Page 60 of Rush the Edge

She takes a step back as the pills scatter all around the kitchen floor like marbles. Neither of us make a move to bend. Instead, we just stare at one another.

It doesn’t take long for the panic to surge. I lift my hand and aggressively run it through my messy hair. “What do you mean, yes?”

Sick? How sick and since when? Do her parents know? Does my mom know? Miles?

Does everyone know but me?

Daisy shifts nervously. Those perfect white teeth clamp onto her lip to nibble at the soft flesh. It takes everything in me not to reach out to free it. What seems natural to me when it comes to her isn’t always relevant, considering we’re enemies.

“I’m fine,” she finally answers, though it isn’t an answer at all.

Anger spreads like a wildfire. My fists clench by my sides. I teeter my jaw back and forth. “You practically fainted. You have a notebook tracking symptoms.”

She sighs loudly, and it’s a flame brushing against my skin.

I refuse to back down. “If you don’t want to tell me, then fine. I’ll find out one way or another, Daisy-Petal. Surely you remember how persistent I can be.”

“How could I forget?” she mutters.

“There was once a time you told me all your secrets,” I argue.

I told her all of mine too.

Her little nostrils flare. “Well, you left.”

My muscles tense. “There was nothing left for me in that town...remember?”

Something flashes across her face, and it digs itself right into my chest.Was that hurt I saw?

“Tell me or don’t, but I’ll find out,” I threaten.

She purses her lips, and the only thing it does is make me want to kiss her.

I glance at the clock on her stove.Fuck, I have to go to the rink—which, at this point, is probably a good thing.

Some of the vitamins crunch beneath my weight as I walk past her. A faint breath of relief leaves her when she thinks she's in the clear, but at the last second, my arm curls around her waist, and I pull her in close.

My mouth hovers over her ear.

She stares at me out of the corner of her eye.

“Have it your way, babe,” I whisper.

I place her phone on the counter and walk out the door.

Daisy has no idea the man I’ve grown to be…because when I want something,I get it.

* * *

After seeing how indisposed Daisy was after last night’s game, I assume she’ll call in sick for tonight’s game—if you can even do that as the mascot? Are there backup mascots? Substitutes? Hell if I know.

A twinge of guilt settles on my shoulders. The only reason she took this job was to prove a point to me. Is this a job she can even handle? Whatever happened to her wanting to open her own plant shop one day?

I have the notion to ask Cindy if Daisy is coming in, but what would that make me? Someone who cares?

Every few seconds, I glance around the rink. The stands are beginning to fill. Rhodes is off to the side, talking to his daughter through the glass while flirting with his girlfriend at the same time. I skate past and wink at Ellie. She throws up her little devil horns, and I force a smile.

As subtle as I can, I peer toward the bench in hopes I see another set of devil horns peeking out from behind strawberry-blonde locks. At the same time, Crew Hart, one of our newer guys from the trade, skates past and misses me by a hair. He’s a damn good skater, so I know it wasn’t a coincidence that he didn’t ram right into me, but it gives me the push I need to get my shit together and focus on warming up.

---