Page 26 of Sin Bin

It’s not as uncomfortable as itsounds. . .

Just kidding—the silence is brutal. On a scale of one to ten, our current communication problems are at least a fivehundred.

Which is so not how it usedtobe.

Does he remember the amount of times we hit up restaurants throughout Detroit? Except that, then, conversation flowed like finely poured wine. If anything, we used to havetoomuch to say, so much so that there were a handful of times when restaurant staff had to kick us out because it wasclosingtime.

The night hardly ever ended at the establishment’s front doors. We continued the conversation by one of our cars—usually mine—so that he could make sure I got in safely before Iheadedhome.

My fingers flatten out a thin, whitenapkin.

Andre plays with the handle of hischippedmug.

God, what a miserable pairwemake.

I open my mouth to speak, and funnily enough, he does the same, so that our words tumble over eachother.

I wave to him. “Go ahead. Youfirst.”

Shaking his head, Andre readjusts his ball cap. “Ladiesfirst.”

It’s on the tip of my tongue to make a sly remark, but I hold it back, swallowing it down and shoving it deep where it won’t threaten to reemerge again. I fold the napkin in half and then in fourths. “I spoke withSports Illustratedyesterday,” I say slowly, even as I wonder if I should hold off on business until after his first cup of coffee. “They’re interested in rescheduling a feature piece sometime in the next twoweeks.”

His mouth quirks, but it isn’t a humorous smile. If anything, it looks a little worn, a little frayed. “Somehow managed to swing it within your trialperiod?”

My cheeks heat at his words, and I return to my napkin, folding it and folding it and folding it, until it’s a triangular-shaped football. “I may have told them that it wasurgent.”

His laugh is short, though not necessarilyunkind.

I try again. “They agreed to it, by the way.” I shove the napkin to the interior part of the table, against the arrangement of plastic maple syrup bottles. “Why did you flake out on them in the firstplace?”

Just then, a server approaches our table to take our order. While Andre goes overboard with coffee, OJ, a stack of blueberry pancakes, and two orders of bacon, I opt for a bowl of oatmeal and a single pancake. Tea, notcoffee.

Andre snorts as the waiter takes our order back to the kitchen, and it’s so sarcastic, that I clap my palms on the table anddemand, “What?”

“Oatmeal?” He reaches for a syrup bottle and drags it close. “Zoe, we both know that you can out-eat me, if youwanted.”

It’s true, and we both know it. But my stomach is a bundle of nerves, thanks to him, and I don’t think I could handle more than what I ordered. “Maybe I don’t want to,” I tell him stiffly, unwilling to admit thetruth.

And the truth is a muddled space between want anddislike.

I don’t like him, not anymore, but my body can’t help but notice his. Notice the way his hair is perfectly disheveled, and the way he’s taken a razor to his face and erased the permanent five o’ clock shadow he’s always got going on. His jaw is sharp, masculine, and I feel the most irrational urge to slide my palm over his face, just to feel thesmoothskin.

Yep, I’m officially off myrocker.

The server brings us our drinks, saving both of us the trouble of making more awkward, stiltedconversation.

Not that the reprievelastslong.

Andre downs half of his coffee, then clasps his hands around the mug. His gaze is still hidden by the shadow of his hat, but from the firm set of his mouth, I know he’s staring me down. I can sense the weight of it. “So,Sports Illustratedsaid yes. Whosaidno?”

I fidget uncomfortably on my side of thebooth. “Well. . . ”

“Zoe, don’tbullshitme.”

I heave a big sigh. “Pretty mucheveryone.”

“Everyone?” One hand leaves his coffee mug to remove his hat. Without asking if it’s okay, he rests it atop my purse, which I had placed on the table. Then, he turns back to me, his brow lifted in disbelief. “‘Everyone’ is a pretty broad claim. What aboutUSAHockey?”

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