Page 32 of False Start

His gruff laugh filled the room. “Among other things he’s pissed at me about, yeah. You thought you were going to find a set of titties back there, didn’t you?”

Fucking Mandalorian.

“With you one never knows. Could have just as easily been The Golden Girls.” Because he was a seriously weird dude who got off on watching repeats of the eighties sitcom when he wasn’t causing trouble on skates.

“That’s the desk calendar,” Jackson said, nodding toward the one piece of furniture that didn’t change over the years and the flat calendar spread over the top.

Probably because no one could lift it.

“As for my father, my being right definitely chafed his ass, but I ignored it. When that didn’t piss me off the way he hoped, he jumped up my colon about there being no point if I don’t settle down and have kids to take over the business.”

“Any chance that’s on the radar?”

“You could say I’ve got something in the works where that’s concerned, but she’s skittish. And I like kids. But it will be on my timeline—actually her timeline—not my father’s. I guess I’d ask you the same on the settling down front, but word is you popped bone for Maisy Flynn.”

Of course it was. Fucking wonderful.

“I hope they aren’t saying it like that. Pretty sure I haven’t ‘popped bone’ since I was fifteen.” I took a sip of coffee, the biting flavor punishment on my tongue.

“Well, yeah, you are kind of getting old. Takes more work for the pop, huh?”

“You’re a month older than me, Stone.”

“Yeah, but poppin’ all the damn time.”

“I’m not sure I’d be bragging about that. Somehow the only thing the town stoner, mid-thirties, running a roller rink, sporting unpredictable wood has child molester vibes written all over it.”

He snorted. “I’ve got stains on my soul, but that will never be one of them. And that’s former stoner. I gave that shit up.”

“Really? Now that’s news in a town where nothing ever changes.”

“Yeah, it’s not as fun when your dad decides he wants to get high with you. I’m pretty sure I only did it to piss him off and the day he asked to light one up with me, he sucked every last shred of joy from it.”

“You still skate?”

“Fuck yeah, I do,” he said, tilting his head. “You?”

“That’s why I’m here.”

“So that’s the tension rolling off you.”

Glancing out at the empty rink, I avoided his comment.“You want to talk about that phone call last summer?”

“Nope.”

“Still processing?”

“I think that’s a lifetime sentence where that’s concerned. But it’s not that. I respect you, and your career. Because I do, the conversation we had this summer will be the only conversation we ever have about that particular situation.”

“Understood.” He broke the law. And not something little either. But I knew Jackson, in his heart I knew him, and whatever he did, he only did because there was no other choice.

That’s a position I understood all too well.

I sucked in a deep breath, memories when I first started skating here with my grandparents, mom, sister, and brother colliding with what came after.

Just after.

When I broke away from my siblings, anger took over as the Devil sitting on my shoulder while I raced around the rink. No matter what I did, how fast I went, my gaze always going to my mother’s favorite corner table.

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