Curtis swore as he grabbed the piece of paper off his car and crumpled it in his hand. Whichever one of his buddies thought it was funny to leave the love notes was in need of a serious ass kicking, and he was just the guy to do it. It was the fifth note, three more than he’d actually read.

At first, he thought it was Hannah being cute, but the words couldn’t be from her. Her name was signed at the bottom of the ones he’d seen in a handwriting he knew wasn’t hers. They talked about how much she loved his cock and how she couldn’t wait to pork out his babies. Both of those things could’ve technically been true, but she wouldn’t have used those exact words to relay them.

The cock part was almost believable, but she only talked like that in the heat of the moment. He didn’t think he’d ever heard her say the exact word, but she had told him she loved his dick while he was inside of her.

That aside, the handwriting was sloppy, which was why he assumed it was one of his teammates. They liked playing around and pranking each other, but when it came to Hannah, he wasn’t in the mood. They’d been engaged for three weeks and were just starting to plan for the wedding.

Everyone on the team knew that, so it made since that they were messing around with him. He supposed it was better that they were messing with him than playing pranks on Hannah. If anyone crossed that line, they were dead meat.

There were times Curtis still couldn’t believe Hannah agreed to marry him. She’d gained an independence she’d never had before, yet she stuck around. He wasn’t about to complain. It just meant he had to pinch himself every time he woke up next to her.

It’d been a few days since he’d been able to do that, so the note on the car rubbed a sore spot. He’d hoped ignoring the little game would stop it, but the notes had been appearing for a few weeks. No one in the locker room owned up to the notes, which only added to the frustration.

Curtis opened the door to the car and slid in. He’d already called Hannah to let her know the plane had landed safely and he was on his way. The previous road games had at least been in the same time zone, but the California games made it difficult to call at night since the games didn’t get over until around midnight in New York.

Because of that, most of their conversations had been texts throughout the day. They probably conversed just as much as they did when he was at home, but it was different not being able to hold her at least for a little while each day. At nights, he spent way too much time tossing and turning in a bed by himself.

“Fuck,” Curtis yelled as someone knocked on his window.

He’d just gotten the car started and was about to put it in drive. Since the rest of the team had just gotten home too, he expected to find one of them outside his window. He almost hoped it was someone admitting they were the ones leaving the notes. He wanted a reason to punch something.

The man with a thick beard wasn’t a teammate. He wasn’t anyone associated with the team. He could’ve been someone from the front office that had just been hired, but there was no reason someone from there, especially a new guy, would be knocking on his window.

Studying the man, Curtis thought he looked familiar. There was something in his arrogant blue eyes that looked expectantly at him. Curtis had run-ins with plenty of arrogant people who he never actually interacted with, but his head told him he knew the guy for some reason.

He thought about driving off. All he wanted to do was get home to Hannah, and he could easily finish pulling the shifter back and take off. It would only take a second. Thinking about it took longer than actually doing it.

The man waved and twirled his hand in a way that Curtis took as asking him to roll down his window. The idea that the man was a threat hadn’t really registered, not when he looked so familiar. He seemed to be about Curtis’ build, maybe not quite as muscular. With nothing in his hands, Curtis wasn’t too worried about him attacking him.

Taking a deep breath, Curtis hit the button to roll his window down halfway. If the guy wanted to reach in and punch him for some reason, it would limit the range of motion he had. There was no reason for Curtis to feel like the guy would be combatant, he was even smiling, but Curtis projected his own feelings. He wanted to hit the guy for delaying his reunion.

“You’re Curtis Power, right? I mean, you’re obviously him, but it seems weird not asking first.”

The question was an easy one, but somehow it seemed loaded. Was the guy a fan or something? Maybe he sat behind the bench and that was why he looked so familiar. Curtis didn’t spend a lot of time studying the fans around him, but his mind had to register them on some level.

“Yeah. If you’re looking for an autograph, I don’t really have a pen or anything.”

The guy clearly didn’t have anything he wanted signed, or maybe he did tucked in his pocket, but he wasn’t acting like a fan. He could have assumed Curtis would have something on him. They were always having little events where the players signed player cards and such. Curtis had been a little preoccupied of late, so he hadn’t volunteered for any of the recent events.

“Oh, no, dude. We went to high school together. I guess we didn’t exactly run in the same crowds, but obviously everyone knows who you are. It’s Paul, Paul Kilmore. Sadly, I was out of town for the reunion a couple months back. I was hoping work would wrap up in Florida, so I could catch up with everyone, but things didn’t work out. Did you go?”

Curtis studied the guy a little closer. His bleached and spiky hair wasn’t the greased back look he had in high school, and he definitely wasn’t sporting the five o’clock shadow back then, but Curtis could see the resemblance. Paul didn’t seem like he’d been aging great, with defined crow’s feet causing deep creases around his eyes. Curtis didn’t feel sorry for the guy, only a little surprised the pompous ass hadn’t paid to keep the signs of aging away.

“Yeah, I was there. Hey, man, it’s nice to run into you and all, but I really don’t have time to catch up. I just got home from being gone a few days and I need to get home.”

Even if he wasn’t in a rush, sitting around and catching up with a guy he couldn’t stand in high school wasn’t on Curtis’ to-do list. Why Paul Kilmore was hanging out in the parking lot was something Curtis should’ve been more concerned about, he supposed, but the guy wasn’t his concern. Curtis put his foot back on the brake to shift, but Paul’s reply stopped him from leaving.

“I heard you and Hannah Williams are shacked up together. You’re a lucky guy. She’s always been a fine piece of ass. Maybe a little too uptight, but I’m sure a little alcohol and a good fuck loosens her up.”

Curtis had tried to keep a somewhat friendly look on his face, especially since he thought the guy was a fan for a minute, but his face morphed into something that rightly made Paul take a step back. The two of them hadn’t spoken a word in years, and even if they had, talking about Hannah that way was uncalled for.

“I suggest you don’t talk, or even think, about my fiancé if you know what’s good for you. I have somewhere to be, so I suggest you make sure your feet are clear. Better yet, why don’t you stick them under my car so you might actually learn how stupid talking about a guy’s girl like that is.”

He wouldn’t have minded running over Paul’s toes, and then backing up to run over his full body once he was on the ground. The guy had been an elitist creep in high school and clearly that hadn’t changed. The smile that spread across his face held something sinister, along with the knowledge that he’d riled Curtis up.

“I’ll try to keep her out of my thoughts, but we did share one magical night together in high school, so it’s going to be a little hard to get those images out of my head. I bet her tits still barely fill a B cup.”

Paul licked his lips and turned and walked away, with a swagger in his step. Curtis thought about going after him. The guy deserved to be beat down, but he tempered the desire to punch the guy. From his expressions and words, it felt like he was trying to bait him.

Hannah and he had never gone through a discussion of past partners, but he couldn’t believe she’d ever been with Paul. He wouldn’t have rated low enough on Nina’s stupid sex scale and Hannah had made it clear that Curtis was the first person she’d slept with that broke the scale.

He took a deep breath and finally got the car moving. Curtis let his mind briefly wander to how in the world Paul was getting information about them. It wasn’t a secret he and Hannah had been together for months, but no one in their circles connected dots to Paul. It felt weird, but not as weird as the guy randomly showing up in the arena parking lot on a Tuesday afternoon with nothing going on at the arena.

Adding in the fact that a new note showed up around the same time, and Curtis had to wonder if he’d found the writer. Shaking his head, he tried to clear the idea out of it. He couldn’t come up with a logical reason why Paul Kilmore would give two fucks about his relationship.

Even with the hint that Paul knew Hannah intimately, the idea didn’t make sense. Curtis had to concede that nothing about what had just happened made sense, so he wasn’t sure what to think about the interaction.

His left hand gripped the steering wheel as his right fumbled with the phone controls on the dash. Hands-free calling was convenient when you were ten minutes away and couldn’t wait that long to find at least one answer to the questions filling your head.

Hannah answered on the first ring, excitement clear in her voice. They’d spoken within twenty minutes, and her tone hadn’t changed.

“Please tell me you’re in the driveway. I know you’re not, because you’d be breaking down the door, but tell me you’re here anyway.”

Curtis laughed. He couldn’t blame her for the hope, since he’d explained to her in great detail exactly what he planned to do with her when he called the first time. Finding the note and talking to Paul had softened him a little, but just hearing Hannah perked him back up.

He had a full day off and he’d planned on using every minute of it making up for missed time. The time away had let his imagination run a little and he hoped they still had the chocolate and caramel syrup they’d gotten for ice cream sundaes a month ago. He had a craving for a sundae, but ice cream wasn’t involved.

“I’m still about ten minutes away, even going twice the speed limit. I got held up in the parking lot.”

He hadn’t told her about the notes, and wasn’t going to. He knew they weren’t from her and were just someone messing with him, so he didn’t see any reason to worry her. He did want to know if Paul was full of shit, though.

“Please tell me Brady didn’t lock himself out of his car again. I don’t understand how that’s possible when there are apps that will unlock the doors for him. I know he’s your friend and all, but he can be a moron.”

There was no denying that fact. Since they’d been together, Brady had managed to lock himself out twice. Curtis turned a corner and calculated he was still about a mile away. He needed a teleporter or something to get rid of the drive time.

“You won’t get any arguments from me, but Brady wasn’t the problem. Paul Kilmore knocked on my window and wanted to chat.”

Curtis waited for any kind of response, but the phone was silent. He looked down at the display in the dash and saw the seconds continued to tick, indicating the call hadn’t ended.

“Are you still there?”

He couldn’t even hear breathing, so he wasn’t sure. The name had been brought up before, but it felt like it was only in passing when Nina had claimed Curtis had a bet going with him.

“Yeah, I’m still here. What did he say?”

The reply was quiet and unsure. It added credence to Paul’s claim, but Curtis still didn’t want to jump to conclusions.

“He asked if I’d gone to the reunion and commented on us being together. I didn’t like the way he said it, so I told him to get lost.”

“What exactly did he say, Curtis?”

The question made it clear there was something that could have been said. It was Hannah’s right not to tell him things that were long in the past, but he didn’t like the idea of finding out about them from someone else.

“He just mentioned a magical night you guys spent together.”

Hannah scoffed softly. At least the sound indicated she didn’t agree with the sentiment.

“There was nothing magical about that night,” she said forcibly. “There have been times I almost told you about it, but I didn’t think it made a difference. Your opinion wasn’t going to change about Nina and we haven’t really spoken about her in months.”

“Nina? What in the world does Nina have to do with Paul saying you slept with him?”

“I didn’t sleep with him.” No hint of her quiet demeanor remained as she screeched the words. She took a breath and calmed down a little before she continued. “If we’re going to have this conversation, I prefer to do it in person. Can you wait until you get here to talk about it?”

Curtis was just down the street at that point, so another minute wouldn’t make much difference. He’d gotten so confused about where the conversation was going that he agreed being in person would be the way to handle it.

“I’ll be there in thirty seconds.”