Hothead (Irresistible 4)

The prick looked at me for a reaction – perhaps some flinch or grimace to give away the fact that I hadn’t seen Evie, my media-dubbed “good luck charm”, in almost a week. He was hawking me for something, anything, but I gave him nothing because the reality was, it had only been five days.

Five days since the morning I woke up and she was gone.

I couldn’t say I was surprised that morning because I’d expected her to leave. I had driven her away with my reaction, and I knew that. In fact, a part of me knew it would as the words this wasn’t part of the plan were coming out. It was an undeniable piece of shit thing to say, and I knew it wasn’t what she wanted to hear.

But it was my cynical asshole nature coming back to protect me from what she had told me.

Pregnant.

I still couldn’t believe it.

It was the word I’d been trained to fear since the day I came into the league. For Christ’s sake, there were official league training videos we were required to watch as rookies, just to protect us from women who were after our money.

These women want child support from you. They’ll poke holes into condoms. Always bring your own rubbers. Never get a girl pregnant.

In my heart, I knew Evie hadn’t poked a fucking hole in a condom. I knew she wasn’t swindling me out of some desperate need for money.

But at the same time, I forced myself to question her. She’d reversed a good amount, but she hadn’t gotten rid of all my doubt and cynicism – the side of me that believed that every person in the world had a price. There was at least a sliver of that side of me left, and it reminded me of what Iain’s girlfriend Keira had said the night of Emmett and Aly’s engagement dinner.

Anyone on welfare is going try to use her to get to your money. You know too well how that goes. Protect yourself. I replayed those words in my head. I thought of Evie’s mom. Her drug addict sister. I ran through all my cynical thoughts for the first two days that Evie was gone.

And on day three, I concluded that it was all bullshit.

She wasn’t some scheming, conniving con artist – I was just eager to find one. I was eager to believe that over the course of my career, all the walls I kept up, all the suspicions I had for everyone in my life weren’t just for nothing. That I was justified in my lack of trust for anyone – that I had always been right.

But the reality was that I wasn’t now, and I hadn’t always been.

“Asshole. There you are,” Emmett greeted me when I finally got out of the clubhouse and found him in his usual suite at the stadium. It was right behind home plate, and since that meant he had a fantastic view of me fucking blowing it tonight, I braced myself for some smartass dig. Rather, I hoped for one. It would mean that whatever he texted me about wasn’t actually as grave as it sounded – that everything that already resolved.

But since no dig or joke came, I frowned hard at him.

“What? What’s going on?” I asked Emmett. The way he rubbed his jaw and took a deep breath made the blood in my veins set on fire. “Emmett, what the fuck happened? Is she okay? You said she was in good hands.”

He had. And I’d believed him.

The morning that Evie left, the first person I had called was Emmett. Not her. Maybe a dick move on my part, but I wasn’t ready to talk to her. The first few days were when I was entertaining the dark side of my brain – the part that tried convincing me that Evie had been playing the long con, and that she was in this solely for the money.

So I didn’t trust myself to talk to her yet.

But I’d trusted Emmett, who told me she had gone to his and Aly’s house in East Hampton.

“Look, she’s likely fine right now,” he started evenly, but it set me off fast.

“’Likely’?” The word launched me from zero to sixty fast. “For Christ’s sake, Emmett, she’s pregnant – there’s no room for ‘likely!’”

“Well, if there’s no room for ‘likely’ then why the fuck haven’t you called her or come to see her yourself?” Emmett challenged, making my fists ball tighter. “How long were you planning on relying on the comfort of knowing that she was safe with us? Were you going to ignore her forever as long as she was under our roof?”

“I told you I needed time to get my fucking thoughts straight. Considering the shit that was going through my head, I can guarantee you I would’ve made things worse by talking to her.”

“Well, whether or not that’s bullshit, the fact of the matter is she hasn’t been at our house for three days now.”

“Are you fucking kidding me, Emmett?”

I wanted to choke him out, but instead I turned to storm out and find her – before realizing I had no idea where the fuck she was. With my hands thrust in my hair, I faced Emmett again.

“Tell me you know where she is,” I said, my voice shaking with fury. I already had a guess as to where she was, but I was praying for him to prove me wrong.

“She gave us a hotel name and we confirmed that she had a reservation there. But Aly went the other day and they told her Evie never checked in.”