Page 43 of Things Left Unsaid

“What? You do!”

“Don’t be a jerk,” I chide.

“I’m not being a jerk. I’m being truthful.”

“I swear Mum dropped you on the head when you were a baby.”

“It’d explain a lot.”

“What do you want?”

“I don’t technically want anything.”

“Technically.” I ponder that word for about half a second. “Get it out, Cole. You’ll feel better.”

“I have no sins to confess,” he counters. “Just… You know.”

“No, I don’t.”

He clears his throat.

“Just ask him,” Mia whispers.

I roll my eyes. “If we could hurry this along, I’d appreciate it.”

“I spoke with Callan.”

“And?”

“And he said Pops left the ranch.”

A smug smile creases my jaw. “He sure did. But there’s nothing new there.”

“No,” he concedes. “Callan made it sound… different.”

Oh, was it ever.

If anything, it had been a decadently different day.

The best one of my damn life.

When that realization hits, I figure I need to work on having better days because, shit, that’s depressing.

“Callan barely leaves his room so how would he know?” I half-lie, fully aware that I haven’t shared the news with Cole. Yet. “Not that I’m complaining about Callan living in his room. It’s better than joyriding or taking drugs or playing hockey.”

He scoffs at the dig. “Just because you wish I’d taken up baseball.”

“‘Course I do. That you never got to knock a baseball out of Rogers Centre with your Louisville Slugger is a tragic waste.”

“I’m not exactly cooling my jets with the New York Stars.”

“Hockey.” I pshaw to piss him off.

He grunts. “Okay, before I have to fly home to smack some sense into you about why hockey is God’s game of choice and how my team made it to the playoffs, tell me what made Callan think Pops leaving is different this time.”

“Maybe because it’s permanent,” I admit.

“Permanent?”

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