Page 50 of Overtime Positions
Ever since I found my backyard gate swinging open and the spare keys gone, something felt off. Like I’d left the door unlocked to a nightmare, and it was breathing through the cracks in my walls.
I didn’t tell anyone, not even my mom.
The fear and anger my past had caused her last time nearly gave her a heart attack. I couldn’t do it again. If I lost her—because of him—I’d never survive it.
I didn’t tell anyone else either, because I didn’t want to be the girl who jumped at shadows. I didn’t want Eli to worry. And I didn’t want Travis to go full caveman, patrolling my backyard with a sledgehammer like some kind of hot suburban vigilante.
The second they walked in for practice, I knew I wasn’t hiding it well. We were in uncharted territory too, and that didn’t help ease the feeling of being off-kilter either.
It was their first practice since we crossed every invisible boundary and got together. I had already heard whispers about my visit to the job site while I was walking around the grocery store earlier.
Some guy on the site told his wife, and she told a friend, and so on and so forth. It was big news when a new couple got together in Cedar Bluff, but the rumors were saying that it wasn’t just Travis and me together, and that people saw us leaving the rink with Eli the other night too.
I needed to get my head on straight to deal with that mess, on top of the one currently controlling my anxiety meter.
Eli came behind the bar when he got there, grabbing a bottle of water from the team cooler, sliding up behind me and kissing my temple without missing a beat. I could feel the team’s eyes on me as he put our relationship out there in the open. When I turned to him, his eyes locked on mine and narrowed.
“You okay?” He asked.
“Fine.” I lied.
He didn’t push it, but I could feel his penetrating gaze as he stood at the end of the bar, opening his pre-game beer with the others while I stocked the cooler.
Travis—God, he was even worse.
He leaned on the counter, looked me over like I was glass he couldn’t quite see through and asked plainly in front of everyone, “What happened?”
I swallowed, feeling my skin heat and blush at the attention. “Nothing.”
He tilted his head, “Frankie.” It felt like a dare to defy him.
“I said I’m fine.” I snapped, with more vigor than I intended and cringed when I turned my back to ring out a customer.
“You don’t lie worth a shit,” he muttered darkly, and I caught his gaze in the mirror behind the cash register and shivered involuntarily.
I didn’t reply because he was right. I was failing miserably at convincing them and myself that I was fine. The tension followed me around like smoke as they left the bar and got on the ice for their practice.
They were on the rink along the edge of the bar, and I could feel the heavy smoke every time one of them looked over. I could hear it in the short snaps of their conversation during practice. Like they were both holding back and itching to call me on my bullshit.
But I held it together.
Because that was what I did.
It’s what I had always done.
That didn’t mean it didn’t hurt a little when I realized they both left without saying goodbye after practice. I didn’t blame them; I had pushed them away after all.
And even though every part of me wanted to run after them, to say,Please stay, please help me, please see me, I just smiled instead.
When Coach Rick left, I turned the lock on the front door and turned the lights off as I went through the empty building on my way to the ice.
It was late.
The rink was empty.
Everyone was gone.
Or so I thought.
