Maliyah just looked at the ground, unable to even deny it.

And in the blink of an eye, the girl I thought I’d marry and build a life with was abandoning me, just like my father had — even when they both had promised they’d stay.

I was the common denominator.

What I’d done hadn’t been enough for either of them.

“We’ll both be happier,” she said, patronizing again as she rubbed my arm. “Trust me.”

The memory was wiped from my mind with the hard snap of a damp towel against my thigh.

“Argh!”

I cried out, hissing at the sting it left behind as Kyle Robbins howled with laughter. He bent at the waist, the towel he’d wound up and whipped me with falling to the ground in the process.

“You were zoned out man,” he said through the laughter. “Didn’t see that shit coming at all.” He popped up then, looking across the weight room at another teammate. “Did you get it?”

Before whoever he’d tasked with videotaping the prank could answer, I grabbed him by the neck of his tank top and ripped him down to eye level, holding him firm when he tried to squirm away.

“Delete that shit, or I swear to God, Robbins, I’ll give you the biggest wedgie of your life and hang you from the rafters by your shit-streaked, shredding tightie whities.”

He almost laughed, but when I twisted my fist more, intensifying the grip, his eyes flashed with terror before he smacked my arm and I released him. He and I both knew I could have held on longer if I’d wanted.

“Damn, someone’s got their panties in a twist,” he murmured.

One of our teammates returned his phone to him, and I snatched it out of his hand before he could walk away, deleting the video myself before I tossed it back to him.

“You used to be fun,” he commented.

“And you used to have Novo’s name shaved into the side of your head,” I shot back, which made the guys around us break out in muffled laughter that they did a sorry job of hiding.

Kyle’s face turned red, the memory of him losing a game of 500 to our kicker last season, and therefore having to do whatever the team decided as punishment washing over his narrowed gaze.

But he just sucked his teeth and waved me off, making his way over to the bench press, and it felt like a fly finally ditching my picnic for someone else’s.