Page 121 of Caught from Behind

He’s always taking a new class in something.

But that’s at home.

That’s not here, not in my town, with my friends…my family.

“None of that explains why you’re still here at all.”

He lifts an eyebrow. “Doesn’t it?”

“No,” I mutter.

He sighs, mirroring me and leaning back against the railing. “I don’t know how to go back.”

I frown.

“I just know that these women are important to you”—he nods to the window, through which the game of UNO has gone on in typically rowdy fashion—“I know that Knox and Lake are too, and I know…that if I keep going like I have, that I won’t be.”

“And what?” I ask, thinking back on what he told me at the rink, that Ella’s like my mom, that Ella made him realize he fucked up. “And now you’ve just decided to turn over a new leaf?”

I sound bitter and I hate it.

“Yes.”

Laughing, I shake my head and stare up at the sky, at the stars, at the faint gray streaks of the clouds crawling in over the mountain. “It’s just that simple?”

“I know you don’t believe me,” he says. “I know it’s going to take time?—”

That his words echo what I told Ella about her situation with Kit, about us moving forward together doesn’t escape me.

“—but I don’t know what else to do aside from telling you again that I fucked up, that I’m sorry I was so damned hard on you and pushed you away and took out the gaping hole in my heart on you.” He exhales. “You didn’t—don’t—deserve that and I’m sorry I ever made you think that you did.”

I don’t know what to say, what to think.

“So, I’ll help the people that are important to you,” he says, nodding at the table full of friends who’ve become family. “And I’ll help you if you’ll let me. But mostly, I’ve decided that I’ll be here, like this, without the asshole bullshit, and I’ll stay here until you’re ready for us to do something different.”

“And then what?”

He pushes off the railing, claps a hand on my shoulder.

“And then I’ll be different.”

“Are you okay?” Ella asks a couple hours later as we drive home.

My dad is staying in Lake’s guest room.

Something my teammate just shrugged at when I tried to apologize and give him an out. “Nova,” he said by way of explanation and then proceeded to start washing dishes.

Millionaire Lake Jordan, captain of the Sierra, face of many a brand—from watches to underwear—washes dishes.

The TikTokers would enjoy that snippet of his life.

Blackmail material, I suppose.

“I’m still stinging from Evie kicking our ass in Phase 10,” I tell Ella, not wanting heavy, not after our various conversations on the deck and my woman not drinking.

I know it’s because of me…and I know it also has nothing to do with me.

“The student has surpassed the master,” she says quietly.

---