Blindsided (Game On 2)

Too bad she didn’t protect you the same way.

“It’s cool,” McCoy said. “You don’t have to tell me, but whatever it is, she isn’t over it. And she sure isn’t over you.”

“I’m not over her either.”

McCoy looked abnormally thoughtful. “You’re too young to be tied down to one girl, and one that doesn’t live in L.A? Crazy. But she’s cute, she seems nothing like Taylor, and you are nothing like me. So, if you want her … sort it out.”

“You make it sound easy.”

He shrugged. “It’s easy if she’s the girl you want to be with.”

“She is, but there’s so much in the way. It’s not like we can fly back and forth every couple weeks to see each other. Especially now I have to have surgery, and Izzy’s starting University next year. And … it

wasn’t so long ago that I broke up with Taylor.”

She hadn’t been on my mind. Not for a long time, and especially not while I’d been with Isabelle. But she always found her way into conversations about girls.

“Taylor,” McCoy said. “I had a girl like her once. Her name was Jen.”

“Did you love her?”

McCoy nodded. “After her, I had a hard time trusting women. But you don’t have that problem, and Isabelle looks like someone who wouldn’t mess you around.”

“How do I know if it’s worth it?”

“You’re asking me like I’m an expert,” he said, with a laugh. “I’m not.”

With raised eyebrows, I said, “You? Not an expert on women?”

“I can tell you how to get women in to bed, and how to get rid of them the next day. But keeping them? Maybe you should call Jude.”

In theory, Jude Collinson was the better person to ask. He met and married his wife within two years, and they seemed blissfully happy. But McCoy wasn’t as lacking in sentiment as he pretended. When Leah left L.A, he wasn’t the same. He worked harder, said less, kept away from any partying and there was a good chance of having your head bitten off if you spoke to him at the wrong time.

“Nah, I’m not buying this,” I said. “How did you know Leah was worth it?”

“Oh, you had to go there, didn’t you?” he grinned, then paused to drink some coffee. “I don’t know,” he went on, “She’s pretty hot.”

“Seriously. How did you know? Out of all the hot girls you’ve been with, how did you know she was the one?”

He let out a slow breath, but he was still smiling, like just the thought of Leah made him happy or something.

“This might sound stupid,” he said, “but I just … felt it. I’ve been with a lot of women, but Leah was different. I didn’t know right away because I was having too much fun playing around with her, but things changed.”

“How?”

“There were a lot of times when I saw how different she was from the other women I knew, but it wasn’t until we hung out with her family in Florida that I realised how much I liked her. We were at the aquarium and her nephew wanted to look in the gift shop. I took him, and you know how Leah likes to buy crappy souvenirs when she visits places?”

“Yeah, but she’d kill you for calling it crap.”

McCoy laughed. “Yeah she would. Well, I was in the gift shop with Jamie, and I saw something that would fit right in to her collection. I’d already paid for it when I realised that I’d bought a gift for a girl just because I was thinking of her, not because I wanted anything from her. Scared the hell out of me.”

I felt the same way about Isabelle. I mean, I’d never been as selfish as McCoy, but I got what he was saying. And nobody had ever taken over my thoughts the way Isabelle had.

“I think Isabelle’s pretty special. But I don’t know if it can really work with us so far apart. It’s so stupid. I came over here because I wanted a vacation. Hunter was the one who was planning on scoring with as many British girls as possible. And how pathetic am I, moping over some girl when there are more important things going on right now?”

“It’s better that you’re thinking about something other than your knee. There’s nothing you can do about that until you get home anyway. But you can do something about your girl.”

“What do I do?”