Page 45 of Wild Card

“She stayed with you the first night. Said she was happy to. Texted me and Wren updates about things until we could get back to the hospital. I assumed she was a friend of yours.”

“Something like that.”

Easton’s laugh comes through the phone. “Did he assign your latest one-night stand gone wrong? Punishing you for your bad fucking behavior? Sounds like a thing Xander would do if he’s tired of your shit. If that’s what she is I don’t think she’s half bad. She seemed like she genuinely cared about you.”

“She’s his girlfriend’s best friend. We fucked a couple of times. I thought… I don’t know what I fucking thought. It was obviously before the sex tape and the accident.”

“Yeah? Do you know what she thought?”

“No. If we’re not fucking or fighting, she doesn’t say much.”

“But she’s there for you now.”

“Getting paid for it.”

“Oh.”

“I mean… not like that. She’s in between jobs. She’s a history curator and the museum she works for is temporarily closed. She needed work and Xander insists I need fucking help so…”

“So she’s helping?” Easton’s amused with himself.

“Not fucking like that. Jesus.”

“If you say so.”

“Trust me, when she saw my face and all the fucking road rash… Pretty sure that was the last thing on her mind.”

“I got that scar from the knee surgery. Wren says it’s sexy as fuck.”

I roll my eyes, wishing I could smack my little brother upside the head.

“Wren would praise every fucking thing you do. And it’s your fucking knee. Not your face.”

“You look fine. Better than fine. Pretty sure when they do their yearly ‘Westfield brother’ coverage and run the fucking social media polls you’ll still get voted prettiest. So don’t fucking worry about it.”

“Whatever,” I grumble.

“You gonna tell her you’ve got feelings for her?”

“I don’t have feelings for her.” I frown at the phone. Most ridiculous shit I’ve heard.

“Which is why you’ve been talking about her for the last five minutes.”

“She’s in my house every day. What do you want me to talk about?”

“The party you’re throwing when this is over, how your PT is going, whatever hot chick you met that you’re fucking. How much we both can’t stand the old man. The usual.”

“My agent and publicist are on my ass about the party behavior after the sex tape. PT is painful. I can’t fuck anyone right now until this hip is fucking healed up, and after the sex tape, I don’t fucking trust anyone either. And the old man can’t stop shitting bricks about all of it, so still can’t stand him. Still have to answer the phone when he calls. Good enough report for you?”

“Making progress with PT though?”

“Slow. Too fucking slow for my liking. They won’t let me push though. They keep telling me it could set me back. So it’s slow and steady.”

“You’ll get through it. Probably come back better than ever.”

“Stats for the season will still be trash and the bonus will be out of reach. And the team is fucking struggling without me there. We’ve probably lost too many games at this point to have a chance at the playoffs.”

“Next year.”