Page 46 of Forbidden

Aldo groans loudly, letting his head fall back. “Come on. Don’t ruin the night. Can’t you two just get along for once? You have a ton in common. If you’d met under different circumstances, you might have become friends.”

“Bollocks.” Doug snorts. “We have fuck all in common.”

Joy punches him in the shoulder. “Swimming?”

“Besides that.” He rolls his eyes. “We’re nothing alike.”

I raise my eyebrows. “How would you know? You’ve never asked me a damn thing.”

“I don’t need to ask you anything to know we have fuck all in common.”

Joy glances between us as she sips her drink. “I think you have more in common than you’d think.”

Immediately, Doug turns to her, his eyes narrowing before looking at me again, and my stomach flips over. Surely, she doesn’t mean . . .

“You’re both competitive assholes,” she clarifies, giving Doug a look I can’t figure out.

He laughs, his hand slipping off the high back of the padded seat to tug her ponytail. It’s overfamiliar and I don’t like it. Not one bit.

“I’ll happily admit I’m an asshole, love,” he says. “I doubtLamewould, though.”

Whether it’s the smug smile on Doug’s face, or the fact that both he and Aldo seem to have found a way beneath Joy’s armor, when she can still barely look at me, I’m not sure; but I snap.

“Stop fucking calling me that!”

Joy and Aldo tense, looking up from their drinks in surprise, but Doug just laughs.

“Why? It’s not like it’s any more ridiculous than youractualname.” He shakes his head. “Lane fucking Masters. And it’s not even true!”

My fingers clench into fists beneath the table, my lungs tight as I struggle to control the anger bubbling in my veins.

“Doug,” Aldo warns.

I glance at the captain, caught off guard by the familiarity in that single word—the fact he’s calling his coach by his first name. Again.

“I mean,” Doug continues, his gray eyes fixing on mine hungrily, and I know then, he’stryingto make me explode. Hewantsthis. “If you were a master of the lanes, you’d be swimming professionally, wouldn’t you? What happened,Lame?”

Thankful I’m at the edge of the booth, I stand up and walk away. Fuck him. Fuck him and this job. Fuck tonight. This was a stupid idea from the start. A tiny part of me is proud of the fact that I didn’t rise to his bait, though. I might have lost the love of my life, but at least I took the high road. It’s a shame the high road is lonely as fuck.

ALDO

“Doug!” Joy scolds. “That was seriously uncalled for.”

I frown at the use of his name. I’ve never heard her call him anything other than Coach. I’m not sure whether Coach Masters is right, and he is a mean drunk, but something’s gotten into him tonight.

“He’s a big boy,” Doug says, taking Joy’s drink again and downing it in one. “He’ll get over it.”

She snatches the empty glass from him, the line appearing between her brows. “You can be a real dick sometimes, you know that?”

Doug just raises his eyebrows and smirks. “I’ve never pretended to be anything other than what I am, love.”

The noise that tears out of Joy, just about audible over the music, sounds a hell of a lot like a growl. She shoves at me, making it clear she wants out of the booth, and I move around to let her out.

“I’m going to check he’s okay,” she says, fixing Doug with a glare I’m glad I’m not on the receiving end of.

He doesn’t seem the least bit phased as he sighs. “Like I said. He’s a big boy.”

Joy moves to storm off, but I grab her wrist, pulling her to me. “Let me go.”

---