Page 91 of Ice Dance Hockey

“But I want to stay and?—”

“Don’t worry, you’re next.”

“What the hell did I do? I was a prisoner,” he says. Merc doesn’t say anything, but the look on his face says it’s best to get moving. “All right. I’m going. Good luck, gorilla.”

Logan leaves, and then the cold wind of Mercy’s glare pierces me. “What did we talk about?” he says.

I can’t say the snarky thing I want to say. It won’t go over well. He’s only tolerating me to begin with because I’m key to helping Jack. At this rate, he might be inclined to find a new way to get rid of my father. There isn’t one, but he’d be driven to try.

“I fucked up. I plan to make amends.”

“Yeah, well, he might be naïve enough to go with whatever smooth nonsense you’re selling, but I’m not.”

“I’m not selling him nonsense.”

“Here’s how this is going to go from now on, Rhett. This fake relationship thing is going to be regulated.” He holds up a hand to stall my complaints. “You didn’t see him for the week you ghosted him. I’d finally made some headway with him; he’d been smiling and playing with the kids. That week, I had to watch the smile slowly fade from his face. He’s had enough people let him down for a lifetime. He’ll be leaving for school in a few weeks and that’s all the time I get to make sure he’s on some kind of solid footing. You’re not interfering with that.”

I don’t know how to navigate any of that. I only know how to bulldoze. “You have my word. It won’t happen again.”

“It won’t because I’m going to make sure of it.”

“You do remember that we’ve got to convince my father—mine. That’s not going to be good enough.”

“I have every faith in you. Make it work. You don’t have another option.”

He doesn’t get it. He’s going to ruin everything. “I understand that you want to protect him?—”

“I do, but it’s not just that. Logan isn’t able to make these kinds of decisions for himself. You must have noticed the way he eats.”

“He’s an athlete with special restrictions.”

“His restrictions are more than restrictions. His food intake fluctuates with his mood. He can’t afford to eat less than he does.”

“I see that you’re an expert on this now.”

“No, but you don’t need a degree to know something’s wrong. I want to have him see someone about it. I’m working up to that, the trust needs to come first.”

“I got him to eat today,” I offer lamely. “He eats when he’s with me.”

“And when you don’t text him for a week, he barely eats at all. Do you think there’s any other reason I would send Jack to your apartment?”

He didn’t eat?Jack conveniently left that part out when he was at my condo. Yeah, okay, if he stopped eating and I knew about it, I’d have reached the paranoid levels that Mercy’s at, too.

“I see that you’re getting it now.”

“Why allow him to continue the charade? It’s clear you don’t want him to have anything to do with me.”

“I don’t, but I’m stuck. I’m worried that if I kick you out of his life cold turkey, it’ll have the same result.”

“So, you’re weaning him off me? Is that what you’re doing?”

“Something like that.”

“I should get the opportunity to redeem myself.”

“Maybe if I thought you were capable of honesty, but you’ve proven otherwise. Forget it, Rhett. I’m not taking any chances. The only choice you have left is to be on your best behavior for the foreseeable future if you want to stay friends with him at all.”

Friends. All I hear is that I have a way back in the door.

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