Page 177 of Game Misconduct

The door opened again and Tanner glanced over to see a blonde woman standing in the hall. The security guard said something to her, and she nodded and stepped inside.

She looked vaguely familiar and Tanner idly wondered if he’d had sex with her or flirted with her on an app or something, before he realized he’d seen her at the restaurant when he’d gone out with Tom.

Oh, that was probably why she’d been looking at him like that. She was probably trying to figure out how she knew him. Maybe she was dating one of the Black Aces on the team or something? Probably not the rookies since she was maybe in her early thirties …

She moved toward them, smiling, and off to Tanner’s left, Tom made a choking noise.

Tanner glanced over to see his eyes were wide and his normally warm brown skin was a weird, ashy color.

“Hey, you okay?” Tanner asked. “Your knee hurting or something, dude?”

“Darla?” he choked out, staring at the woman, and Tanner’s brain whirled before the pieces settled into place.

Oh fuck, that was Tom and Krista’s stalker!

She was short, with lean muscles like a gymnast or a dancer or something. Pretty. But what the fuck was she doing here? And how the fuck had she gotten in here?

Duh, the security guard,his brain helpfully supplied, but there were still a lot of things that didn’t make sense.

“I just want to talk to you for a minute,” Darla said, holding up her hands.

“You aren’t allowed to be here,” Tom said in a low, furious voice. “You have to go.”

Tanner glanced around. No one was really paying them any attention.Shit.What the hell were they supposed to do if she lost it completely or something though? He thought of the truecrime shows on stalkers he’d watched after Tom had thought he’d spotted her in L.A. and flinched.

Fuck, if she’d shown up here in Boston, that wasbad, right? Tom clearly hadn’t imagined that he’d seen her in L.A. And Tanner had definitely seen her when they were at lunch in Boston. Which meant she must have come to the city and waited outside of HCI and followed them to the restaurant or something.

That was so creepy. Tanner knew stalkers could get pretty fucking dangerous too.

But what could she really do to either of them? Physically, she was way too small to do any real damage to hockey players unless she had a gun or something. But how would she have brought a gun in? Security screened all the people coming into the building, right?

“You can’t just throw me away like this! Iloveyou!” Darla said, her voice growing louder. “You told me you loved me too. So did Krista. You both lied!”

Tears were running down her cheeks now and Tom held out a hand, not quite touching her. “We did love you. But you—you weren’tlisteningwhen we said we needed to take thingsslowly.”

“If you loved me, you would’ve told people about me!” she snapped. “Not kept me asecret.”

“It was complicated,” Tom said, his voice still calm, but Tanner could see the tension in his shoulders. “You know that. I’m a public figure. If people found out about you, it would have blown up in the media, right?”

She wiped at her nose. “You were lying. Just using me.”

“No, no,” Tom said, and Tanner could hear the hurt in his voice. “We wouldn’t.Never.”

“How can you just stop loving someone?” she said, fresh tears spilling down her cheeks. “How can you do that?”

“Darla,” Tom said. “I?—”

But the doors opened and Krista walked in, arm-in-arm with Brie. They were laughing about something, but Krista froze in her tracks, staring wide-eyed at Darla.

“I knew it!” Darla shouted. “You’re withhernow, are you? You left me forher!”

“What?” Tom asked hoarsely.

“That woman.” Darla pointed at Brie, her fingers shaking. “Brie or whatever her name is. You’re with her and that’s why you don’t love me anymore.”

Brie shook her head, letting go of Krista. “No, no, you’ve got it all wrong! I’m not dating them. I just got divorced and Tom and Krista are myfriends.”

Darla’s laugh was low and bitter. “That’s what they tell you at first. They tell you they want to be friends with you and then when you fall in love with them, they throw you out like a piece of trash. Like you meannothingto them.”