Page 69 of Scoring Lessons

A few hours later, Olivia pushed me inside her room with a panicked look on her face as she looked both ways to make sure no one from the team was around.

The door automatically shut with a soft click.

“God only knows how I’m going to pack these books in time. We’re supposed to leave in like an hour.” She startled when her gaze found me standing next to a brand new suitcase. “Where the hell did that come from?”

I grabbed the handle of the suitcase with a casual shrug. “The hotel staff can be pretty efficient when you tip them well.” I’d made arrangements to have someone buy a suitcase and leave it in her room.

She jutted her hip and rested a hand against it. “You thought of everything, didn’t you?”

“Told you I had it handled.” I winked. “So, how’d I do?”

“Are you asking me to grade you on our fake date?”

I loathed how my heart involuntarily tugged.

“It wasn’t fake,” I said, almost defensively.

“We’re not dating.”

“Semantics, Livvie.”

“Olivia,” she corrected through a murmur.

I rolled my eyes in exasperation.

After a few silent beats passed, she sighed and raked her fingers through her silky black hair.

“It was weird.” My heart deflated like a balloon being popped. “But in a good way,” she quickly added, and there went my heart, running too hard, too fast, toward hope.

I stayed silent, letting her process her thoughts. Olivia had certain tells when she wanted to say more. Like the way her eyes shimmered with uncertainty. The way she fidgeted with the hem of her dress, and the way she gnawed her bottom lip as she contemplated what else to say.

“It was fun to be the center of attention for once,” she whispered.

My jerk reaction was to make a passive-aggressive comment against Jack because how dare that man—and I used that term loosely—make a woman like Olivia feel like she was three feet tall? She was something rare and breathtaking all at once. She was someone who deserved a man who understood that her shine wasn’t something to compete with.

Fuck Jack Holt for making her think she deserved anything but.

“That’s what this is all about.” I closed the distance between us and inhaled deeply, wanting to etch her scent into my memory—as if I hadn’t already. Afraid it was somehow going to wither away before I could hold on to it tightly. “I want you to have fun, but to also see that this kind of relationship is possible.”

“You’re very knowledgeable for someone who has never had a girlfriend.”

“Ah, you know me.” My smile was forced. “I’ll never be the boyfriend type.”

After all, women only wanted me so they could say they got to fuck Wesley Hayes.

As if everything I’d fought for—including playing for the Strikers—didn’t matter, as long as I continued to be the guy with a nice face, the guy they could add to their hookup tally.

I realized then that I cared very little about that guy. If anything, I wanted to be freed from him.

But it was like instinct to be the guy who used his fun, laid-back personality to hide his imperfections. The guy who loved to hide the sense of dread that made it impossible to breathe.

I’d gotten so used to being this Wesley, I’d forgotten what the real one was like.

Her eyes flickered with something between astonishment and uncertainty. “If you say so.”

I cleared my throat and pulled on the back of my neck. It was time to change the topic before she could discover something I wasn’t ready for her to see. “I want to show you something.” I reached for my phone to find the documentation I’d requested the medical team to email me. “I know we’re going to start doing other”—I coughed as I tried to sound casual—“stuff because of the list and all, so I wanted to show you that my tests are all clear. And I haven’t been with anyone all season.”

“Oh.” She looked at the email then looked for her phone and showed me something similar. “I’d requested a copy, too, to show you. I’m clear, too,” she said then quickly added, “And I’m on birth control.”