Page 17 of Puck & Make Up

Already.

Dammit.

I grit my teeth together then exhale. “I’m sorry.”

“Just go away, Fox,” she mutters. “I don’t need an apology. Least of all from you.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Sure you didn’t.” One slender shoulder lifts then drops in a frustrated shrug. “And anyway, I just need all annoying hockey players to leave me the fuck alone.”

“All?”

She crosses her arms. “All.”

I exhale quietly, grab tight to my temper then say, keeping my tone deliberately light, “You stood me up.”

She sniffs. “Come on, you didn’t actually think I was going to meet you at Maggie’s.”

“Maybe not.” I step a little closer. “Ididthink you were going to prove that you didn’t have a problem with me, though.”

Her laughter is brittle. “Funny story, Fox. But I think that we’re both equally guilty of having issues with each other.”

I dark to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “Not exactly.”

She lifts her brows in question.

“My only problem is that you hate me,” I explain.

Only the moment the words cross my tongue, I still again.

Because it’s not hurt drifting across her face this time. It’s…

Guilt.

“What the fuck, Dessie?”

Her body goes ramrod stiff. Her expression locks down, even tighter than before.

“Just go away,” she says quietly.

“Hey.” I move closer to her, cup her jaw. “Just drop the tough girl act for once and talk to me.”

She jerks out of my hold. “It’s not an act.”

“Dammit, sugar lips,” I snap. “Juststop. I’m not some asshole trying to hit on you in the bar”—I’m just an asshole who wants to get in her pants—“I know you.”

“You don’t,” she denies.

“I know you enough to see through this bullshit.” I wave a hand at her—the mask, the pulling back, the shadows in her eyes. “You’ve been off. What’s going on?”

“Nothing.”

“Is that why your friends practically had to twist your arm to get you to dinner last night?”

A flush spreads out on her cheeks. “I didn’t have coverage at the bar.”

“And the time before that?”

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