Page 79 of Friendzone Hockey
“I don’t want to make our discussions about me—they’re for you.”
His pretty brown eyes rake over me in a way that sends dread up my spine. “Stacey Aaron Alderchuck, you hypocritical asshole.”
“I’m not?—”
“Making me talk when you refuse to.”
“That’s not it. It’s different with me.”
He leans back. Sometimes, I wish he wasn’t so intelligent. Or maybe just that he couldn’t see through me like I’m glass. “Prove it. You talk to me, and I won’t complain about you making me switch therapists.”
Dash smiles. I might act tough, but the truth is, it’s him who can make me do whatever the fuck he wants, not the other way around. I’m trying to be the big bad wolf here, but if he’d cried about switching therapists, I would have crumbled. Thankfully, it didn’t come to that.
I sigh. “Fine.”
“Say hello to Dr. Dash Nolan. I’m gonna grill you so hard,” he promises. But whatever was making him call himself a mess earlier has left him.
Fuck, I love seeing him with smiles, but was I his magic bullet again? I don’t see how I’ll ever have the answer to that. And if I can’t answer that question, if I can never be sure that he’s his own man and not one looking to me for all the answers to the universe, “us” is off the table. “Us” would be as wrong as what Robin was angling for.
“Alright, Doc. What’s my first assignment?”
He wraps his ankle around my foot under the table, and we’re still holding hands again. I sip my beer. I’m gonna need a lot of beer for this.
“Don’t worry, we’ll start easy. Didn’t you ever wanna know who your dad was?”
“How’s that easy?”
“I’m pokin’ at you. Seeing what you’ll answer. Same rule for you as you made for me, though. You don’t have to answer what you don’t want to.”
Except I don’t see the point in not telling him. If I’m gonna tell anyone, it’s gonna be Dash. “I’ll answer, but don’t think for a second that I’ve forgotten about you. We’re gonna talk about what you said.”
The server drops by to check on us. “Aw, look at you two lovebirds. Can I get you another round?”
“Oh no, we’re not together,” Dash says. “Just friends—bestfriends.”
The server raises a brow.
“We’ll take another round,” I say so he can leave, and we don’t have to explain ourselves.
Dash shakes his head once he’s gone. “Wow. Judge-y McJudgerson. Seriously, that guy needs to read a room.”
My gaze falls to our joined hands, his foot squeezes my ankle tighter. Can’t say I blame the guy for jumping to conclusions. Has he really stopped seeing us this way?
I should probably let go, but I know what his face will look like if I do, so fuck that. Fuck that straight to hell. The only thing that matters, the only thing that will ever matter, is keeping Dash happy.
“Back to my dad. I don’t even know if he’s still alive. Mom never told us who he was, and it made her too fucking sad when we mentioned it, so we stopped.”
“I get that, but did you wonder? Tell me you were never curious.”
“I was curious, I’m still curious. But not enough to go looking.” It’s crossed my mind a few times that it might be possible with the DNA technology nowadays, but Mom didn’t want us to know. It was the one thing she didn’t want us to know.
“Okay, fair. Now for a hard question.”
“If that one was easy, what’s your definition of hard?”
“On a scale of zero to ten, how much do you miss her right now?”
I wait for the wave of crushing pain to come, but it doesn’t. If anything, it’s as if she’s right here with a smugI told you soin her eyes. Somehow, I can sense how much she loves Dash, too. If anything, I miss Dash—Dash who’s right here in front of me—more than I miss her. How is it possible to miss someone you’re clinging to as if he might evaporate at any moment?
