Page 48 of The Worst Kind of Promise
“Nope,” I say, staring ahead into space just so I don’t have to meet his concern-ridden gaze. I’d rather drop a dumbbell on my foot than have this conversation. I’m familiar with how scolding works. Yell, cower, yell again, promise to be better. It’s a cycle that’ll probably follow my troublesome ass for the rest of my life.
Bristol ignores me. “Why did you do it, Kit?” he asks.
A simple question. A simple question with a simple answer. But none of it really is simple, is it?
I pause, trying to gather my thoughts and spew out something believable, but all my heart keeps screaming is “Because I love her!”
Oh, fuck. The L-word? Am I serious? I mean, I’ve known her for four years. Whenever I think about her, I see my future. It’s all there—in the heart line of her palms, the crinkles below her eyes, the curve of her contagious smile, the soft spots on her body that I’ve tenderized with bruising touches. I can’t imagine my life without her in it.
But I don’t say any of that.
“Because KJ was being a stupid twat.”
Bristol chuckles, his lips cocked into an amused smile. “Because you care about her,” he corrects.
I freeze in my disgusting pool of sweat. I freeze as an avalanche of panic heads straight for me, snowballing down a steep incline, set off by the jarring possibility that Bristol may have just dissembled my entire world.
“What?” I sputter.
“We all care about her.” He places his hand on my shoulder supportively, and my muscles slacken just a little.
Right. Of course that’s where he was going with it.
I finally get up to stretch, blanketing the back of my neck with my towel as my hands grasp the ends. I’m gonna be sore as hell tomorrow.
“Uh, yeah,” I offer lamely.
“I mean, did he deserve it? Yeah. Could you have confronted him in a nonviolent way? Probably.”
“He’s lucky all I broke was his nose,” I growl, anger streamlining through my bloodstream, all the way to the hub of my body, where my heart beats out a staccato rhythm.
Bristol holds his hands up in surrender. “Hey, I’m not blaming you. If I wasn’t a pacifist, I probably would’ve thrown a few punches myself.”
I’m not going to hold some grudge against KJ. We’re teammates, after all. He learned his lesson, and if he has any intelligence in that pea-sized brain of his, he’ll never make that mistake again. My self-control usually isn’t this volatile. I keep my fights strictly on the ice. But when people mess with those Icareabout, I’ll stop at nothing until they fucking pay for it.
My teeth cage my lower lip. “Faye’s not talking to me, and I don’t know what to do.”
“Because you gave KJ a taste of his own medicine?”
“Because I said some shit to her that I shouldn’t have.”
Admitting that out loud pains me in a way I never thought was imaginable. Instead of the truth bouncing off me like a bullet ricocheting off a bulletproof vest, it fully punctures my chest, exploding my ribs open in a slow-motion, car-crash-dummy kind of way.
I told her it was all a mistake. Thatshewas a mistake. Why did I have to be so harsh? I know why. I know why, and I don’t have the right to be asking that question. Because if I didn’t make sure things between us were completely finished, it would’ve made it that much easier for me to crawl back to her.
Bristol tosses back the rest of his drink and swallows. “Did you mean any of it?”
“No, of course not. I was just so worked up with everything going on.”
“Then she’ll forgive you. Probably with time, but she will.”
“I don’t know, Cap,” I sigh, combing my fingers through the front of my wet hair.
I can feel Bristol’s stare burn a hole through the towel on my neck, and I reach down to swoop up my water bottle, squirting a decent stream into my mouth.
“You need to prove it to her,” Bristol tells me.
My cheeks grow impossibly warm, flushed with a feverish haze. It doesn’t help that the sun is somehow defying all laws of gravity and only aiming for my retinas—no other spot in the gym. “You want me to prove what to her, exactly?”
