Page 20 of Break Away
“You look annoyingly alive, Cade.”
His smile softened. “I worked hard for annoying.”
That landed in my chest harder than I wanted it to. “You did.”
Cade’s eyes held mine for a second, and I knew he heard the sincerity beneath the joke. He always had when it mattered.
Briggs leaned over the bar with both hands. “Can we discuss the real issue?”
Bliss sighed. “I’m afraid to ask.”
“Wade is captain now, which means he’s going to become even more responsible and emotionally constipated. We need a prevention plan.”
Rider nodded solemnly. “Too late.”
Ryan looked toward the door. “That ship sailed at birth.”
I reached for a pen. “What does the captain want to drink?”
The question left my mouth before I could stop it, and the little pocket of silence afterward told me everyone noticed.
Charm’s eyes flicked toward mine before Briggs, mercifully or disastrously, filled the gap. “Water, probably. Maybe black coffee. Maybe the blood of anyone who suggests feelings.”
“Charming,” Charm said.
“Wade is many things,” Briggs said. “Charming is situational.”
The door opened one more time.
I felt him before I saw him, which was stupid and unfair and proof the body could become a haunted house when the wrong person knew where all the doors were.
Easton stepped into The Sin Bin wearing a black Fury jacket over a gray shirt, his pale blond hair cropped shorter than last year, his jaw shadowed, and his shoulders broad enough to piss me off on principle. There was no jersey tonight and no stitched letter visible. Nothing announced what had changed except the way the younger players shifted when he entered.
They didn’t quiet so much as orient toward him, as if the room had gained a center of gravity and every man in black and neon knew where it was.
Captain looked good on him, which was deeply unfortunate.
His gaze swept the bar with the detached calm he wore so well now, passing over tables, teammates, exits, Cade, Briggs, and finally me.
Seven months should have been enough time to make his eyes less toxic, but apparently hatred had excellent staying power.
My pulse jumped, and Easton’s face gave me nothing in return. There was no softness or surprise, and even the anger stayed buried beneath the cold, clean detachment he had promised me, sharpened into something that looked better on him than mercy.
Bliss leaned close enough for only me to hear. “Take a breath, Ay.”
“I am breathing.”
“You’re doing it with your murder face.”
“That still counts.”
Before Easton reached the bar, someone slid into the space beside my service station with a smile that said he knewhe was pretty and had been rewarded for it enough times to trust the evidence.
“Clarke,” Gage said.
Gage Maddox was a year younger, tall, Black, annoyingly good-looking, and confident in a way that would have been unbearable if he weren’t funny enough to soften it. His KFU shirt stretched across his chest, and his eyes dipped once to my referee shirt before returning to my face with enough respect to keep his teeth.
“What can I get you, Gage?”
