Page 68 of Lucky Laces
I don’t like that.Not at fucking all.
“What’s wrong?”
She shakes herself.I watch her literally shake off whatever had stopped her from immediately reaching for her phone.Then she flashes a smile at me, snags her cell off the table, tossing a blatant lie across the cushions of the couch when she says, “Nothing’s wrong,” as she looks at the screen.
And hits the button on the side to silence the call.
“Nothing’s wrong,” I reply dryly.“Except that you’re screening your calls?”
A flippant toss of her hair.“Don’t we all do that?The robo-calling has been out of control lately.”
She’s not wrong.
But a robo-call doesn’t explain the expression—worry mixed with annoyance—that came on her face before the aforementioned screening.
So, I push it.“Want to give me the truth, DeeDee?”
“No,” she mutters.“I want to enjoy my belly full of delicious Mexican food then watch the last period of the Breakers game before I go home and pass out, because we’ve had a reprieve for a few days but the Gold are letting us use their practice facility starting tomorrow and that means I have work to do—it means weallhave work to do,” she adds pointedly, eyes flicking to the tablet and stack of papers on the table.
“You’re right,” I say and watch relief seep into her frame, her shoulders relaxing, her expression smoothing out.“You’re also full of shit.”
That relief disappears in a flash, her jaw tightening, her eyes flashing with annoyance.
“If you want to talk about being full of shit,” she says.“Why is it that you’ve clearly been studying the drills”—another nod at the well-worn papers, the tablet next to them—“and yet when you get out on the ice, it’s like you’ve never been on a rink before?”
I grind my teeth together and look away.
“Exactly,” she murmurs.
“I’m going to get it down,” I mutter.“I just?—”
Fuck.
“You just what?”
“I’m going to get another beer.”I push up from the couch.
And manage to stay on my feet for all of two seconds before she’s grabbing my arm and hauling me back down.“If you really want another beer,” she says, “I’ll get it.But considering that yours is still full and you’re using grabbing another one as a diversion tactic then I think you can just sit there, drink it, and tell me what’s really going on.”
“Nothing—”
“Not nothing.”
Okay seriously.
How had I lost control of this conversation so fucking quickly?
One second, I’m trying to sort out why she’s acting so cagey.
The next, she wants me to spill my guts about something I have absolutely no intention of sharing.
Something I make clear by clenching my jaw and looking away from those gorgeous green eyes of hers.
The silence stretches between us—long and taut and intense.
Then she sighs, shakes her head…and reaches for the tablet.“All right,” she says.“Then let’s go over this together.”I stiffen, start to get up, but I barely move an inch before she’s leaning against my side, her hand with the tablet moving in front of me, her arm pressing into my abdomen.
Keeping me in place.
