Page 16 of Heart of Thorns

“What?” I snap at one of them.

He just shakes his head and points.

I turn to the wall.

The wall.

An unbidden image of that girl balanced on her ladder, paint on her clothes and skin, working in dim lighting, rises to the forefront of my mind.

I blink and I’m back in the present, staring at the portrait of me—but not.

My face is too recognizable to deny, but my eyes are red, and twisting horns protrude from my forehead. My nose, too, is twice as big as it should be. A proportion she had right the other night.

The locker room erupts into laughter, and I shake it off fast. I push at Stephen McDowell, forcing a smile to my lips.

“What did you do, Thorne? Piss someone off?”

They don’t even know who painted it.

“Hope your daddy didn’t pay for that art,” another defenseman calls.

I roll my eyes. “You think my head is so big that some devil horns will throw me off?”

It won’t.

Football is every-fucking-thing to me, and some girl getting in my head…

Okay, maybe this is a sign that I was an asshole.

Was I, though?

I need to figure out her name.

Speaking of mydaddy, though, I had a message from him that I need to check.

I toss my bag down at my cubby and get changed. I sit and scan my phone, my stomach twisting at the text.

Father

Cynthia Keenland is coming to your game tomorrow with her father. I told them you’d make time after. Take her onto the field, give her a taste of it.

Give her a taste ofwhat? Me? My life?

I don’t recognize the name Cynthia until I scroll farther up in my conversations with him. She’s the one I went on the date with just the other day.

The plastic girl.

Freaking hell. She said she was coming to the game on Friday, and I had wholly disregarded it.

How do I get out of meeting up with herandher father after it?

Me

Okay.

He replies immediately.

Father

---