Page 54 of Triple Play

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Good. Let them be pissed.

I stay on the ice after everyone leaves, skating until my legs are rubber and my lungs are burning and I can’t think about anything except breathing.

But it doesn’t work.

Because Jordie’s words are stuck in my head.You want her. Just admit it.

I do want her.

But wanting her and having her are different things.

Having her means dealing with Teddy. It means explaining why I ghosted her. It means opening up about Mason and the guilt and all the shit I’ve spent two years trying to bury.

It means risking losing someone again.

I can’t do it.

Won’t do it.

So I’ll watch Jordie flirt with her. Watch him make her laugh in ways I can’t anymore. Watch him be everything I’m too fucked up to be.

And I’ll pretend it doesn’t kill me.

I’m good at pretending.

Had two years of practice.

I get back to the townhouse at nine. Elise is in the kitchen making coffee. She’s wearing those sleep shorts again and an oversized Crestmont hoodie.

My hoodie.

The one I thought I’d misplaced.

She stole my hoodie.

Something in my chest clenches.

“Morning,” she says, not looking at me. “Coffee?”

“Yeah.”

She pours me a cup. Black. No sugar. Exactly how I take it.

She knows how I take my coffee.

“Thanks.”

“Sure.”

We stand there, six feet apart, an ocean of unspoken shit between us.

“Jordie told me about practice,” she says finally.

Of course he did.

“It was fine.”

“He said you ran them into the ground. Said two guys puked.”

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