Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 86596 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 433(@200wpm)___ 346(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86596 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 433(@200wpm)___ 346(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
What will people think? “I hate to break it to you, babe, but no one is even going to notice we're not there.” I laughed. “There are far more important people than us in that room.”
She stared at me, face getting red with anger, a tantrum brewing.
“That is my point, Eli,” she seethed, nostrils flaring.
I shrugged nonchalantly, refusing to engage in whatever this was becoming. “If you don’t want to come along to my folks, then don’t.”
“Folks?” She snorted. “You sound like a hick.”
“I sound like a hick?” Where was she going with this and why was she pissed?
I’d picked up my phone from the table and tapped open the notification center, scrolling through a few from my clients, a rookie that had just been drafted with a professional baseball team, and my dad.
“You’re not taking this seriously,” Laura continued. “Elias. Look at me.”
I glanced up. “It’s a football game.”
“You have clients at that game. You’re not even going to network?” She threw the sentence out like an accusation. As if I were a horrible human being for not taking her to the stadium.
And news flash: Laura never even watched the games. She was there to see and be seen, with her high heels, rhinestone-studded team shirt, and tight jeans. What attracted me to her in the first place was the one thing we argued about the most: her constant need to see and be seen.
“What do I have to network for? I want to spend the day with my family.” I’d gone back to text my dad, who wanted to know what beer to buy, but I volunteered to grab it for him on our way over.
“Listen, babe. I don’t understand why you’re acting this way, but I have to get going—we have to get going if you’re coming with.”
Laura crossed her arms defiantly. “Everyone is going to be there, Elias. Everyone. Vander and Lexi Ryan. Karl and Marie. Keith Dwyer.”
She spouted the names of couples we enjoyed hanging out with and women she found amusing, the only single one amongst them being Keith.
Keith Dwyer had been a client of mine, and last year, he had been on the opposing team at the playoffs and hadn’t been in the game that day. Whoever had won that day (it had been the Detroit Panthers) had played Keith in the Super Bowl (his team had won), and for whatever reason, my girlfriend had wanted to see him.
I hadn’t thought much of it at the time. It was common to hang out with my clients, many of whom were single. Single players on a professional level, but whom I was friends with and socialized with behind the scenes.
Keith was one of them.
He was always at my condo. We’d go to dinner—we were friends, Keith and I. Keith and Laura. Genuine ones or so I thought.
We hadn’t been friends long. We’d met when I signed him as a rookie only two years prior, but he quickly rose among the players that America adored and found it hard to trust new people, finding trust in me. Young, good-looking, and rich, Keith never dated anyone, male or female—not that I knew.
But my girlfriend adored him as much as I did, so I thought nothing of the fact that she wanted to see him during the playoff game and had thrown a fit about it.
What a fucking clueless idiot I had been.
Blind.
I’d seen the situation plenty of times. Fame-hungry women who used my players and clients for their money and power—I just hadn’t thought I would ever be in one of those relationships.
Hindsight was always twenty-twenty, wasn’t it?
I had gone to my parents alone that day. Neither my father nor mother nor sister asked where my girlfriend was. Most likely, they were relieved she hadn’t shown up. I’ll be the first to admit that she acted like a shrew on most occasions, petty and demanding, and hated the fact that my parents were middle class and lived in a subdivision of modest homes and not mega mansions.
My sister, Kate, loved to tell me after the breakup what I was too blind to see for myself—that Laura treated my sister and mother as if they were her servants, having them fetch things for her like food and drinks and bragging about the material things I bought her—none of which were important to my family.
Trust me, I tried plenty of times to buy my parents a newer, bigger home, but they were happy where they were. In the same house where I’d grown up.
Sure, they were cool with occasionally letting me pay for vacations, but that was as far as it went. I wasn’t one of those people who supported their families like many of my clients did, although I tried over the years.
Kate? She was a different story. When she needed a new apartment, I was the one who paid her first and last month’s rent.