Page 78 of Cold as Ice

“Would we?” Elliott shot their assistant coach his most innocent look, fluttering eyelashes and all.

“You absolutely fucking would. But I’m sure I’ll have nothing to report later.”

Elliott was so surprised, he straight-up missed his last ball, and it clanged down into the bowels of the pinball machine with a rhythmicclank.

“Youreportto him?”

“Oh, well, it’s not so formal.” Zach chuckled self-consciously. “But yeah, we do check in with each other. At first I—” He stopped abruptly. Like he realized he was saying too much. Sharing more than he should.

Maybe Elliott couldn’t get Brody to share, but he couldn’t deny he was curious what was going on with Zach and Coach. They seemed awfully close. “’Cause you were worried about him because of his wife?”

Zach didn’t agree—but he didn’t disagree, either. He just stuck his hands in his pockets and didn’t say anything.

But Elliott had never known when to stop pushing. At least that was probably what Malcolm might have told him. “I know she died, unexpectedly, and what, he buried himself out in the middle of nowhere, in some remote cabin?”

“He didn’t bury himself. He was mourning. We all do it in different ways. And now he’s back—and you’d better believe he’s back,” Zach said, fiercely. Like he felt the need to defend Coach Blackburn, even though Elliott had hardly been accusing him of anything.

“I know he is,” Elliott said steadily.

“Good.”

He wandered off then, and Elliott went back to Kylo Ren and Rey.

He was half a dozen games in, and wasthis closeto setting the high score, when Mal did finally come over.

“One sec,” Elliott told him. Maybe if he wasn’t so goddamn close to really nailing this machine, he’d have enjoyed Malcolm finally heading his direction more.

“Oh sure, I’m here just waiting on you,” Malcolm retorted sarcastically.

A few moments later, Elliott hit the perfect combination of bells and the machine rang out with the sound of lightsabers clashing, followed by a triumphant noise signaling the end of the game.

“I’ll take it,” Elliott said, entering his info for the top score. “But I’d rather have won the game, earlier.”

“Hey, we win some, we lose some. You should come over and see how Finn and Ramsey are going at each other on foosball. I’ve never seen such a competitive game in my whole life.” Mal was trying to be friendly. Elliott could practically see the wheels in his head turning. The effort he was making. It was surprisingly sweet.

“He’s trying to get Finn out of his head,” Elliott said.

“Well,yeah,” Mal said. “And I think it’s working?”

Sure enough, when they headed over to the loose group gathered around Finn and Ramsey and the foosball table, Finn was grinning and Ramsey looked stressed as Finn expertly flicked the ball towards Ramsey’s side.

“Goddamn,” Ramsey muttered as he twisted the knob a second too late and the ball sank into the goal.

“You’d think you’d be better at defense,” Finn joked.

“You’d think,” Ramsey said, wiping his damp forehead with the back of his hand.

Mal leaned in, his shoulder brushing Elliott’s, and Elliott was suddenly reminded of the last time they’d been this close. Back when they’d still been in the locker room.

When they’d been kissing. Angrily at first, and then the way they’d come together had been anything but angry.

“You think he’s playing Finn?” Mal murmured under his breath.

Elliott wasn’t sure. Buthewanted to be playing. And not foosball.

He shrugged. “Maybe. ItisRamsey.”

Finn shrieked as Ramsey turned on the jets, moving the foosball players around with a surprising speed.

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