Read Online Penalty: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (Alpha Second Chances Book 3) by Rowena - Free Book Online Page B

exactly who. This is not a game, B. Leave Maddy alone.
    Or else what? comes back quickly.
    She’s got me there.
    I haven’t exactly come up with a plan yet, but I certainly can’t say anything more specific over text anyway. Texts can be screen-capped, forwarded, shown to authority figures.
    Don’t worry, she texts back. I won’t lay a hand on your precious Maddy’s head.
    Part of me wants to be relieved, but the smarter part says there’s something more to her words. Beth is very careful with how she uses them, and I get the sense she’s not quite done with us.
    I also have no solid evidence of otherwise, and chances are, I’m just being paranoid.
    The best thing I can do at this point is take her at her word instead of stressing over nothing.
    Beth has already sent her message and probably got her petty vindictiveness out of her system.
    She’s probably just trying to get in my head and fuck up my big event in a few weeks.
    Yup, that’s it—psychological warfare.
    If she keeps me thinking she’s planning more attacks, she could throw me off my game and do exactly what she threatened earlier, messing with my future without lifting a finger.
    I can’t let her get in my head.

Part II
Blitz

8
Abraham
    I t seems Beth has satisfied her need for revenge.
    Over a week has passed, and Maddy has received no more nasty surprises.
    I haven’t heard hide nor hair from Beth in any way, although I still spot her from time to time around campus, but she always pretends she doesn’t see me.
    I wonder what she told her friends.
    There’s no way she let anyone know I dumped her—she’s way too proud for that.
    At best, she probably made it seem like we came to a mutual decision, or that she realized the error in her own ways for settling for little old me and has her eyes on a larger prize—someone already pro.
    At worst, she made me out to be the bad guy in more concrete ways—although I’m not sure what she can use to paint me horribly besides the brief period we had an open relationship. The most she can do is present me as a playboy cheater, which, although not exactly true, still isn’t exactly reputation-damaging. It’s exactly what most probably expect me to be, so no one cares.
    But no one has been looking at me weird, so I figure Beth went with a more benign option.
    Things are normal again, and I feel a freedom I haven’t felt in a long time and hadn’t realized I missed, even though I’m still not single; things just feel different with Maddy.
    I look forward to seeing her every day, and thinking about her or catching a glimpse of her sends a rush of joy and pleasure through me.
    It’s quite addicting.
    Despite whatever praise I get in football, despite how many pretty chicks bat their eyes at me, I realize I’d been missing a different sort of contentedness. With Maddy, I actually feel good about myself in ways I didn’t realize I needed; she makes me more than happy.
    I don’t want to let this feeling go.
    Even now, I’m dreading the upcoming trip I had looked forward to for years now because it means I’ll be away from Maddy for a few days.
    I won’t get to touch her, kiss her. I can’t fill my eyes with her in person instead of over Facetime or something. I won’t get to run my hands through her amazing hair, hold her slim naked form against me.
    I have this need for Maddy that, had I been able to examine it objectively, would probably be frightening; it gives her too much control over me. But it just feels too fucking good.
    Maddy could easily be the destruction of me—of everything I’ve built—and I’d go down with a goofy smile.
    I haven’t told her about my upcoming trip yet, but it probably won’t phase her much anyway. She seems to delight in solitude and silence.
    I can only dream she misses me as much as I know I’ll miss her.
    In any case, it’s just a few days; we’ll get through it.

    * * *
    T ravel day for the NFL Scouting Combine arrives quickly, and instead of being