Page 18 of Lovesick
My dad claps Crew on the back, jolting his whole body forward and nearly making him choke on his soggy spinach.
“You should see him on the ice. One of the fastest skaters I’ve ever coached.”
He’s also a liar who lures women into his bed under false pretenses.
An uncharacteristic blush stains Crew’s cheeks, and I’m surprised that he isn’t used to having the ground he walks on worshipped by everyone around him. He tosses me a sideways glance that screamsHelp me, but I just give him a noncommittal shrug. Once my father gets started on hockey, he never stops. It’s been the main topic of family dinners for years now.
“I can’t wait to see the upcoming game,” my mom says, a saccharine smile affixed to her cherry-red lips.
“You’re coming too, right, pumpkin?” my father asks.
Oh my God. Pumpkin?! In front of a guest?! I want a sinkhole to open underneath me and swallow me whole.
Crew snorts, but he quickly covers it up with a convenient throat clear. “Yeah, you should come,” he tacks on nonchalantly, maintaining a disturbing amount of eye contact with me, as if he’s waiting for me to break first.
God, I forgot how blue his eyes were. Like crystalline waters lapping at the tideline, eroding sand with a mouth made of spume. I get this strange urge to drown myself in them—similar to the way lemmings commit suicide by jumping off cliffs. An inexplicable gravitational pull.
The nerve he has to speak to me.
I contemplate my answer for a second, but then I get abrilliantidea. “Sure, I’d love tocome,” I acquiesce, making sure to emphasize the innuendo as I stare at Crew, slipping the tines of my fork between my lips seductively.
Judging by the way he bristles, I know I just implanted that dick-wetting memory of me riding his face in that sexually deviant head of his.
And I’m a sick fuck for loving this flustered side of him.
He chokes on something, frantically reaching for the glass of water in front of him before draining it completely. Everyone just stares in awkward silence while the excessive sound of gulping permeates the dining room.
Yes. Choke, motherfucker.
My poor mother’s face pales. “Are you alright, sweetie?”
Crew waves her off with a grimace. “Went down the wrong pipe,” he wheezes.
“Say, speaking of the game, I was meaning to discuss it with you, Crew,” my dad interjects, carrying on as if the tension between us isn’t so palpable that you could cut it with a butter knife.
Crew’s near-death pallor mutates into an alarming shade of green, and he drops his utensils to save himself from another food-related failure. He does his best to steady his voice, but I can hear the undercurrent of uncertainty riding each waver. “Yeah?”
“I hope this doesn’t impact your performance, but I wanted to give you a heads-up that an NHL scout will be attending the game this Friday. For you.”
Yikes. I don’t even have to do any heavy lifting to destroy his life. Though Crew does strike me as one of those people who does well under pressure. Kind of like how resilient cockroaches are when you smack them with a shoe.
Instead of straight-up choking this time—and no, I would not perform the Heimlich on him even if a gun was pointed at my head—he just sits there with a glazed look over his eyes, similar to a shell-shocked war veteran in the middle of a flashback. A few seconds pass without a response. I kick him in the shin underneath the table.
He cringes but catches on. “That—that’s amazing. I promise I won’t let it distract me, sir.”
Who’s the terrible liar now?
My father polishes off his plate, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “Oh, and while I’ve got you here, keep the guys on the team away from my daughter, yeah?”
For the first time this entire dinner, I freeze. Not only that, but I feel my heart fall out of my fucking ass. Crew, thankfully, is in the same boat as me, but instead of losing his ability to speak, he resorts to laughing.
My dad doesn’t joke. Rarely does. In fact, not a lot in this world makes him smile aside from his family, a particularly good slap shot, or funny cat videos.
When Crew realizes that my father is, in fact, not joking, his laughter peters off and he schools his expression. “Of course, sir.”
An approving smile hikes up the corners of my father’s mouth. “Atta boy. And if you try anything yourself, I’ll personally make sure you never see the light of day ever again.”
“Dad!” I shriek.
