Chapter 16

“I’D LIKE TO MAKE a toast!” Cole stood at their table after they received their round of shots. He wanted something red so the server recommended a cherry cheesecake shot. Hailey would have preferred a glass of Sangria if she was going for something red. Or a Dirty Shirley, of course.

“Oh geez Cole, how are you possibly going to live up to your halftime speech? It was some Vince Lombardi-level shit,” said Hailey.

“Who is Vince Lombardi?” asked Abby.

Hailey just slapped a palm to her face, “He’s a famous football coach with a bunch of famous quotes.”

“Ohhhh, okay then that’s funny.”

Explaining jokes was always such a buzzkill. Good thing they didn’t even take their shots yet.

“Ahem. As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, I’d like to make a toast.” Cole raised his shot glass in the air and everyone at the table did the same. Elena leveled him with a glare, but still raised her glass.

“Good job,” said Cole before knocking back his shot and sitting down. He was a man of few words when it came to inspiring them, but it worked.

Everyone cheered and downed their shot, then Cole asked their server for a second round for everyone.

Two shots in a row after playing soccer all morning with no food in her stomach yet? Yup, Hailey was about to get smashed.

———————————

“It simply cannot be done. The science does not back you up on this one at all.”

“But that goes against pretty much every time travel movie in the history of cinema.”

Hailey was beyond tipsy and having a debate with Avery. Unlike debates with Gage, Avery was doing this crazy thing called “listening” and trying to understand her stance.

“Okay, it’s like this,” Hailey said as she grabbed a salt and pepper shaker, a bottle of ketchup and hot sauce and assigned them each a name. “Okay, so let’s say I’m the ketchup and we’re all sitting in the year 2000.”

She took a few napkins and spread them in a line across the table from the pieces and then started slowly pushing all four toward the napkins.

“The napkins represent 2050. Now, these three people, let’s say you, Abby and Cole are continuing on toward 2050. Hailey—” she says while holding up the ketchup, “decides to hop in a time machine with Doc Brown and travel to 2050. This removes her from the three of you. There is no body double that goes on in real time with you guys, she just skips fifty years and it’s like she disappeared for those fifty years.”

“Okay, okay. But you could visit someone else in the future, right?” Avery prodded.

“You could, but they’ll wonder where the hell you’ve been the last fifty years.”

“Alright, I’ll give you this one, if you admit that Legolas is better than Aragorn.”

Hailey’s jaw dropped as she held her hand against her chest in mock horror. How dare he rank “Lord of the Rings” characters!

“The nerve! It all depends. If we were playing fuck, marry, kill, absolutely Aragorn is better for marriage and Legolas would just be good for a night. Can’t get attached to someone who lives as long as him while us mere mortals die so quickly.”

No one around them had any idea what they were talking about, but they did not notice. Avery started cracking up at Hailey’s explanation before saying, “Once again, Hailey, I just can’t argue with your logic. Perhaps I am a mere mortal compared to you.”

“Bow down before me! And also let’s order some fries.”

“I’ll get you the fries now, but the worshiping will have to come later.”

Next to Hailey, Abby coughed on the beer she was drinking so Hailey’s attention jumped to her while Avery was flagging down their server to grab more fries for the table. Abby poked her side and gave Hailey a knowing look, raising one eyebrow at her. Hailey just answered with a big smile and a promise to get fries for her, too. Abby simply shook her head at Hailey’s obliviousness, saying she’d talk to her about it later.

Cole was busy with Riley, Josh and their gym friends talking about crossfit, yet again, and Hailey wasn’t interested in hearing about their cult, gym, whatever they wanted to call it, so she turned back to the burger sitting in front of her. She knew she had to eat more to absorb the alcohol she drank way too fast. That’s when she felt a buzzing in her pocket and took out her phone.

ABBY:Did you just miss the part where Avery said he’s interested in worshiping you later? He’s totally flirting!

Hailey gave Abby a questioning look before answering.

HAILEY:Worshiping? How’s that flirting?

ABBY:I’ll tell you when you’re older.

Hailey responded with a thumbs up and then went back to see her other messages. Gage had barely texted her all weekend because of Rick’s bachelor party. Rick had invited him months ago so he couldn’t really take it back, despite Bridget hoping he’d be gone by now. They were away for the weekend for a golf trip. Hailey sent him a few messages just to check in and she let him know they won the championship. Crickets.

She let out a big sigh and then brought her attention back to her food.

“Hey, you okay?” Avery noticed her sigh. Because, of course he did.

That’s when their extra order of fries came with Old Bay seasoning and she and Avery started digging in, but Avery was still giving her a wary look.

“It’s nothing. I just haven’t heard much from Gage this weekend.”

Avery gave her a look of understanding with a mix of something she just couldn’t place. That’s when Cole picked up on their conversation. Hailey guessed he was finally done talking about how much weight he could deadlift.

“Okay, everyone. This is really important. When one of us is hurting, we all are. So, Hailey, it’s time for an intervention.”

“Uh, intervention for what?”

Cole looked around the table for support and found some of his teammates nodding, giving him permission to continue. All ten people still at the table were now focused on him and Hailey was suddenly on edge.

“Hailey, we all love you very much,” he said as he put a hand over his heart. “But, we all think your boyfriend sucks and you need to get rid of him.”

Hailey opened her mouth to speak but was too shocked to respond so she just closed it back up.

“I think we should go around the table and give examples so Hailey sees it more clearly.”

Avery started shaking his head and looked down at his food. “Jesus Christ, Cole.”

Abby ignored Avery and cleared her throat. “He has only come to see you play once since you’ve gone out with him and he started arguing with you as soon as you reached him after the game. According to him, there were just too many guys around you and God forbid you have male friends.”

Riley spoke up next. “You’ve come to at least four different games where it was obvious you had been crying and when we all asked if you were okay you said it was just something stupid with Gage. I have a feeling it was him being stupid. Even I know a guy shouldn’t make you cry so often. Or, like, at all.”

Hailey just blinked at Riley and tried to process what was going on around her. She was getting a bit overwhelmed so she brought her focus back to the french fries.

“He called me ‘Ching Chong’ once and I’m pretty sure he meant it in a racist way,” Josh said.

“I didn’t know he did that,” she said as she felt her stomach drop.

She noticed Riley stiffen next to Josh. “You never told me that.”

“Didn’t want to upset you,” Josh murmured to Riley. Then he turned back to Hailey. “Plus, you’re so pretty, Hailey. Like, even when you’re all sweaty after a game. And Gage is good looking, but puts all this effort into it with his gel and fancy suits. He has to buy his pretty, but you’re just naturally pretty. You’re way out of his league.”

All Hailey could do was gape at Josh’s comment. She didn’t think she heard the word pretty directed at her so many times in a row. It was definitely better than hearing her boyfriend was a bit racist.

“Every gift he’s ever given you has been something all of us know you wouldn’t like, and none of us are dating you,” Cole added.

“Seriously, even Cole could come up with better gifts than him,” Elena said.

“Oh my goodness, Elena, was that a compliment?” Cole joked. “Someone write down the date and time. It’s unlikely to happen again.”

Elena simply glared at Cole with murder in her eyes. Who knew why these two annoyed each other so much?

She turned back to Hailey before adding, “You’re also a different person when he’s around. Like you’re more closed off, less comfortable, less … happy.”

Starting to feel a little overheated, Hailey reached for her water and cursed under her breath that most of the ice had melted. It was so annoying when restaurants used that crushed ice that melted so quickly. She needed ice cubes with girth, goddammit. Every member of her team added their own example of why Gage wasn’t good enough for her and she felt conflicted. Even the guys from Cole’s gym mentioned how she had plenty of time to find the one. One of them legit looked like Thor so she trusted him the most out of the three of them. She was appreciative of everyone looking out for her, but she was also flabbergasted at how obvious the situation was to everyone but her.

Each of her teammates gave examples except Avery, and he was simply looking at Hailey with worry etched in his face and his elbows propped up on the table with his hands folded in front of his mouth.

Cole, a lifelong ball buster, did not miss the fact Avery hadn’t gone. “Avery, do you have anything to add?”

Hailey glanced at Cole when he said that and looked down at her plate and swallowed before looking up to meet Avery’s eyes. His haunting gray blue eyes that made Hailey think of the storm raging inside her at the moment. Avery looked at her for a beat while everyone else at the table turned toward him. Their flirtation or at least good friendship was obvious to everyone, and they held their breaths waiting for Avery to go along with their pleas.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath before opening them and looking back at Hailey.

“I’m sorry, Hailey. You deserve better.”

Hailey had absolutely no idea what she was supposed to do at this point. It was her first intervention, after all. She studied her plate like she’d be quizzed on its contents later and tried to process everything she just heard.

Abby reached out and rubbed her shoulder while Hailey just simmered in thought. She wasn’t sure how long the silence lasted around her, but she spent the rest of the meal deep in thought. It was a while before she noticed the table had moved on and everyone was having separate conversations. She looked around the table and now all eyes were off her … except Avery’s.

When she met them, he had his elbows on the table, hands together, looking at Hailey like she was the only one in the room with him. He was really good at making her feel noticed like that.

He mouthed, “Are you okay?” and rubbed his hands together in exasperation.

Hailey just nodded and gave him a weak smile before bringing her attention back to the fries. She looked at them, then looked up at Avery as a mischievous grin took over her face. Avery just gazed at her and the corners of his mouth began to hitch up in response to that grin.

She grabbed a fry out of the overloaded basket and raised her eyebrows at Avery before saying, “I bet you I can throw more fries in your mouth than you can get in mine.”

Avery’s smile went from hesitant to full beaming, giving Hailey pause at just how arresting his smile was.

“You’re on,” he said while grabbing a fry of his own. They passed the time throwing fries at each other while eating and drinking water to sober back up. Although, that intervention was a total buzzkill for Hailey. Since she was driving, it was better to be cautious.

Neither of them noticed the glances coming their way from everyone else at the table. All Hailey could think was Gage would never have fun with her like this at a restaurant. It would embarrass him so much if she acted so “immature.” At that moment, Hailey decided she’d take everything everyone said seriously and really think about what she wanted to do.

Everyone else could see how incompatible she and Gage were and they didn’t even see everything. They didn’t know about the uncomfortable and unsatisfying sex or the disappointed looks he sent her way when she had too much fun in front of his friends. She was no Stepford wife and she was starting to see that a future with Gage was simply not a happy one.

She didn’t feel like she could be herself around him. And wasn’t that important? Shouldn’t she be able to be her most authentic self with the person who was supposed to love her? She felt more like herself around the team, at the gym, hanging out with Bridget. Right now, goofing around with Avery. He seemed to like her just the way she was. But, being around Gage? It was just turning into a neverending stress test and she was sick of it.

It was at that moment when her phone buzzed again and she found a text from Bridget.

brIDGET:Have you heard from Gage? Rick has been texting me all weekend from their trip. Apparently they’ve been getting a lot of rain and have been stuck in the hotel room. But, Rick said some of the guys went out to clubs instead. No golf pun intended!

HAILEY:Radio silence on my end. Guess he’s too busy at the clubs. They’ll be home tomorrow though, right? We’re supposed to have dinner with my parents. Ugh.

brIDGET:Oh Lord, good luck with that

HAILEY:Make like a lawmaker and send thoughts and prayers

She pocketed her phone again before turning her attention back to Avery, someone who actually gave a damn about her feelings. Avery, who she just remembered is now single. Avery, who she had so much fun with every time he was around.

Damn, she had lots to think about.