Page 101 of Thunderstruck
I will as soon as the princess stops talking.
“Freya,” I say with a heavy sigh. Even some of the guys are watching me now as I pace in an empty corner, probably looking like a mangy raccoon who has been cornered.
Not exactly the kind of mood I should be in after a win like we had last night.
“Cole,” Freya replies, her voice clipped. I’m pretty sure she skipped a meeting for this phone call, and that is not something she often chooses to do. Freya is nothing if not driven by duty. “Unless I have proof that you have friends on your team, you are going to that wedding.”
She keeps saying that, and I keep telling her that I didn’t have enough time to meet her terms. Granted, I didn’t start trying until a week ago, but my efforts should count for something.
“I can’t get you proof,” I grumble. “But I swear I did everything I could.”
“That is not true, and you know it.”
Carissa meets my gaze again and offers a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. I hate that smile. I hate more watching Wyatt and Grayson slide in on either side of her with plates of food like they’re all the best of friends, Carissa’s smile turning brighter at their arrival.
Growling, I grip my phone and stalk across the dining area, slipping into the chair across the table from Carissa before anyone else can. This is going to be a disaster, but I’m out of arguments. “Wyatt, would you consider us friends?”
All three of them—Wyatt, Carissa, Grayson—stare at me like I’ve grown a second head. I don’t blame them, considering I cut Carissa off mid-sentence to ask a ridiculous question and am still holding my phone to my ear.
Wyatt coughs and picks up his fork, spearing some scrambled eggs. “Friends? Evanson, you’re lucky Itolerateyou.”
About what I expected. I look at Grayson. “You?”
He lifts an eyebrow. “I don’t know, Cole. You’ve been a decent captain this week, but that doesn’t mean I’m keen to go to the farmer’s market with you or anything.”
“Everything okay, Cole?” Carissa asks.
Gator is chowing down on a breakfast burrito one table over, and I point a finger at him. “Hey, Finau, are we friends?”
He chuckles and shakes his head.
I could keep going, but now the rest of the team is looking at me like I’ve gone crazy, so I can probably guess at their answers. Turning my attention back to my phone, I shake my head as if Freya can see me. “It was never going to happen, and you know it, Peach.”
“Perhaps you are right.”
“Why are you so determined that I go to the wedding of my ex and my best friend?”
A couple of the guys wince and offer sympathetic sounds of pain, but they turn their focus to their plates when I glare at them.
“Because you either needed closure, Coleman, or you needed to make friends,” Freya says. “I thought it would be enough of a motivator to get one or the other. You are going to that wedding.”
“I’m not going.”
“If you do not go to the reception at the very least, then I will not allow you entrance to my coronation in the fall.” She hangs up with a finality that leaves my ears ringing.She wouldn’t… Except, Freya never makes empty threats and absolutely would put me on a blacklist, and if I had to miss the most important day of her life…
I curse under my breath, setting my phone onto the table with a slow exhale as a sharp pain enters my ribs. If Freya is willing to go to such extremes, she must believe this wedding is going to do something for me. There is no world in which I would miss Freya’s coronation, but Sage’s wedding? Even the reception sounds like torture.
“I don’t know what to do,” I whisper to myself because that truth is too heavy to keep inside. Ihatefeeling helpless, but there is no choice here where I can win. I look up, meeting Carissa’s gaze, and she gives me a sympathetic smile. There’s only so much context she could have gotten from my end of the conversation, but she seems to understand my predicament. “Freya just gave me an ultimatum, and…”
Carissa tilts her head to one side, glancing at Wyatt and Grayson next to her, who both quickly look at their phones and pretend they’re not intently listening. “Would going to the wedding really be all that bad?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Because it’s Sage.I may not say that out loud, but Carissa has to understand, right? She’s been at the forefront of all my issues the last few weeks. “It feels like a backwards step,” I admit. “And no good can come from going.”
“What about your old teammates? Wouldn’t it be nice to see some of them again?”
