I gave her a look. “You sure you didn’t go to the wrong seats?”

She hiccupped, shooting upright. “What are you saying?”

“How much have you had to drink?”

“Oh, dude.” Juan groaned.

Marie was on her feet, advancing to me. “Are you kidding? Do you know what I put your girl through? I railed her ass up and down and sideways, and then I flipped her over, and she took it. All of it, until she put me in my place… I forgot why I started with that.” Her fight left her quickly.

Juan tugged her back down next to him.

“I might’ve drunk too much tonight,” she admitted.

“It was a good game, wasn’t it?”

She turned to Juan. “Yeah, baby. You were amazing.”

They began nuzzling each other.

“You guys are all fucking worthless to me.”

I wanted to do violence—to someone, my manager, Roman, anyone at this point. Charlie was alone. She wouldn’t have been allowed to stay in the stadium this long. Security would’ve kicked her out. We were waiting out the traffic in the team’s waiting room, and I couldn’t do a damn thing. I needed to get home, get my phone, and then get her ass back. Now. Five hours ago. Yesterday even.

The panic almost choked me.

“You really like her, huh?”

I didn’t respond to Marie.

“I’m sure she’s fine.”

“She doesn’t know where I live. I picked her up from the airport just this morning.”

I was helpless. And I hated feeling helpless. She couldn’t have just asked a stadium employee where to wait for players, because how many people tried that route? It was an unofficial rule. If a player wanted someone to know where they were, they told them how to get there. Too many fans had tried before, and everyone had been on alert anyway because of Roman.

“Relax.”

“You fucking relax, Juan!” I snapped. “She doesn’t know anyone in the city. Put yourself in her shoes.”

He quieted, then shrugged. “I’d just hole up at a bar and wait it out. Eventually you’ll get back to her.”

But shit happened. All the fucking time.

I’d ditched girls before. And if she went on social media and searched, I knew she could pull up a few. But none of them were like her. They were the one-use girls. A screw. No promises given. They’d known what was happening, and while most were fine with it, there were always a few who wanted more, expected more.

This life, knowing how Charlie handled pressure—a part of me couldn’t stop worrying she’d decided to ditch me. If I went to the airport, would I find her there, trying to go through security? Or what if she’d already gotten through security?

What a great fucking start to whatever we were doing.