Page 59 of Break Away
“Stop humming,” I said.
“I’m not humming. I’m observing with sound.”
Skylar leaned over the back of the couch. “Is she pretty?”
“There’s no girl.”
Briggs looked personally betrayed. “Captain, this is a safe space full of unsafe people.”
Cade’s mouth curved faintly as he continued wrapping tape around his stick for Vivi. “That was almost profound.”
“Thank you. I’ve been growing.”
Vivi’s eyes moved from me to Mom. “Easton’s heart rate changed.”
Conversation dropped out around me.
I stared at her. “You cannot possibly know that.”
“You touched your neck,” she said. “You do that when you’re lying or after phone calls with Mom about money, and both of those raise your heart rate.”
Mom’s head turned slowly toward me.
Skylar whispered, “Snitch.”
Vivi blinked. “It is data.”
I rubbed the back of my neck, then immediately stopped because every asshole in the room saw it and nearly all of them had the decency to pretend they hadn’t.
Briggs did not.
“Data says Captain is cooked.”
“I will make you skate until your soul leaves your body,” I said.
He nodded. “Respectfully received.”
Mom finished taping my hand and smoothed her thumb over the edge of the gauze. “You don’t have to tell me today.”
I glanced at her.
Her eyes were tired. Too tired. The kind that came from years of putting everyone else’s needs ahead of her own and smiling anyway because bitterness required energy she refused to waste.
They were also clear and sharp. She saw all of me, including the parts I hid from my team, my sisters, and myself because naming them made them harder to control.
I looked back into the living room.
Skylar had moved closer to Rider and held his phone while he listened with genuine interest to whatever song she was explaining with ruthless intensity. Briggs had lowered himself to the floor near the coffee table so Vivi could inspect the cartoon skeleton on his goalie mask without him towering over her. Cade sat on the edge of the couch with his stick across his knees, answering each hockey question Vivi asked as if it mattered. Ryan stood behind them with his arms folded, offering occasional dry comments that pulled tiny smiles from Skylar and made Vivi glance toward him like she was filing him under acceptable.
Mom followed my gaze and leaned her shoulder gently against mine. “Whoever she is, she put that look in your eye.”
I swallowed hard. “What look?”
“The one your father had when he was about to do something brave and stupid because his heart got there before his brain.”
My chest tightened at the mention of Dad. It still did. Maybe it always would.
I kept my eyes on my sisters because looking at Mom felt too dangerous. “It’s a story for another day.”
