Page 49 of On Thin Ice

Nick mutters under his breath, “Fuck off.”

Kyle jabs at him again. “Come on, if she’s ugly it’s ok, we won’t judge you.”

“She’s not fucking ugly,” Nick turns his head towards Kyle’s taunting eyes. “She’s just none of your fucking business.”

“Man,” Kyle sighs, pointing his finger between Nick and I. “You two are pussy whipped now and I'm not enjoying it.” He lifts his frosted beer to his lips, a trail of condensation making it’s way down the glass and then down his bare arm. I intentionally knock Kyle’s glass with my elbow, causing the golden liquid to lap up the side and soak his hand and his chin. I grin at him as he curses me under his breath, wiping the back of his hand across his dripping jaw.

“Fucking hell I was only joking, no need to waste perfectly good beer over it.” His own shit eating grin spreads across his face as he watches me, before his gaze lands over my shoulder and his bright eyes widen in horror. I follow his line of vision and before I know what’s happening a blonde with legs that go straight to heaven lands gently on my knee. I know her, I'm almost certain I’ve fucked her before and her spicy perfume is tightening my throat, making me cough.

“Hey Sean, wanna get out of here and go to my place for round two?” She drawls, clearly having been plied with alcohol tonight by her friends. I don’t even remember her name, I never made a habit of finding out anything about the girls I slept with…until Callie of course.

“Get off my knee.” I hiss, trying to keep the attention away from my rowdy teammates. Kyle is still gawking with me, his eyes tracking her legs as they dangle down from where she perched herself in my lap. The blonde’s eyes narrow at me. “Why? You let me sit on your knee before.”

“Do you need me to make you get off?” I growl, getting more pissed off now. Why can’t some girls just take a fucking hint when it’s practically smacking them right in the face?

She huffs but shuffles off me, rubbing her ass against my leg as her heels land back on the ground. The air around us immediately feels lighter now she’s no longer touching me.

I twist my body to block Kyle’s view of her, his eyes still wide. “Look, I have a girlfriend now so there’s isn’t going to be a round two.” The blonde rolls her eyes and reaches for the collar of my shirt. I brush her hand away with the back of mine and darken my eyes with warning. “Politely fuck off now.”

She folds her arms, her thick lashes brushing against her cheekbones as she closes her eyes and lets out a long huff, before sauntering away across the bar. When I turn back to Kyle his eyes are back to their normal size and the icy blue of them is burning into me as he grins.

“What?” I snap, downing the last of my beer and deciding right there and then that I'm heading home and calling my baby. I don’t fucking like this shit anymore, I don’t want to deal with random women fawning all over me.

Kyle’s grin widens and his eyes sparkle with pride. “Good for you man, you’re a loyal guy.”

My best friend loves to berate me for being pussy whipped but when it comes to me being loyal to my girl I know he’s actually filled with pride at how much I’ve changed since I met Callie.

I shrug, forcing the smile down. “Yeah well, when I have a girl like Callie at home I don’t feel the need to look at other women. The appeal just isn’t there like it used to be.”

Kyle nods, gulping down his foamy beer and patting me once on the shoulder. I push back my bar stool and get up, rubbing my damp, icy hands on my jeans and declaring to my teammates that I'm heading home. A few of them groan but most of them are too far gone to give a shit, they simply nod and throw me a lazy wave.

I kick off my shoes the second I get inside my house, the darkness enclosing me and making me feel like a beady pair of eyes must be staring at me through the shroud of blackness. I make my way up the stairs, dragging my feet and pulling my phone out of my back pocket to text Callie. It’s 1:24am right now so I'm sure she’s sleeping, I want to hear her voice so badly but I don’t want to wake her so I settle for a text. I hit send as I step through the door into my dark bedroom, a pinging sound making me jump and hit the light switch fast. As my eyes adjust to the sudden blinding light that spreads across the room I see a lump in the centre of my king sized bed. Callie sits up, her phone cradled in her palm as her eyes focus on me. Her brown curls cascade down her back as she sits taller, piercing green eyes boring into mine as I lay my hand on my chest and breathe a sigh of relief. For a second I thought some crazy fucker had broken into our house and was sleeping in my bed, but the sight of my girl laying under my duvet waiting for me is like a wave of happiness and relief mixed into one.

I blow out a sharp, relieved breath. “Fucking hell baby you scared me, I didn’t know you’d be here.”

“Yeah,” she murmurs, so quietly I can barely hear her. “It was supposed to be a nice surprise.”

Her eyes are soft and sad looking, her shoulders slumped and her gaze staying firmly on her lap as she speaks quietly like a mouse. “Yeah, it is a nice surprise…” I say warily, like I'm walking across broken glass, watching my every step. I’m staring at her, her slow, steady breathing and her frowning lips. “What’s wrong?” I say, sitting down on the edge of my bed and brushing my fingers along her forearm which she quickly jerks away from me.

“Don’t touch me Sean,” she snaps, the volume of her voice suddenly increasing and I immediately notice the sharpness in her tone that wasn’t there a moment ago.

She shuffles across the bed, creating a blanket of space between us, the air becoming colder the farther away from me she moves. A sickening feeling embeds itself into the pit of my stomach as I watch her, eyes prickling with tears and the fiery green that I'm used to dulling with aching pain. I open my mouth to speak but have to force the whispered words off my tongue. “What did I do?”

My heart is racing faster than ever as she swipes the screen on her phone and turns it towards me, the bright light glaring as my eyes adjust to the photo. The first thing I notice is the flash of blonde hair, then my own face as the photo of the leggy girl from earlier sitting on my lap stares back at me on Callie’s phone screen. I choke on my breath as it tries to escape from my throat, realising exactly what that looks like and it’s then that the puzzle pieces snap together like magnets. Callie’s sad eyes look back at me expectantly, waiting for me to say something to clear up her plagued thoughts but my throat is closing up by the second.

“I was going to just leave and never speak to you again,” she croaks through the bubble of tears in her throat. “But I'm trying to be more mature than that, so I need you to tell me what the fuck is going on.” “What is that?” I stutter, leaning in closer to look at the photo before Callie angrily snatches the phone away from my view.

I don’t know why I said that, I know exactly what that photo is, I was in that bar only an hour ago when that girl approached me but why the hell does Callie have a photo of it?

Callie’s emerald orbs darken and she scrunches her eyebrows together in angst. “You tell me Sean, because it looks like it’s you with some random slut on your lap.” She spits, the fierce anger clear but I can see the hurt hiding behind it, the raw pain she must be feeling thinking I betrayed her. “That’s not at all what happened, she came to our table and was all over me. I told her I had a girlfriend and I wasn’t interested, then she left me alone.” I ramble, trying to get the words out of my mouth as quickly as possible to reassure Callie and save her hurt feelings.

“You sure as hell look interested with her draped all over you like that.” She murmurs, looking back down at her lap and breaking contact with me. She wipes at her watery eyes and the urge to reach out and hold her is making my hands itch.

I shake my head and shuffle closer to her. “Callie that’s not what happened, you can ask Kyle, he was there.” She sniffs again, forcing the tears to stay hovering inside her eyelids. “Who even sent you that photo?” I say, suddenly filled with suspicion. Who the fuck is trying to purposefully sabotage my relationship?

“I don’t know, it was an unknown number…” She whispers, finally looking up at me with her soft, melty eyes that make me want to die. I reach out for her and she lets me take her shaky hand in mine. “You can see what’s going on here right? Someone is obviously trying to set me up, make it look like I cheated on you.”

“You’re not getting out of it that easily Sean.” She pulls her hand out of my grip and sniffs harder this time, the tears breaking free and trailing silently down her cheeks.

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