Excerpt

Maya

“She’s not that pretty, but she sure is loyal,” Bryce drawls.

Another voice, one I can’t pinpoint, shouts, “Dude, that’s your fiancée you’re talking about.”

There’s another titter of laughter around the backyard before Bryce questions, “Do I lie?” As if he’s the one wronged when he’s just shoved the Lombardi trophy through my heart.

The tray of drinks I grabbed at Bryce’s gentle request a few moments earlier, “You disappeared with your girls, baby. We let the servers go too early, baby,” rattles precariously in my hands. I quickly set them down on the nearest console table before they crash to the floor, revealing my presence before I can finish eavesdropping.

Maybe it’s just the booze, I try to rationalize. After all, Bryce and his teammates have been drinking since early afternoon. Now, long past sunset, I’d been hoping Bryce and I could ease people out of the home I had moved a few suitcases of clothes into just this past week so we could have some quality time. Especially since he was leaving for training camp next week, but that turned out to be a futile hope. For him and his teammates—past and present— apparently our engagement party is just getting started.

So are the insults.

About me. The woman he’s supposed to love, honor, and cherish above all others.

“Why her?” One asks.

“Why not, Maya?” Bryce counters.

My heart warms slightly at his defense of me, us. It’s always been the two of us together. We grew up together—both of us living in a small town with one working stoplight that they just last year voted to rename from “Main Street” to “Parry Street” in his honor. I was so proud of him. Of us. Bryce said the same thing when we got back to the hotel that night.

“I don’t know how I would have done it without you, Maya.”

I cup his cheek. “You would have figured it out. I believe in you.”

He shakes his head. “Maybe.”

I lean forward and kiss his lips. “I’m certain of it.”

He falls back onto the bed pulling me on top of him. “You know one of the things I love the most about you?”

“What’s that?”

He brushes my long curls away from my face. “You don’t look at me and see a brand. You see…well, me. Warts and all.”

I lean down and brush my lips against his. “Well, if you have any warts, I’ve yet to find them.”

He tugs my head forward and short-circuits my system with a heated kiss. “I hope you never do.”

Looks like today is the day they reveal themselves to me.

“Chicks throw themselves at you all the time, Parry,” One points out.

Another shouts from what must be the far side of the fire pit, “You mean to tell me you don’t help yourself while you’re out on the road?”

There’s a long pause before the same voice mocks, “That’s what I thought.”

As a travel photojournalist, I’ve been to some pretty hairy places. Some of which I downplayed to Bryce, actually concerned he would be worried about my well-being. They were beautiful and terrifying in equal measure. Still, I’d worried it would be my job that would be the death of me. Never did I imagine it would be the viperous silence that would be the cause of my heart fracturing into a million pieces.

Bryce remarks offhandedly, “I’m just bein’ friendly with the ladies.”

“Friendly. Right. That’s what you call cheating on your intended?” I suck in my breath as, through my despair, I recognize that particular voice. It’s Troy Walsh—my fiancé’s former teammate. The man who repeatedly told me he would support me with anything I needed for our wedding at the end of football season.

I thought we were friends.

I thought he respected me.

I was obviously wrong. Not just about Troy, but about so much. A buzzing descends over me, cloaking me in a bubble of protective numbness.

“Worry about your own love life—or lack thereof, Walsh. Let me worry about Maya,” Bryce barks, but it comes out with no bite.

“What are you going to do when she finds out?” Troy challenges him.

“What makes you think she will?” Then, as if this revelation could get any worse, Bryce boasts, “Besides, Maya hasn’t found out once over the years since we’ve been together.”

Bile surges up my throat, making me wish desperately I hadn’t given in to my girls and had the passion fruit martinis earlier. Desperately, I reach for the closest vessel. It is ironic that I vomit into the crystal bowl that our town gave Bryce to honor him after he was named All-American quarterback.

I swipe my lips across the back of my hand and think hysterically, Too late. I now know everything. Shoving the bowl back into place, I hope he takes weeks to find it. Sliding down the wall, curling up in a ball, I clutch my arms around myself, doing everything possible to hold what’s left of my pride together.

Dropping my head against my knees becomes a defense mechanism as some of Bryce’s teammates detail to the men crowded around the fire some of his more recent exploits. These supposed upstanding men fling around terms like “Box Seat Barbie” and “Cleat Chaser”, including the one I’d given my heart to. Bryce brags about one woman in particular—a woman I’ve met frequently.

My stomach churns again, but before I can reach for what may be the classiest emesis bag I’ve heard of in my travels, the rookie of the team, a kid they picked up for this season from USC, barks out a laugh. “Yo, look who just slid into my DMs. That same chick.”

Bryce lets out a derisive laugh. “Man. Captain of the Cleat Chaser squad. She doesn’t care about you or even your dick. She just cares that you have a jersey number on your back.”

A different teammate pipes in. “Fact. She was in the stands every game last year.”

“You’d be too busy playing to notice; her tits were practically hanging out to get you guys to score.” One of the second-string linemen remarks.

“She was trying to get one of us to score, all right,” Bryce jokes.

“She’s practically the welcoming committee at this point.”

“More like our warm-up squad.” Bryce is now cackling.

There’s wide laughter before the team’s wide receiver shouts, “Warm-up squad? Bro, I just use her for practice before I go home to my wife. Got to get my moves straight.”

More laughter before the tight end snorts, “Practice? She’s trying out for any position we’ll offer her. Starter, back up, water games—it doesn’t matter.”

The rookie’s voice holds a note of misplaced awe. “Y’all are wild.”

Troy’s voice is cool. “Wild isn’t necessarily good. In fact—”

But I never get to hear the end of what Troy was going to say because that’s when Bryce scoffs, “Dude, you’re bringing my party down.”

The rookie agrees with Bryce. “If she ain’t protesting and she ain’t looking for love, I might just give her a call.”

That’s when Bryce gives him sage advice that has me gagging. “Double wrap it. You don’t need her flashing a baby on Instagram with your jersey number as the hashtag.”

“Good advice. Thanks.”

As Bryce launches into an account of his latest exploit with his newest “Barbie,” Troy saves the lining of my stomach by snarling, “I really don’t want any more details.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Cause I have to look your fiancée in the eye. Fuck you very much.”

“Come on, Walsh. It’s not like you didn’t have your fair share of available ‘cleat chasers’ when you were playing—even if you were ‘only the kicker,’” Bryce taunts.

“There’s a major difference between us, asshole.”

“And that is?”

Curious, I lean a little closer until the noxious smell of my own puke almost causes me to pass out. I swallow my bile as Troy bellows, “I wasn’t—nor have I ever been—in a committed relationship when I was fuckin’ around with them!”

My respect level for Troy notches up a bit even if I suspect it’s going to plummet straight into the depths of hell before the sun rises—him and these men who will look me straight in the eye and never mention to me that my fiancé, the man I’ve considered the other part of my heart, is a cheating piece of shit.