Page 18 of Ride with Zane

Hearing a bike’s roar makes my heart skip a beat, until I realize it’s a Harley and not Ashley’s.

Di stops and jumps off her bike. “Pretty clean, you did a good job. The Clubhouse needs some cleaning too,” she teases.

“It’s relaxing,”

“Yeah, mostly when you need to shut your mind.” She sits on a counter. “What are you doing, Rock?”

Folding some clothes, I store them in a drawer. “I'm trying to be more organized.”

She cringes giving me that look. “You know what I mean.”

“I'm not doing anything else.” I pretend to not understand where she's trying to get to. Maybe if I play dumb, she’ll leave at it.

“Have you talked to her?”

“No,” I confess.

“Then why are you not with her?” She cocks a brow at me. “Are you tired of her or what? Unless I'm wrong and she was just another one.”

Rubbing my face in frustration I let out a growl. “Di, do we really need to talk about it?”

“If you don't want to, I'm not going to force you.” She shrugs but I can see she's holding back from saying something.

“Then don’t,” I'm so tired of fighting for nothing. At the end of the day I'm here.

Alone.

She pops her chewing gum. “Ashley is seeing someone.”

“Bullshit!” I haven't realized I said it out loud.

“So you do care.” Her victorious smirk makes me want to slap myself.

“Di, I do,” I come clean. “I'm obsessed with her. She's in my dreams, in my thoughts, she's everywhere. I don't know what to do or what to say. I don't want to put her in danger. She's younger than me, she's so perfect and so talented. I don't want to ruin nor to lose her.” My rant takes over vomiting every fear of mine.

Her legs swing back and forth. “Well you need to think about what you want because one day she'll be tired of waiting and she'll be with someone else.”

Leaning against the hood of my car, I confess my deepest fear. “I can't live again with what happened to Caroline.”

“So you wanna stay alone.”

“Yes,” I feel my heart bleeding at my own words because it’s a fucking lie! “Why are you here, by the way?”

She hops off the counter. “We may have a problem, and you're not going to like it at all.”

“What now?”

“I went to the Icylight earlier.”

Snapping my head at her, I can see something’s off. “You did what? Why?” Ashley trained this morning for hours. And I counted every flop and hit she got, blaming myself every time she fell.

“First of all because you go there every morning, and I was curious as to why.” She peers at me. “She's amazing on the ice, I have never seen something so beautiful.”

“I know.” I smile.

“However, this afternoon she was training and then she went to the gym, and I saw someone with her.” She was training? Again? How’s that even possible?

“She's not seeing anyone,” I snap at her. These tricky games don't work with me. I’m not a teen you can wrap around your finger playing the jealousy card.

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