Page 148 of Blindside Sinner

I thought I was alone, but I guess not. Dixon, who’s been nursing a hamstring strain, limps out of the treatment room and pauses halfway across the space.

“You look like shit, brother,” he remarks. “You need to breathe.”

“Did I ask you what I need?”

“No, but what else are best friends for, if not telling you what you need?”

“I don’t wanna hear it, man.”

He chuckles. “Best friends areespeciallyfor telling you what you need when you don’t wanna hear it.”

I sigh. He’s in rare form today. Butting heads with him will just get him riled up and the mood will last longer. I’ve learned the hard way that the best thing to do is just indulge him.

“Fine,” I grumble, slumping back against the wall. “Tell me what I need.”

I’m expecting a lecture on navigating the shifting seas of love, or some other Dixonian bullshit like that. But to my surprise, his eyes gleam. “You need a beer and a kick in the ass, my man. Lucky for you, I can provide both.”

“Lucky for me indeed,” I drawl.

“We’re drinking at your place. LaDuke and that Irish bastard we let hang around with us are gonna come, too. You can provide the beer, too, in exchange for us putting up with your sour ass. See you at eight.”

Then he limps on out, whistling a tune as he goes.

At eight o’clock sharp, Adrian walks in the front door with Colin and Dixon. They have whiskey and pizza, and Colin has a handful of individually wrapped cigars.

Adrian sets the pizza down while Colin drops the cigars on the table and goes to fish the first round of beers out of the refrigerator. “Where’s the lady of the house?” he asks.

I grimace at his phrasing. “There is no lady of the house.”

Dix shakes his head like he can’t believe how stupid I’m being. To be fair, neither can I. “Is she gone?”

“She’s upstairs. Asleep.”

I only know that because I went up to check on her five minutes before the guys arrived. She was curled up around a pillow in the center of her bed, looking thinner and paler than I’ve ever seen her before. It took every ounce of willpower I had not to scoop her up and march her right back to Dr. Ramsay myself.

The mere thought of something happening to her feels like acid being poured down my throat.

I shudder and shake the thoughts away. Not soon enough to keep them secret, though—all three of the guys are giving each other knowing looks.

Adrian shakes his head at me. I’ve never known him to be a particularly aware kind of dude. Sure, he can see a pass on the ice and intervene before the passer has even made up his mind—but when it comes to things off the ice that aren’t about him, he’s not especially intuitive.

But he’s looking at me now like he can see what I’m thinking. “You could just talk to her, you know.”

“You could just shut the fuck up, you know.”

I hate myself even as I’m saying it. The anger and the rage just keep tumbling out of me, no matter how hard I try to bottle it up.

“I could, but then you would continue being a miserable bastard and we’re all a little sick of that.” He shrugs. “My point is, if you don’t figure out what the problem is, you aren’t going to be able to figure out how to fix it.”

“He’s right, Beck,” chimes in Colin. “So figure it out.”

“She isn’t talking to me right now.”

That isn’t quite true; she’s talking just enough to drive me insane.Good morningandGoodnightandIs there anything else I can do for you?

But other than that, she might as well be a statue.

“And that’s stopping you?” Dixon gives me ayou’re patheticeye roll. “Who the fuck are you, dude? The Beck of old would’ve stormed the palace and dragged the little princess out and kept her locked in his dungeon until she told him the problem. I miss that Beck. And I’d bet my left nut that she does, too.”

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