She'd played that card too many times with me.
"Anyway, that's not what I meant." She tucked her hair behind her ear and smiled up at me. "I was talking about the last time we met up. It has to have been before Christmas, right?"
More like Halloween, I thought to myself, but I was eager to get away so I didn’t object to her dates. Instead I nodded and said, "Yeah, that sounds about right," while wishing I knew the appropriate etiquette to use when dealing with vindictive girls I'd been foolish enough to stick my dick inside.
"So," she said in a breathy tone. "How have you been?"
"You already asked me that," I replied evenly, trying to mask my impatience at the pointless chitchat. "I'm fine."
"Oh yeah, well I'm fine, too," Bella replied, exhaling a loud sigh. "I mean, I guess I'm a little bored."
Yeah, well I was bored, too.
With this conversation.
"You know how it is," she said for the second time, and for the second time I stared blankly back at her.
Nope.
I had no clue what the fuck she was talking about.
"Oh my god!" she blurted then, clutching my hand once more. "I totally forgot to ask; how's your leg?"
Bella didn’t know the ins and outs of my surgery, only that I'd had a procedure done at Christmas.
When I told her that I would be out of action for a while, her biggest concern had been how soon I would be back on the pitch, whether or not I'd still get to play for Ireland in the summer, and when did I want to fuck again.
Besides all that, I didn’t trust her in that way.
Having sex with her was one thing but confiding in her was quite another.
"Better," I replied in a flat tone before reclaiming my hand.
"That's fantastic news, babe," she replied, smiling widely. "I've been really worried about you."
No, she bleeding well hadn't been.
If at any point Bella had been truly worried about me, she would have asked me something other than 'are you ready to meet up' or 'hurry up, I'm horny' in the bazillion texts she'd sent me.
She wouldn’t have fucked me over like she had with one of my teammates.
"I bet," I drawled, hearing the sarcasm in my own voice.
Now, I got that at no point during the time Bella and I had been messing around had we ever been anything remotely serious, but I still felt betrayed by the Cormac thing.
In my eyes, it was shady as fuck on both their parts, and I would never go off with one of her friends.
I had enough respect for her to show her that decency.
Obviously, Bella didn’t have the same level of respect for me.
I glanced over her shoulder towards the door and then at my watch before asking, "Did you need anything else? I have to talk to coach about a game."
"Oh yeah," she sighed. "You have the playoff match coming up, don’t you?"
I nodded stiffly.
Unfortunately, because we had lost a couple of matches earlier in the season, and Royce College from Dublin had won their game last week, it brought them level in points with us and put us in joint second place in the league, behind Levitt.
It was an unexpected turn of events and a pain in the arse because Royce should have lost their last game, which would have made life easier for us considering the final had already been organized between Levitt and Tommen.
Their win had thrown a spanner in the works for Tommen because Royce were an awkward fucking bunch and were refusing to allow the playoff to be held in Cork. We'd travelled for the last three league games so it was our turn to play at home, but they weren't having it.
Already, they had pulled out of two other proposed dates for the play off – one in Cork and one in Dublin.
It was a mind-fucking stunt they were pulling in the hopes of tripping us up and clashing with match schedules.
They were contesting everything from the time of kick off, to the day of the week the match should be held, to the color of the away jerseys.
Switching days, pulling matches forward, and changing venues was all within Royce's right, but it was a scummy thing to do and few schools ever behaved that way.
The coach at Royce was being difficult, arguing on where the match should be held, and cribbing and grousing over the fairness of Tommen's team having an international player on the squad.
The eejit was clutching at straws because I was fair game.
Tommen was my school and Coach was well within his rights to play me.
I would have been Royce's international player had my folks stayed in Dublin, and that was the real issue here.
It was because of this that Coach wanted to talk to me pronto.
He wanted to go through my upcoming schedule because he needed to agree to a date.
We were breaking up from school next Friday for Easter holidays so this needed to happen sooner rather than later.
I had the summer campaign to focus on and scouts to impress, so April and May wouldn’t work for me.
Royce's coach knew this, too, which was why we were at a standstill.
I might find the school league boring and unchallenging, but I fucking hated sore losers.
It was with that in mind, that I had plans on burying Royce College at the earliest convenience.
"When are you guys playing them?" Bella asked.
"As soon as possible."
"You're going to be playing against your old teammates and friends, aren’t you?" she asked. "You were supposed to go to Royce, weren't you?"
"I'm here now, aren’t I," I drawled.
"Are you worried about playing your old friends?"
Yes.
"No."
"So you're ready for it?"
I stared blankly at her. "I'm always ready."
"I know you are," she purred, tone flirtatious.
Ugh.
Shaking my head, I turned to leave but she spoke again.
"I also wanted to talk to you about something else," she added, taking a step closer.
"Oh?" I stepped back. "What's that?"
"Us, Johnny," she purred, batting her big blue eyes up at me.
"There is no us, Bella," I replied, frowning. "There never was."
"Then what the fuck were we doing for the past year, Johnny?" she spat, the innocent school girl mask slipping.
That was cool.
I knew what was underneath anyway.
She didn’t need to put on a performance in front of me.
I was well aware of her true colors.
"I don’t know, Bella," I replied in a flat tone. "But whatever it was, it's in the past."
"Are you fucking with me?" she demanded, planting her hands on her hips. "I'm trying to sort things out here."
Was she fucking with me?
"You ended it," I deadpanned. "You are fucking my teammate, Bella. You told me so yourself." With great detail in a text message. "You got with him at Biddies. Right in front of me. You sit with him at lunch. As far as I'm concerned, there is nothing to sort out between us."
"It's not serious,"
"I don’t care."
"I thought we were taking a break."
"We are," I confirmed. "A permanent one."
"I don’t have to be with him," she offered, batting her long eyelashes at me. "We could sort us out?"
"No thanks," I replied in a flat tone.
"Come on, Johnny," she moaned. "We had a good time together."
"Yeah, we did," I agreed. "Half of which you spent running around behind my back with my fucking winger!"
Her mouth fell open. "What are you talking about?"
"Cormac."
"I'm with him now," she huffed. "Not then."
"Don’t bother lying," I told her. "I already know you were riding him when you were with me."
"That's a lie," she countered. "Who told you that?"
"Everyone knows, Bella," I replied, then released a weary sigh. "I've known for a while."
I just chose to block it out…
"And you were hardly discreet," I decided to throw out there because quite frankly, I wanted to.
"Well, I wasn’t your girlfriend, Johnny. We weren't exclusive," she defended her actions by saying. "And you completely dropped off the map. You never wanted to go out or meet up."
"Because I was recovering from surgery!" I bit out.
"For months?" she demanded, tone accusing. "Yeah right, Johnny."
"I was," I barked.
I still am.