Page 59 of The Captain

When he told me he wasn’t done with me…

I cross my legs and sigh. “I have something I need to tell you.”

The girls stop what they’re doing and look at me, Mick concerned and Victoria likely waiting for juicy gossip.

She’s about to get what she wished for.

“What’s going on?” Mick asks, and I wish I wasn’t about to potentially ruin our friendship, but there was no sugarcoating it.

“I dated your brother,” I blurt out.

“What?”

“Ha!”

I narrow my eyes at the bark of laughter and look back at Mick.

“I dated Lincoln.”

Mick blinks and slumps back in her chair for a moment, and I wait with my breath caught in my lungs over what she was going to say. I could feel my heart rate tick up and a rush of adrenaline rising.

I hate confrontation, and I was terrified I was about to get just that.

Just when I’m about to launch from my seat and bolt, Mick slowly smiles and nods her head. “Yeah, that makes sense.”

I blink, and Victoria is still chuckling in her seat, her eyes trained on me as if she’s studying me. Like she knew.

But it wouldn’t be shocking if she did know and just never said anything.

“What?” I slump, the air rushing from my lungs, and I’m suddenly lightheaded. “How does that make sense?”

“Well, I don’t want to say it was obvious, but the way you two seem to irritate each other, it makes sense that there was something underneath all of that.”

The waiter interrupts, taking our order. After Vic orders, I tell him I want the same even though I have no idea what she even ordered.

I can’t focus on that.

“But…you’re not mad?” I ask after he’s left and pick at my napkin.

Mick frowns. “No, I’m not mad. If you two are happy, who am I to stand in your way? I fell in love with my brother’s hockey coach for crying out loud.”

“Yeah.” Vic rubs her lower lip thoughtfully. “You really don’t have room to talk, do you?”

Mick nudges her. “But seriously.” Her eyes come back to me. “You should be with whoever makes you happy, and treats you right,” she tacks on. “If he doesn’t, I’ll kick his ass.”

“Well.” I clear my throat and take a sip of the iced tea in front of me. “We’re not dating now.”

“Oh shit, what did he do?” Victoria asks, and for the first time since we sat down, she seems to be taking the conversation seriously.

I launch into the whole story, starting with the first time I met Lincoln, to Tanner asking me to tutor him to hanging out with Lincoln nearly every day in that last semester, to him reading my book, to us falling for each other hard, to him…well, to us breaking up.

“That little shitfucker,” Victoria spits out, then turns and looks at Mick. “What a douche your little brother can be.”

“He’s been apologizing nonstop since it happened,” I cut in, not needing or wanting my best friends to fight because of what I or Lincoln did.

Mick turns sad eyes on me. “Cass.” She swallows and shakes her head. “I’m so sorry I put you in that position. I never meant for that lie to build the way it did.”

“It’s not your fault,” I say quickly, wondering how to navigate this whole situation. It wasn’t really her fault, per se. She didn’t specifically ask me to lie to Lincoln. She didn’t even know we were growing closer.

---