Page 44 of Powerless
I nod. “I know it.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. We had a dry land training camp there once. Beautiful spot. How far does it say?”
“Thirty minutes. Turn off at Junction 91.”
“Okay. I just need you to keep talking to me.”
She straightens in her seat. “Okay. What do you want to talk about? Should we trash talk your coach for forcing you on leave?”
I grumble out a laugh. “No. I already asked you a question.”
Her head swivels away from me to glance out the window, and she taps one thoughtful finger on the tip of her nose. “I forget what it was.”
My lips flatten, and my palms tighten on the steering wheel. She’s lying, but that’s okay. We both have secrets we keep. “I asked if you were ever going to talk to him.”
“Who?” Wide turquoise eyes turn in my direction, and I give her a droll look.
“You tapping your nose to keep it from growing, Pinocchio?”
“I don’t want to talk about it with you.” I ignore the ache in my chest, realizing how we’ve grown apart this past year with Sterling on the scene. Who pulled away first? When did it happen? Could she tell I was looking at her differently?
“Well, there’s no one else here, and I know the way your head works. You talk things out. And I’m good at listening. So spill.”
Her responding laugh is soft and quiet. I know she must be thinking of the way she’d talkatme as a child while I sat around and brooded.
Hilariously, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
“I don’t know if he deserves my words really,” is how she starts, and I swear it sucks all the air out of the cab. “The more I think about it, the angrier I am—at myself more than anyone. I went along with it and let him talk to me the way he did, belittle me the way he did. And I just never really cared. I was going through the motions, I think. Focusing on the ballet company. Focusing on my parents. Focusing on every one other than me, and now I look at myself and I . . . I don’t like what I see. I don’t like the choices I’ve made. And I think ignoring him—petty as it might be—is a choice I actually like right now. I don’t even know what I have to say to him, you know? I’m clinging to what little sanity I have, and I don’t want to share it with him. He can’t have it.”
I nod and twist my hands on the wheel, resisting the urge to reach out and touch her, to tell her how proud I am of her. To tell her she could be mine instead. Because I told her I’d listen, and she doesn’t need me complicating her already complicated feelings. And she definitely doesn’t need my stamp of approval on them.
That’s not how feelings work—they just are, no matter what anyone else thinks of them.
I’ve been told repeatedly I’m not responsible for what happened on that highway, but it doesn’t change the way I feel.
I feel responsible.
“I feel sick over my dad.” Icy tendrils slide down my spine. As far as I’m concerned, her dad is a colossal piece of shit, but I’m not going to be the one to tell her. I’m not sure she’d ever forgive me if I did. “But I’m so angry at him too. The messages he’s left me . . .” Her top teeth clamp down hard on her pillowy bottom lip like hurting herself will make the pain of her father’s betrayal sting less somehow.
“He’s being a real piece of shit. You know that?” Her voice is harsher now, it clashes with the soft femininity of her. It’s a fascinating dichotomy. “Like I could just . . . I don’t know, throw a tantrum and stomp on his foot or something equally childish. I’m sodisappointed.”
“What did he say to you?” I ask tersely, already wishing I hadn’t, already knowing it will make me hate the man more than I already do. Knowing it will pull the scab off an old wound.
“He included Sterling in the text and told me to do my wifely duty and come home immediately.” She snorts and I silently rage. His face pops up in my mind, and I imagine driving my blocker into it. “I responded with the only thing I’ve said directly to either of them since you broke me out of that church.”
I arch a brow, hoping she’ll share her response.
“I told him I’m no one’s wife and I don’t owe either of them shit.” A strangled laugh bursts from my lips, and she smiles at me, looking mighty satisfied with herself. “They can both mull that over while I continue to ignore them.”
No, Sloane doesn’t need my approval. But goddamn, she has it anyway.
“King-size bed or two twins? Or separate rooms?” The woman behind the counter eyes me in a way I’ve encountered a million times. Like she recognizes me, and . . . like she wants me.
I’m not especially comfortable with either of those looks. It’s why I keep my cap on and try to blend into the scenery, which is hard to accomplish at six-foot- three in a small hotel lobby with no one else around.
Glancing down at Sloane beside me, I fold at the brim of my hat, wondering when it might snap from the repeated pressure.
