Page 63 of Dangle

I started to turn, but the sound of the glass and metal door opening again stopped me. This time I wasn’t so lucky. Trey’s voice pierced the air that finally turned from winter to spring.

“Guys! Wait up!”

“Fuck that, Captain. You hurry your nepo ass up. I’m fucking starved,” called a guy in the front group. He’d turned around when he yelled and was now facing Trey. And me.

“That little shit…” I said, taking a step forward.

Toward Trey and the ass munch talking shit. The movement, or maybe it was the guy staring at me like a deer in headlights, but either way, something spurred Trey to look over his shoulder. His gaze landed on me like a dropped Olympic barbell holding max-out weight. Those beautiful, sexy, soulful eyes widened almost comically. I couldn’t help but chuckle. His face, hell, his whole body, was so damn expressive.

But then a soft smile turned up the corners of his mouth, and my heart felt as if he wrenched it from my chest. And the feeling only grew when one of the twins came out of the building behind him, looked my way, and shoved Trey toward the guys ahead of them while the teammate looking back toward us yelled, “Someone scheduled the rink after us, guys; we’ve got to hustle our asses if we want to get a decent skate in.”

Again, I watched him walk away from me. Only this time he looked back. That tiny glance sparked an ember of hope. Stupid? Yes. Of course it was. The boy hadn’t lifted the phone to call or text me even once in two fucking months. It didn’t matter, though, because just the sight of him checking to see if I still stood there watching him was enough.

He disappeared through the arena doors, and I turned for home, weak-kneed and not from the half marathon I ran this morning either. No. The only thing, the only one, responsible for how shaky my legs felt was the six-foot-three, two hundred-pound, twenty-one-year-old hockey player that just walked away from me for a second time.

SEVENTEEN

TREY

May

Sun-warmed brass heated my nervous, cold hand while I sucked in a deep breath. I needed to get over the butterflies in my stomach. I wanted this man. He’d made me a proposition, or maybe not; I don’t know. Maybe it was nothing more than what we had in that Nashville loft, and maybe it ended when we arrived at the airport, and my dad called and then texted repeatedly, pissing me off with every chime of my phone. Or maybe it ended when we parted company once the plane landed. Or when the twins’ issues with me being interested in someone outside our dynamic for more than sex made me question everything until two months passed and I waited yet another week after seeing him by chance outside the dorm.

Fuck, he looked good that day. So good, I missed pass after pass at practice, and I finally,finallytold the twins to stuff it. We were never anything more than friends with benefits, and that’s how it would stay. If it pisses them off, so be it. Because whatever the case may be, I refused to believe or accept that all I got with Slone was one night poorly taking a go at the older man and the brief encounter the next morning.

Slone, he made me…feel. What? I couldn’t say. Not for certain. My head and heart rejected every emotion I landed on. Neither able to agree on what he made me feel. Just that he did.

And I wanted to feel that way again.

Just feel.

Safe.

Comfortable.

Unjudged.

Those were the three emotions I knew for certain came from him.

He put himself between me and my stupidity, giving me a safe place to recover, watching over me, and pulled together a hangover kit so I could recover.

He put me at such ease that I shared shit with him I’d never voiced aloud to anyone.

And he listened to every word I uttered without once making me feel judged.

The wood and glass door loomed over me as my vision refocused on what sat in front of me. Heavy, impassable, a barrier to what and who I wanted. Needed.

Because I needed to feel those three amazing feelings my head and heart seemed begrudgingly to concede Slone made me feel, even if the war between the two around those three emotions was more a truce than an agreement.

“The door doesn’t open itself, kid. You gotta pull on it. Unless you have mind-control superpowers,” a disembodied voice called out between panting short breaths from behind me.

A voice I knew, and yet not the one I wanted to hear.

I sighed, and without loosening my grip, I glanced over my shoulder. Ewen stood several feet away, hands on his hips, dripping sweat, running shoes laced up tight. Slone’s best friend and sometimes fuck buddy just had to be hot, didn’t he?

I had no right to be…whatever this feeling was that permeated my chest. I wanted to call it jealousy, but I had no right. We weren’t together, Slone and I, so that couldn’t…shouldn’t be it.

“I know you’re not locked up because you twisted your head to look at me, but something sure as shit’s wrong with you.”