Page 149 of Branded
Desperation to see that look again.
“Enough.”
And God, it was enough. Being in my mind, my memories, my past was enough.
I stood, grabbed my purse, and battened down the house.
Then I took a Lyft to CeCe’s, picked up my car, and went shopping.
Alone.
Right.
Nine
Raph
We were four big hockey players crammed into a tiny ass eighties-style oak booth, flower curtains on the window behind our heads separating the booths.
Our drinks were sitting on doilies.
Actual doilies.
Coffee for me and Cas. Water and coffee for Smitty and Theo.
And we were impatiently waiting for our pancakes.
My day was looking up, mostly because Smitty was talking about his woman, Kailey, who was Smitty’s polar opposite (smart and shy and soft, but perfect for Smitty). But because with Smitty prattling on about Kailey—his favorite subject—that meant he wasn’t picking at me for being on the ice early on a day we didn’t have to be on the ice, not trying to get in my head and send that gossip train barreling down the tracks toward me.
Instead, Theo and Cas had been in the weight room, and mention of Donna’s had sent the weights right back onto the rack, and they’d horned in on pancakes.
Fine with me.
Plenty of pancakes at Donna’s.
A buffer from Smitty and his gossip-attuned antenna.
Though I could have done without being pressed thigh-to-thigh to Theo.
I’d rather be pressed to Beth.
Which was a problem in and of itself.
Especially since instead of choosing my typical Nutella-filled flapjacks, I’d ordered strawberry.
Fuck.
I was fucked.
But I was pretending I wasn’t, pretending it was normal for me to have ordered strawberry pancakes when Smitty and I had eaten here enough together for my teammate to know that I only ever got Nutella ones.
Which was why I’d done my best to get my friend on the Kailey ramble—not hard since Smitty loved his girl—and was silently drinking my coffee, doily or not, as it rolled on.
But pondering the doilies, the flower-laden curtains, the scarred Formica tables, and the fact that half of my ass was hanging out of the booth didn’t mean my mind was so busy to not have missed Beth walking into the restaurant.
The flash of red drew my eyes to the right.
Pretty auburn hair.
