Page 43 of False Start

I pulled her back and took her hand. Raising my arm, she ducked under and slid right into the spin.

This.

If we didn’t have to leave this moment, I could stay in this town and just do this for the rest of my days.

Dangerous fucking territory.

I needed to remember what I was. What I’d done. What I cost the people I love.

What I could cost her.

Taking her hand, I propelled us ahead of Jackson and handed her off. I needed the distance. To make sure she didn’t get the wrong idea.

Okay, to make sure I didn’t get the wrong idea.

Jackson touching her grated on my nerves and in the span of a dozen beats, I was snatching her back from my friend, glaring at the fucking knowing grin on his smug face when I did.

Bastard.

We skated off the floor when the song ended. I avoided the table and made my way to the other side where I dropped into a chair and started tugging at my laces. The boys shot over, their avid gazes on my feet.

“That was awesome. I wanna skate like that.” The dark-haired boy peered down at me with fire in his eyes.

The minute he got on skates, he’d never get off them. “Have Jackson get you fitted with some skates and get out there then.”

“I want skates with flames like yours.”

I glanced at the kid full of enthusiasm now, but a stubborn little shit not ten minutes earlier. “You have to earn the flames, my man.”

“Sounds like you little dudes had a change of heart. Why don’t we go take care of that. Ladies, you want to help me show them the ropes back there?” Jackson ushered the boys and girls to the counter, leaving Mayhem and I alone.

Subtle.

I hope Jackson took a wheel in the taint.

Mayhem sat down next to me, her arm brushing mine. “Thank you for that.”

“For what?” I muttered, trying to ignore her heat as it seeped into me just from our proximity alone.

“You know for what. When someone says thank you, you then say, ‘you’re welcome.’”

“Is that right?” I didn’t look at her. Couldn’t look at her. So I focused on her skates. I expected her to be out here in her derby skates, maybe a set of Moxies, not the classic high-top white skates with a low heel.

I yanked off my first skate and wondered about her choice to wear those when there were so many better options out there.

None of my business.

“What’s the deal with the lace?” Tie-dye laces ran up the leather and through the eyelets, but on the right, a faded, frayed green lace that looked like it had snapped a decade or two ago ran alongside the new one.

Her startled gaze met mine before her eyes darted down to her skates. She fidgeted on the seat and tucked them under her.

Like she was hiding.

“It, uh—” Her normally confident voice stumbled. “They were my mother’s.”

“The laces?”

“The skates. The last time she took me skating the lace snapped. I didn’t—couldn’t. I couldn’t bring myself to throw it away.”

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