Page 153 of Revenge Puck

There’s an awkward hesitation that follows.

“I, uh, wanted to see if you were hungry for lunch? We can do the cafeteria—nothing fancy.” He shifts his weight. “I feel kind of bad about the other morning.”

Kindof bad?

Ha.

Typical.

Then again, it’s kind of normal for me to judge his verbiage, as his sister. I’ve been doing it since we were kids.

I let him squirm.

Close my laptop and remove my wallet from a drawer. “But ‘kind of bad’ feels like the soft launch to an apology.”

He exhales sharply through his nose. “Fine. I was out of line.”

Ahh, progress.

I stand, smoothing down the front of my blouse, grabbing my phone and badge. “Okay. I can eat.”

His shoulders visibly relax. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

We fall into step, walking side-by-side to the stairwell. Declan takes the stairs two at a time, waiting for me at the top of each landing.

“What a gentleman,” I tell him sarcastically, nudging him aside so he has to follow me into the lunchroom. Ice Wolves staff sit at tables, some of them alone, others in small groups.

A manager or two.

No players.

No top executives.

I grab a tray, load it with soup, a dinner roll, and salad, and walk toward the far end of the room where we’ll have the most amount of privacy for whatever it is Declan wants to say.

He mirrors me—protein-heavy plate, extra fork like he’s about to duel someone with it.

We sit.

There’s a beat of silence while we both unwrap napkins and fiddle with our trays.

Declan exhales first.

“Look,” he starts, eyes on his plate instead of me. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”

I wait.

“My tone was out of line.”

Duh.

“I appreciate that,” I say carefully, choosing my words. “But you weren’t out of line—you seemed angry.”

He shrugs. “None of this is about you.”

“You keep saying that.”Yet here we are.