Page 82 of False Start

No smile. Expressionless eyes. Without another word, she handed the bottle to me and skated away.

I looked around to see if she’d handed out a bunch of them or only brought one for me, but I couldn’t tell. Carmen, Dixie, Lexi, and Cat all had water, but they were already half gone at this point. Besides, they stood in a tight circle with Zara, all lips flapping and hand gestures, talking about something that had them all fired up.

My gaze landed on Tilly only to find her watching me from the edge of the infield as she tipped her bottle back.

What the fuck did this mean?

“Make sure the seal’s intact,” Marty muttered.

“Funny.” I pushed off and started a lap around the track. And yeah, I made sure I broke the seal.

We still hadn’t done an all-out jam yet. Instead, Priest kept us on the bank relearning every basic skill. Hours upon hours he hammered us with endless stops, starts, blocks, transitions, duck walks, duck runs, push drills, swoop and block drills, everything we needed to learn to stay upright on a bank while getting hit from each side.

He didn’t miss a single thing, his shrewd eyes scanning, studying, always watching every move.

If we did it wrong, slacked, or looked tired—he called us out.

He called us out hard.

He also made it hella hard for a girl to have a private couple of seconds to pick a fucking wedgie, that was for damn sure.

When he wasn’t penetrating our brains with his superhuman stare, he yelled, waved his hands in frustration, scribbled notes, paced, and skated.

Overall, he was a merciless son of a bitch.

I wanted to hate him, and right when I was almost at that point, he climbed on the bank with us. He didn’t demand one thing that he couldn’t or wouldn’t do himself up there.

The man didn’t have to say he had integrity, he showed it with his every single action, making it really freaking hard to stay mad at him for his misstep.

Until the son of a bitch broke us into the three sets of five he was so bloody fond of.

Guess who was in my set of five.

Tilly the Fucking Cyborg. That was her new name.

A name that matched her blank fucking expression.

He put the jammers on the spot first, examining our footwork as we tried to break through and dash around the blockers in front of us. Testing our ability to hop, spin away from a block to dart around and through the pack, and our skill at gaining speed when we broke free.

When I’d told him he would make me a target if he kicked Tilly off the team, he clearly took it to heart by going the complete other direction in making us work together. Apparently, he wanted to send the message that not only was I cool with Tilly on the team, but we were ready for matching tattoos or some bonding shit.

Super.

Everything changed on the bank; our balance changed depending on where we were on the track. The angle of our hips being on a constant tilt threw every other part of us off. But after a week, we finally had it.

If anything, being on flat ground felt weird as hell, but at least when we transitioned to the infield, we didn’t look like calves taking their first steps anymore. Sad visual, but true—although, appropriate being in an old dairy barn and all.

Finally happy with our progress—if you called a grunt and a little less resting asshole face, happy—we moved on to jumps so when the time came and bodies hit the track in a jam, we could avoid running over our teammates and hurting ourselves.

At least that was the theory.

We scoffed at his never-ending need to drive the skills home—earning a dark glare—his new natural state over the past week since he found me at Banked Track pouring out my bruised heart to Rory.

He kept everything absolute derby. Nothing personal. But all the things we weren’t saying, built up there between us. I could feel it. The air practically vibrated around us.

After all, even my team noticed. The shits probably formed a betting pool behind my back.

The unease made me itchy.

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