Page 75 of False Start

sixteen

I eyedmy door at the sound of the knock on the other side and immediately regretted coming straight home. A ball of restless agitation settled in my gut and fuck if anyone thought I was hiding and licking my wounds.

I wanted to drop-kick a certain coach right in the grapes for the stunt he pulled.

And I needed someone to talk it over with, but after the stunning realization that my team had turned into this hardened shell on the outside, treating me like some shiny, dainty pearl on the inside, I sure as hell couldn’t talk to any of them.

Because we still needed him.

Especially now that we not only had money into applying to the WRDF, but we’d paid to register for the exhibition and had travel expenses coming for that too.

I couldn’t say he didn’t warn me of impending doom—he did, kinda.

The fucker.

But I deserved a hell of a lot more than some vague warning while he busied himself collecting another hot kiss on a technicality.

If he tried to kiss me now, I’d bite his tongue off.

And that better not be him on the other side of the door.

I’d literally take anyone else. Maybe even Tilly and that was saying something. At least with her I knew what to expect. I hadn’t managed to let her shitty comments roll off just yet, but she didn’t have any new material.

If anything, her willingness to stand there while Priest hammered into her the expectations as we all looked on was new. Authority had never really been her thing, landing her in Bay Wilderness to begin with when her family decided she was too much of a behavioral issue and signed her over to the state.

Something I always pitied when we were teenagers. Not that I told her that.

For her to take Priest’s rules without a flicker of nastiness in her eyes or a sneer twitching at the corner of her lips was new territory entirely.

I opened the door, ready to give whoever was on the other side hell, when Eve sailed right past me and let herself in.

“We need to talk,” she said, her voice bone-white with fury.

I threw the door shut behind her. “Yes, we do—”

“We can’t trust him,” she said, cutting me off.

I sighed. I’d put a whole lot more value in her words if they were really about him, but this had our personal relationship written all over it.

This newfound clarity could kiss my ass. “And why is that?”

She whirled on me then, her jaw slack, and huffed out a livid breath. “He brought Tilly onto the team without saying a fucking word. That’s not reason enough?”

He did say a word…just not the right ones, but that was between him and me.

“No, it’s not. We have a youth center hanging in the balance. So no, it’s not enough.” And because it didn’t make sense. He knew how important this was to me. He knew, dammit. He saw me with my kids. He skated with my kids. The guy who ran from me three nights ago—the guy who said no over and over—the guy who relented…he didn’t do it to lay some sort of trap so he could be cruel.

“So you’re just going to let him run all over you and get away with it?”

“Don’t piss me off, Eve. I’m exhausted and I have just enough anger to unleash on him. I’m not interested in wasting it with you.”

“Good,” she said, beginning to pace. “You do that. While you’re at it—”

“No more. Just knock this shit off. You’re not going to run all over me in the name of what he did. Do you really think I’m that weak that you can just plow right through me and what I want?”

She stopped and whipped around. “And you want him?”

“That’s what this is really about, isn’t it?”

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