Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 69847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
And I was.
I’d change at the stadium in the guest locker room into clothes the team provided for us.
The only thing I needed to bring was myself.
And her.
“Let’s go,” I grumbled.
When I didn’t get enough sleep, I was grumpy.
And, seeing as we now had to go work out on top of no sleep, I wasn’t in the best of moods.
I probably shouldn’t have gone to sleep.
In fact, I knew I shouldn’t have.
But telling myself that and actually keeping my eyes open were two different things.
I stood up and watched as she stood, too, and headed for her Birkenstock sandals.
Once she was dressed, she caught my hand up and said, “Ready.”
We walked down to the lobby like that hand-in-hand.
When we arrived it was to find about half the team already in the lobby waiting on us, Titus and Joe included.
They both looked a little worse for wear, and I had to laugh silently to myself thinking about having to practice with alcohol in my system.
“Whoa,” Ari whispered. “I didn’t think they were small before or anything, but when they’re dressed in normal clothing, they look taller.”
I hadn’t bothered changing.
There was no point.
The rest of them looked like they’d taken the time to change into casual clothing, which made me the odd man out still in my sweats and t-shirt.
“They’re all tall,” I pointed out. “You have the cream of the crop here, if you remember. All of them are tall and built. Most of them have spent their entire lives training for them to be right where they are right now. So yeah, they’re all tall and shit…but they haven’t suddenly grown in height since you saw them last.”
She looked up at me. “You’re tall.”
“I’m tall,” I agreed, wondering where she was going with that line of thought.
“Well.” She frowned. “What does it look like from up there?”
Without thought I lifted her up, causing her to laugh and squeal. The noises coming from her drew the attention of the men from the team, including the three men getting off the elevator.
They were the last ones to arrive, and I could tell that Kay was pissy that they’d taken so long, even though they’d arrived ten minutes before our shuttle was set to take off.
Pretty much, if she was ready to go, you were late. And she would go out of her way to find a way to fine your ass for it if she could manage it.
I didn’t pay them any mind as I twirled Ari around and allowed her to see life from my height.
She was giggling and latching onto my head as I twirled her.
“I know that you have a clause in your contract that says you can’t perform any dangerous activities,” Kay snapped at me as she walked past to the shuttle.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked her, walking with Ari in my arms.
“It means that she weighs too much for you to be swinging around and chancing an injury. I pay you to play football, not play the bitch,” Kay snapped.
Then she was moving onto the shuttle to the back of the bus.
“God, she’s worse than I thought,” Ari whispered as she wiggled to get down, no longer smiling at all. “I weigh nothing compared to my carry-on that you lifted up over your head earlier when we got on the plane.”
I had noticed her bag was overly large.
But again, it wasn’t something that I would comment on seeing as I had a daughter, and girls just naturally gravitated toward having a lot of shit.
“She’s an asshole,” Titus said as he climbed the steps in front of us. “Don’t question her or take anything she says personally. She’s like that person from every single TV show you watch—the ones that they purposefully make horrible so you’ll hate them—in real life form.”
Joe snorted. “She really is. I now understand why my ex-wife wouldn’t give her friend up. They’re two evil peas in the same fucked up pod.”
I urged her on in front of me, and really fuckin’ hated how quiet she was getting on the shuttle.
I urged her to sit in the front seat again, forcing her to take the window seat and crowding in beside her.
“I’m sorry,” I told her when we got situated.
She looked over at me and shrugged. “I guess, possibly, I should’ve anticipated her being mean to me. You did say she wasn’t very nice.”
I hadn’t exaggerated.
In fact, if I had to admit the truth, I’d underexaggerated because I’d wanted her to go with me that badly.
CHAPTER 13
A good place to put your opinions is up your ass.
-Text from Caristonia to Hades
CARISTONIA
Two solid hours of watching them practice later, I was exhausted for them.
They were all looking mighty tired after having very little sleep the night before, and even the young, upbeat looking ones that’d looked like they rallied after the plane ride now looked worn down and over it.