Hard Love (Trophy Boyfriends 3)

She extends a hand, which I ignore. Buzz also extends his palm and I slap it out of my face.

“Get the fuck away from me,” I snap, feeling like a colossal idiot.

I can get up from the floor myself. I don’t need help.

“That was the best thing I’ve seen in my entire life,” my brother goes on while I catch sight of my mother rushing over.

Awesome.

A crowd is gathering.

“Don’t move him!” a woman’s voice shouts and I crane my neck to see Mom shoving her way through the masses. “It could be his spine! Someone call an ambulance.”

“He’s fine, Mom. He’s just being a pussy.” Buzz is looking down at me, giving my hip a nudge with the toe of his wedding shoe.

Hollis smacks him. “You can’t say pussy at your wedding.”

“Sorry.” He is not the least bit chagrined. “Tripp doesn’t need an ambulance—he needs a waambulance.”

If I were standing, I’d sock him in the balls.

“Boys, stop,” Mom fusses, dropping to her knees in front of me, wearing her sparkly mother of the groom dress, checking for bodily injuries—as if I’m on my back on a football field and she’s the medical staff. It’s a scene we’re all too familiar with.

“Sweetie, are you okay?” Mom’s hands are forcing my eyelids open and I swat them away.

“Mom, I’m fine.”

Just stunned.

What the hell is Chandler doing flipping me at a freaking party in the first place? What the fuck did I say that was wrong? Is she a total psychopath?

“Stop moving!” Mom demands. “Let me see your eyes. You might have a concussion,” she declares, much to my brother’s amusement. Dad hovers not far behind her, arms crossed, looking perturbed.

He rolls his eyes.

Fucking great.

My dad thinks I’m a pussy, too.

“Son, pick yourself up,” he’s saying in an authoritative tone, mouth set in a straight line.

“Roger, he might be hurt,” Mom tells him, worried.

“He’s fine. Anyone can see the girl tossed him on his rear.” He’s eyeballing Chandler with a healthy dose of respect. “Don’t say I blame her.”

I unfold myself from the ground, stiffly sitting up—as if I was down there doing crunches—and rise, swiping at the dust I managed to gather on my black pants and jacket.

Thanks a lot, Chandler.

She’s among the group of onlookers—as if she wasn’t the one who tossed me and left my corpse there to rot while the vultures gather.

What woman is so freakishly strong that they can put a grown man who’s twice her size on the floor like that? Christ.

I didn’t see it coming—and I see everything coming.

I glance at her again, giving her the opportunity to rush over and check my body for injuries, the same way my mother did. Fuss over me, ashamed by her actions, ready to make amends.

The woman just stands there, smug.

Chandler has nothing to say.

No defense, no apology.

Stands there with a shit-eating grin on her face. I hate to call it a smirk, but there’s no denying that smug countenance. And fuck if one of her brows doesn’t arch in my direction.

An arched brow of victory.

I showed you, that brow is saying, taunting me. Superior.

That’s one chick I’ll never call boring again.

Lesson learned.

“Nothing to see here,” I tell my friends and family, phones pointed in my damn direction. “Put those away, would you?” I shield my face, but the damage is done.

A SportsCenter journalist approaches.

I recognize her from the locker room; it’s Sunny Bellefonte and she often covers our games. Great, just what I needed—media coverage of me being dumped on the ground by a waif.

“That was something I wasn’t expecting to see at a classy wedding.” Sunny is chuckling. “What’d you do to piss her off?”

“Nothing.” Except call her boring and imply that she was less exciting than watching paint dry. “That was not part of your exclusive, by the way,” I complain, dusting off my knees.

Sunny’s laugh is patronizing as she sizes me up. “That hardly matters, Wallace—a dozen other people caught that on their phones and the video has already made it onto the internet.” Her finger hovers over her tablet. “Would you care to name the young lady who flipped you on your back?”

“No.”

“No?” Her blonde brows are raised. “Is she a girlfriend?”

“Hell no.”

“Yeah.” She taps her chin with the tip of her tablet stylus. “The independent, badassery kind of woman hardly seems like your type.”

Is she implying that Chandler Westbrooke is independent and badass?

Mousy and lame is more like it.

I whip my head around to glare at Sunny, reacting to her barb. “Not my type? What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“No offense, Wallace, but you seem more like one to go for the flighty, submissive type. Not the kind who’s going to kick your ass in public and leave you lying there.” She’s laughing again, definitely condescending to me. To my face.

Is something in the water tonight? Why am I being ganged up on?