Page 72 of False Start

One by one they rolled off the track. A wobble here, arms thrown out there, a little squeak, but everyone stayed upright.

Upright was good.

“Good, now get back on, climb to the top, and skate down and over the coping a hundred more times.”

MAISY

“Hey, Mayhem,”Rory said as she climbed up the bank for the eighty-third time. “Your coach is a real asshole, you know that? Fuck.”

“It’s for the kids. Just remember it’s for the kids,” I said, my thighs burning from climbing the bank, sweat dripping from my face landing with a fat splatter against the track.

“Yeah, tell that to my fucking quads. They’re already trash,” Marty chimed in.

“Just think, if a guy pisses you off while you’re riding him, you can crush his pelvis with your new muscles,” I said, trying to keep it positive while my thigh muscles burned and quivered under my skin.

“If a guy pisses her off? You mean when. When a guy pisses her off,” Marty said with a snort.

Where did she manage to find the air to snort?

If I sucked in a quick burst of air right now, I’d die. I could barely wheeze at this point.

Maybe that’s what Priest wanted. If we run, he gets his track back and his life gets a whole lot less complicated.

We’d barely started, but all it took was adding a little incline and it was like hitting the gym for the first time in months after the round of food holidays and fifteen extra pounds.

I’d imagined all the ways Priest could make me lose my breath, bruising kisses laced with angry surrender, hot foreplay—a total assault of his big hands, hard thrusts with that bat in his shorts, but this…there was nothing sexy about this. Because ladies got jock sweat too and right now, I was pretty sure I was sweating myself what looked like the outline of crotchless underwear with a case of swamp ass not far behind.

That had kissing repellent written all over it.

I’d go take a roll in the snow if that didn’t mean putting on a steam show fit for a sauna with my roasting hoo-ha.

I was smuggling a damn swamp cooler in my pants at this point.

“Ah, but I’m talking about said pissing off when she’s riding him only,” I finally managed to scrape out past my heavy breaths.

“Me too,” Marty said.

“You know, she’s not wrong—God, this hurts—but I swear dudes always forget about literally everything when we get on top,” Rory began between gasps, her words on pause while we skated off the track and coping, only to turn and begin our climb to do it all over again. “They fucking lie back with their hands folded behind their heads, happy to let us do everything. I mean, dude, I’ll do the hip work. At least then I know I’m going to come, but if you don’t at least give me some nipple action and touch them like you mean it, I might just tear this dick off with my rocking’ Kegels.”

“Pelvic muscles might end up being the only muscles that don’t hurt by the time we’re done,” Marty said before blowing out a hard breath and swiping the sweat off her forehead with her bare forearm.

“Ours maybe, but Mayhem’s on the other hand,” Rory said with a side glance at me. “Priest has her all hot and bothered. I’m willing to bet all this time together has her flexing those fuckers like a new mother who pees herself every time the wind blows.”

Eve glared at us then, the fact that she heard us written all over her face.

“If I flex anything else right now, I’ll die.” I attempted humor to brush off their comments, hoping to appease Eve. But Rory wasn’t wrong. And she needed to shut up.

And tonight…after my shit day, after what was proving to be the shittiest practice of shittiest practices, I’d talk to her. I needed to just be honest, not only about Priest, but about her and me.

No more riding this whole life is just too full right now and I’m not looking for anything serious, but it’s been fun excuse. I needed to make it abundantly clear that while I love her, I just didn’t think in the end either of us would be happy.

Truth was, she was too eager to protect me. I thought I wanted that in a partner after losing my mom and spending years at the mercy of a system designed to send kids on their way the minute they aged out with no real support. But when her idea of protecting me turned to stifling me and not giving me room to make decisions without barreling over me—or worse—thinking she could make decisions for me, I knew it had to end.

I rolled down the bank one last time, rested my hands on my hips, and took a deep breath as I continued across the infield.

“Holy shit,” Sean said, her eyes focused on something past us.

“Oh, hell no,” Eve spat. “No. No. And in case you didn’t hear me…fuck no!”

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