“Did Tilly apologize?”
“Shit.” I jammed my hand through my hair and glanced at the clock.
“Like I suspected, you’re the one who fucked up.”
“Son of a bitch.” It was late, but practice had only just broken up. Maybe I could do some damage control.
She laughed up at me, her hand roaming over her belly. “You’re in the doghouse with the new girlfriend.”
“She’s not my girlfriend.” I snatched my jacket off the hook and jammed my arms through the sleeves.
“I saw you guys kissing in the barn.”
My zipper whistled through the air as I yanked it up. “Stop snooping.”
She shrugged, but her eyes danced. “Hey, I was just checking to see if you guys needed anything.”
So glad I could be a source of entertainment for my restless sister. By falling on my face. A lot. “Yeah, we did. Privacy.”
“You needed a hose turned on you. Besides, this property is half mine. It’s not snooping when you’re part owner.”
“That half isn’t yours. I have to go into town. Will you be okay if I’m gone for an hour?”
“I’ll manage. How long do I wait before I call 9-1-1 so they can start looking for your body?”
“Cute.”
“I thought so,” she said with a laugh. “Hey, Cain?” she called.
I stopped one foot out the door. “Yeah.”
“Start with I’m sorry. Now say it with me…IIIIII’mmmmmm sooooooorrrrrry.”
I slammed the door on the sound of her cackling behind me. So glad I could provide her such quality entertainment.
I went back in my head to the moment the team circled me, giving me shit for Tilly’s addition, but it was Mayhem, the look on her face, the way she stood apart that had me hitting the gas, pushing the cushion local cops gave people over the limit.
Stunned.
I told myself she was calm. The anchor for her team, but I’d misread what that meant—how much she could take.
She’d been completely blindsided.
So much so her first instinct wasn’t even anger.
I climbed the stairs to her apartment first and knocked for a good five minutes, talking to the door, convinced she was in there but just ignoring me. I spotted her car in the parking lot so it’s not like she’d gone far, and after what I put them through on the track on top of her day job, she didn’t go for a walk.
Which left Banked Track. And maybe Patti on my side.
I found Mayhem perched on a bar stool with Rory behind the counter, their heads together, their faces serious.
Five or six other patrons lingered through the place as they wound down for the night.
Good, less witnesses.
“We need to talk,” I said, the words coming out harder than I’d intended.
And completely unwelcome by the two fuck-you glances Rory and Mayhem aimed my way.
Mayhem slowly straightened and held up her glass like a toast. “Well, if it isn’t Coach Flaming Asshole,” she said right before knocking back a gulp of her drink. “Have a seat. Rory, I’ll pay you extra to spit in his beer.”
Rory glared and scoffed as she dug her towel into a highball glass she’d just grabbed. “I’d do it for free.”
“I’ll pass on the beer. Thanks.” I might have better luck in a pit of cobras. I propped my foot on the stool next to Mayhem only to have her slice me a cold, hard glance.
“I said have a seat, but I did not say that seat could be next to me.”
“Are you serious?”
She turned her heavy-lidded glare back to her drink. “You have no idea.”
“Fine.” I dragged out the stool one seat down and faced her. “I might have fucked up tonight.”
“Nope. Not close enough,” she said with a snap of her fingers. “You did fuck up tonight. There’s no might have. Might have is what you say when you might have left the toilet seat up or you might have walked through the house with wet boots. There’s no might in inviting the biggest flaming twat in existence onto our team without saying a word about it. You did do that and the least you could do is own it.”
“I fucked up,” I said, waiting for her to turn to me. When she finally did, the betrayal I saw in her eyes took me to another time, another place, another mistake, and made it hard to speak. “I’m sorry.”
She searched my face, silent until her shoulders slumped. “Nope, that’s not satisfying either.” Turning away, she wrapped her fingers around her glass.
“I’ll tell her she’s off the team.”
She froze with her glass halfway to her lips and cut me a glance. “If you do that, I’m going to beat you with my skate, I swear to God.”
“You don’t want me to kick her off the team?”
“I didn’t want her on the team to begin with, but that ship sailed. It’s gone. Now that you put me in this position, you’ve made me more fuel for her fire.” She leaned on the bar and tilted her head. “What do you think happens if Tilly is kicked off because of me? Because you damn well know after watching the shit she pulled in that bout that she will definitely blame it all on me.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“See it now, hotshot? For a cop, you sure are slow.” She slammed her glass down, looked at Rory, and pointed over her shoulder. “Stop worrying about me, I’ve got this. Pay attention to Gerald. He’s serving himself now.”
Rory whipped around. “Shit!”
“You can’t turn your back on him,” Mayhem said, turning away from me again, glancing into the bottom of her glass like the amount of liquid left was an hourglass—the liquor the sand—telling her just how much longer she had to suffer my presence.
“Where’s Patti?” It wasn’t like her to not be here—to let Rory cover her when the woman knew the team had their first practice tonight. She’d want to be here, with all of them, living vicariously through every detail.
“She wasn’t
