Page 81 of Hot Ice, Tennessee

“Jesse, what’s your problem?” Robbie asked.

I wish I could fucking tell you.

The problem is that I’m still holding Elliot’s secret, and he’s lording it over me like a petty tyrant king.

Elliot knew he could get to me, because he knew I was a decent person. I’d never be the person to out him as being gay or bi or whatever the fuck he might be, but that also meant that I had to hold in my own secrets. I was like a dam, constantly about to burst.

I backed off and headed upstairs. I heard Elliot’s light giggle as I walked away, and I held in every urge to go back and knock him cold.

“Fuck,” I said under my breath as I pushed my door closed, leaning back onto the cool wood.

Elliot pissed me off, but until now, I’d been able to keep his comments from getting completely under my skin, especially off the ice.

I looked down at the fading red scratch marks on my hips.

I wish you could have stayed.

I picked up my phone, thumbing through my messages, gravitating to Mason’s name but deciding not to gettooboyfriendy when that wasn’t what we were.

Instead, I navigated to the only other person I could be honest with, dialing his number.

“Aphonecall?” Kane said as he answered. “Something really bad must be happening for me to earn a real phone call from you.”

“You busy?” I asked. “I mean, I know you’re always busy at the bar, but can you talk?”

“I can talk for five or ten minutes. Max is holding down the bar. What’s up? Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I mean, my house isn’t burning down or anything, and I’m physically in one piece, but…”

My words trailed off. I suddenly had a tight feeling in my throat.

When I was a young kid, I’d talked to my brother like this all the time. I could hardly get a scrape on my knee without going to Kane. And when I was a teenager, he’d been my best source of advice.

But it had been years since I’d done anything like this.

“But?” he asked gently.

“But I feel like I’m always one step away from fucking everything up again.”

The tightness in my throat got a little more constricted.

“Jesse,” Kane said softly.

“Like I’ve lived my whole life being in… incontrolof everything, and now it’s slowly slipping out of my grasp.”

“Just take a few breaths,” Kane said. I could hear the noise of the bar behind him get a little quieter, then the sound of what must have been the back office door closing at the Hard Spot. “First of all, I know you hate when I ask about school. But your grades aren’t the problem, right?”

“Not even close.”

“Well, there’s step one,” he offered. “You can’t say you’re totally not in control if you’ve still got school in your grasp.”

The truth was right there behind my lips.

I think I like someone, but I don’t know how to trust.

How to know what he wants, or if I’m… being too much.

And I know you sure as fuck wouldn’t approve.

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