Page 31 of Offside Devil

He furrows his brows in thought. “Yeah, I guess having his-and-hers plates might set off some alarms with the government. We better share. Just to keep our cover.”

I bite back a smile. “Great. Then that doesn’t leave too much for me to transfer over. My car can get the job done in a few trips.”

“I’ll load stuff in my car, too. Save you a trip.”

“No, it’s okay. You don’t have to?—”

“I don’t have to do anything,” Zane interrupts, dipping his chin to hit me with the full force of his sky-blue eyes. “I’m here because I want to help.”

“Why?” I blurt before I can stop myself.

His eyes trail over me in my stained cutoffs and oversized t-shirt. I knotted the waist at my hip when the extra fabric kept catching on the knobs in the kitchen, but now, I’m keenly aware of the strip of exposed skin across my stomach.

His throat bobs and he looks away. “Once again, your gratitude needs work. You’re supposed to say, ‘Thanks so much, Zane. I could never have done this without you.’”

“Thanks for the advice. How about this: You’re slowing me down, Zane. Put that hockey physique to work or get lost.”

Before he can say anything, I snatch the box out of his arms and push past him into the hallway. My arms are burning before I even reach the living room, but it’s worth it to hear him laugh behind me.

What would’ve taken Taylor and me ninety minutes and at least three snack breaks takes Zane fifteen with nary a single wheeze. He works quickly, carrying down three boxes to my one while still managing to hold each and every door for me on the way down.

I’ll never say it out loud, but I really couldn’t have done it without him.

After our fourth trek back up the stairs, Zane stops in my living room and looks around. He skirts carefully past the lopsided folding table in the middle of the room like my design sense might be contagious.

“You’re leaving the furniture here?”

We both know calling my folding table and lawn chair “furniture” is generous, but I’m grateful he doesn’t bring it up. We just loaded the boxes I scrounged out of a hardware store’s recycling bin into the trunk of his Ferrari and now, he’s looking at the well-worn imprint of my ass in the flaking vinyl of my bean bag chair.

On the outside, at least, he isn’t judging. He gets points for that.

“Yeah. There’s no reason to pack it up if I’ll be back here in a few weeks, anyway.”

Not that I’d come back to save any of this “furniture.” There’s a reason it looks like it belongs in the garbage: when the time comes for me to leave, that’s exactly where it will end up.

“Yeah, I guess not.” He shoves his hands in his pockets.

I wish I could hear the thoughts running through his head. I want to know what he makes of my rusted-out Corolla and my apartment that could fit in his foyer.

Suddenly, he walks over to the shelf above the TV. His head tilts as he studies the faded picture inside the only frame I own. “Who is this?”

Shit. I should have packed her away already. But she’s the last thing I grab before I leave and the first thing I unpack. It’s a ritual at this point. A good luck séance.

“My mom.”

He glances at me, his eyes tracing my face before he looks back to the photograph. “You look like her.”

That was always the problem. Same dark hair. Same green eyes. Same penchant for putting our trust in the wrong kinds of people.

“She was about my age in that picture. It’s one of the only ones I have of her.”

One of the only ones that wasn’t destroyed, that is.

“What happened to her?”

I turn that can of worms over in my metaphorical hands. There’s no way in hell I’m going to open it, but it’s good every now and then for me to remember that it’s there. It’s the reason I keep her picture with me. A picture from before she got married—before she had kids.

Once upon a time, before she made a string of wrong choices, my mom had her whole life in front of her.

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