Page 34 of Twisted Collide

That’s where Sherry stepped in. I’ll never repay that debt. Which is why Coach can never know what happened that night with his daughter.

I follow Robert as he leads me to the dining room, and the moment I step into the room, my breath leaves my lungs.

Fuck.

She’s here.

Sitting at the table, beside an empty chair that’s set for dinner for me, is Josie.

Sherry moves to stand, but I shake my head. “Stay, I’ll come to you.”

I need to move. Need to expel some of this intense energy flowing through me.

I cross the room until I’m by her side, then bend down and kiss her on the cheek.

“Have you formally met Josie yet?”

“Can’t say that I have,” I respond. Not a lie. Josie and I never exchanged names. But I think I told her mine the next day. It’s blurry. My mind was going a million miles a minute, and I barely remember what all was said other than the fact that I was royally fucked.

“Josie, this is Dane Sinclair. He’s a defenseman for the Saints.”

“Hi, Dane.” Her eyes narrow, and then she scrunches her nose. “A hockey player.”

“Yep.” I incline my chin down. “How doyoufeel about hockey?” I ask, knowing damn well how she feels. If my memory serves me, she has an intense opinion about the sport.

“I don’t,” she chides.

Robert shakes his head, and his skin has gone pale; he looks mortified by her comment. “That’s not nice, Josie.”

I lift my hand to him. “It’s fine. I could tell by the way she said hockey player that she wasn’t a fan.” I chuckle, trying to dispel some of the awkwardness that’s fallen over the room.

“And what about you, Dane?” She says my name in a teasing way, as if I’m privy to some inside joke, which I am, but does she have to be so damn obvious?

Pot meet kettle.

“Obviously, I love it.” Needing this conversation to stop.

Coach gestures to the table. “Why don’t you take a seat.”

As I pull back the chair, the wood scraping against the floor sounds like nails on a chalkboard, but it beats the awkward silence as I finally sit and wait for the reason I’ve been summoned here.

“I’m sure you have a lot of questions, Dane,” Coach says, and I turn to look at Josie beside me.

Is she uncomfortable with him talking about this in front of me?

“It’s really none of my business,” I tell him as I pull my gaze away to look back at the center of the table.

I don’t mean it, and based on the look he’s giving me, he knows it too. I’m only saying it because the tension in the room is thick, and I would like to avoid conflict as much as possible. I also don’t need nor want to know more about Josie, and I know that going down this road will only lead to that.

“It might not be, but I didn’t want you to think—”

“It’s fine, Coach.” I stop him. This is already too much talking for me. I hate this shit.

“Okay, well, if you ever want to talk.”

I nod. I won’t. He knows it. I know it.

Coach leans forward, placing his elbows on the table. A habit I know Sherry hates. I peer over in her direction, and not surprisingly, she’s biting her cheeks in. It makes me want to laugh. She’s working really hard not to say anything to him, and it’s obvious. Maybe not to his daughter, but it is to me.

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