately for me she’d scheduled the first outing on a Saturday and right now I still had weekends off.
But once we got a little closer to pre-season (which was literally days away), all of that shit was going to change.
But by then, I needed Scottie under my roof.
It’d be easier to take care of her and protect her once she was in our house.
So in effect, her speeding up our timeline for our “first” meeting actually ended up working out in my favor.
And after I lit the fire under Bob’s ass, he’d been able to bring in a second and third crew who were willing to work third shift, and their efforts paid off.
Scottie’s studio was mere hours away from being ready for her.
I already had all of her art supplies ready for her, along with the various tables, benches, easels, stools, and whatever else she needed.
When it came to her art work, she was very predictable in the materials and tools she liked to use.
It had made it easy to prepare her studio.
The house was another matter entirely, and why I’d waited to paint the various rooms in any specific color and furnish it.
But that was alright. I had the bare necessities that would get me through in the interim.
I knew it was temporary anyway. From the time I moved in until the time Scottie would be moving in, we’re only talking about a few weeks anyway.
And during that time I was preoccupied with my new job as well as with finally being able to follow Scottie and watch her.
All in preparation of finally starting our relationship - officially that is.
My phone pinged again with another incoming text.
Trickie Nickies
The Love Machine:
I swear to God, Soba, if you don’t answer right fucking now, I am going to call your mother.
The Holy One:
OoOooo, pulling out the big guns! Calling Momma Dukes. I like it.
The Love Machine:
Oh would you look at that. His phone isn’t broken.
How can I help you?
The Love Machine:
Oh wow, is this where I order a side of fries? Like seriously asshole, what is going on with you? It’s like you have literally fallen off the face of the Earth.
The Holy One:
I second that. If it weren’t for The Rage’s social posts that sometimes include you, and you’re never in the foreground!
!! We’ll circle back to that btw. If it weren’t for those posts, we would have sent out the search and rescue team because it’s like you fell off the face of the Universe. What gives?
What can I say? I’ve been busy.
The Love Machine:
Bull-fucking-shit! I call bullshit so fucking hard. All three of us are in training camp. Sure, the Drillers are drilling my ass every day but I still have a life. I’m still able to call and text my friends, go out with my team and party, and hook up every fucking night.
The Holy One:
Oh I bet they’re drilling you, Love Bug.
The Love Machine:
Stfu Papas or I’ll drill something into you.
If you two are just going to flirt, please move that over to your private two-way chat. I don’t have time for this.
The Love Machine:
You can stfu too, asshole. You know you’re ignoring us, because you cannot be THAT busy.
So what’s got you so preoccupied? Because in the last seven years, you have been the biggest fucking attention-whore that there is.
You are all over social media, you are at every party, you are at every photo-op - every-fucking-thing.
And now? NOTHING!!! Since you moved to NY, it’s like you literally went into witness protection or something.
The Holy One:
He’s spitting truths. So you better give us a real good explanation or otherwise we will call Mrs. Soba!
You’re going to tell on me, to my MOTHER???
The Love Machine:
We will do what we have to do… tick tock, motherfucker. Tick. Tock.
Idk what you want me to tell you, Kesha I’m finding my way here and let’s just say that the welcome wagon had like one wheel on it.
The Holy One:
Oh poor baby! They didn’t kiss your ass right off the bat?
The Love Machine:
How tragic.
You know what… idk why I was even bothering. Have a nice weekend. Bye.
The Love Machine:
Oh stop. Come back. We’re not sorry. Keep going.
Such a bunch of assholes you are.
The Holy One:
What else is new?
Yeah well, I was dealing with that and just trying to… idk attempt to gel with the team. Or whatever. Plus I bought a house and have been renovating it. It’s just been time consuming. Alright? Happy?
The Love Machine:
What? Are you up there in bum-fuck-nowhere widdling wood with the construction crew that you hired?
But further, I can’t understand for the life of me why in the hell you bought a fucking HOUSE!
!! And in some rinky-dink little college town when you could have rented a sweet penthouse in Man-fucking-hattan!
!! What is wrong with you? Did your mom drop you on your head or someone tackle you a little too hard at practice?
I don’t have to explain my choices to you.
The Holy One:
How about to me?
The Love Machine:
Good one Papas. I snort-laughed out loud on that one, like for reals.
It’s been real fellas. Have a good night. I’ve got an early day tomorrow.
The Love Machine:
An early start TOMORROW? It’s fucking Saturday! I know for fucking certain that The Rage aren’t having you come in on a Saturday morning in pre-season to do workouts, because you told me as much. So what the hell are you doing at the ass crack of dawn on a Saturday?
Painting in the woods.
And with that I turned my phone off. I knew I’d pay for it later, but their texts, phone calls and FaceTime calls could wait until after my day with Scottie. Maybe by then I’d be ready to tell them the big news.
But until then, they could wait.