Page 50 of Triple Play
I turn off the lights and head to my room, passing Grant’s door on the way.
There’s music playing—loud, angry.
He’s pissed.
Good. Let him be pissed. Let him sit in his room and pretend he doesn’t want her. Pretend Sunday dinners don’t matter. Pretend he’s above all of this.
Meanwhile, I’m going to keep showing up. Keep making her laugh. Keep being honest about what I want.
Because life’s too short to play games.
And Elise Hart is worth being real for.
Even if it means pissing off my captain in the process.
CHAPTER NINE
PAYBACK
Grant
I slept like shit.
Three hours. Maybe four. I spent most of the night staring at my ceiling, listening to Elise move around in the room next to mine. Listening to her laugh with Jordie in the kitchen after I stormed out like a coward.
My neck’s fucked. There’s a crick in it that makes turning my head feel like someone’s driving a knife between my vertebrae.
Good.
Physical pain I can handle. It’s clean. Simple. You ice it, stretch it out, push through it.
Not like the other kind. The kind that sits in your chest and makes it hard to breathe. The kind that comes from watching Jordie Dickson announce at the fucking dinner table that he wants to fuck Elise.
Who does that?
Who sits there eating pasta and just says it? Out loud? Like it’s normal? Like she’s not my—
She’s not mine.
That’s the problem.
She’s not mine, and I made damn sure of that two years ago when I kissed her and then ran. When I chose guilt over wantingher. Chose Mason’s memory over the first real thing I’d felt since he died.
Smart choice, Wilder. Real fucking smart.
Now I get to live with her. Watch Jordie flirt with her. Watch Wyatt look at her like she’s water and he’s been dying of thirst.
And I get to pretend I don’t care.
I’m so tired of pretending.
Practice is at six AM, which means I’m on the ice at five-thirty.
The rink is empty. Cold. The fluorescent lights hum overhead, casting everything in harsh white. I love it like this. Just me and the ice and the burn in my muscles.
I skate hard. Push myself until my thighs scream and my lungs feel like they’re shredding.
It doesn’t help.
