Jordan was missing so much being oversees.
And my sister was missing the experience of having her husband right there for everything.
Having me wasn’t the same… She missed her other half and I missed him for her.
Or maybe I missed mine.
Or what could be mine…for now.
Mayhem and I skipped friendship and tipped right over into acting on our feelings. And we’d barely had time to do that before we ventured into coach and player only to have me fuck it all up only an hour into that.
Now I didn’t know what we were. Or even what we could be.
Because in the end, I still planned to walk away.
If Lana went through with it, told the truth—the whole truth—I wouldn’t necessarily be so welcome on the police force.
I knew what she’d done and said nothing despite my obligation to uphold the law, something that still didn’t sit well with me all these years later, but she was a dumb kid who’d done dumb kid shit. Something that cost her huge. Reporting it seemed like acid in the wound.
They couldn’t do anything to her any worse than she’d done to herself.
“Hey.”
I glanced up to find Mayhem leaning against her car, dragging the toe of her shoe on the damp asphalt, her eyes anywhere but on mine.
“Hey.” I stopped before her and slid my hands in my pockets so I wouldn’t reach for her.
“I tried to leave. I even made it out of the parking lot, but I couldn’t go without seeing if Lilith was okay.”
“She’s okay. UTI. She’s staying overnight.”
“The baby?”
“He’s good.”
“I threatened to put a woman in a hospital bed tonight,” she mumbled, her brows knitting together.
I chuckled and kicked the toe of her boot. “You did.”
She glanced toward the glass doors to the ER. “I’ve never done that. I don’t—why did I do that?”
“You’re angry.”
We both were. Angry, stuck, and scared.
“But I didn’t even know that woman. I just—I could see Lana jerking in that chair like she wanted to stand up and be seen and I just—her mother didn’t even see her.” She ground her fingertips into her temples and shook her head. “God, I never want to see that again.”
“You’re a protector,” I said quietly, knowing I was about to make one more assessment she wouldn’t appreciate tonight, but also knowing if something didn’t give, we’d stay here. Stuck right here, just spinning.
“I guess,” she said with a shrug.
“At least when it comes to everyone but yourself.”
She stilled, her lips twisting with scorn as she glared up at me. “How are you any different with how you just stood there and let her treat you that way?”
“Lana’s mother can’t hurt me. She can rage, she can make me uncomfortable, but she can’t take anything from me.”
She pushed away from the side of her car and shook her head with her keys clenched tight in her fist. “If she’s part of the reason you don’t stay…she already has.”
20
“Hustle up, you’ve got hot dates hugging the kick rails today for warm-up!” Priest called out as he tossed pads over the rails into the infield.
He had a spark of energy today I hadn’t seen in him since Lilith spent the night at the hospital. Until spotting him just ten minutes before with more color in his face and those lines bracketing his mouth when he was tense all but gone, I hadn’t realized how much I counted on his mood to set the tone for us.
He’d become a part of us in the few weeks we’d been training. It made me wonder about after. What it would be like to return to the flat track without him.
Maybe as a WRDF team, maybe not. It would be months until we’d hear for sure.
“Sometimes he’s just way too excited about torturing us,” Tilly muttered.
It’s the first thing she’d said to me, really said to me since joining the team. Thirsty didn’t count. I mean, you gave someone water when you cared about them and wanted them to be okay, but you also gave them water when you didn’t want them to die on your watch lest you be accused of their death.
I spun around to look before I actually believed full on that she had directed her comment at me, but everyone had spread out on other benches to gear up, Carmen, Rory, Eve, and Sean stretched on the concrete in the corner.
Marty, the showoff, was already on the bank doing warm-up laps. Must be nice to work at a desk so you could be nice and fresh for practice.
Actually, I’d probably lose my mind behind a desk, so maybe cell deep exhaustion wasn’t so bad.
“Right,” I said quietly, unsure of this treacherous new territory.
Was it fur-lined or wrapped with razor wire?
Were we supposed to become friends now? Again?
How the hell was I supposed to forget all the nasty things she’d said over the years to poke me, prod me, the way she used my mother to torture me?
But how was I supposed to move on if nothing changed?
Here I was, twenty-four and still living in the past. Worse than that, I was trapped in the ninth grade. Who the fuck wanted that bullshit?
“Shit,” Tilly whispered as she dug through her bag furiously.
I didn’t glance over this time and instead kept my focus on padding up. “What’s wrong?”
“One of my wristguards is missing. I have a new puppy and he’s constantly stealing my shit. He’s got a fetish for anything with my dried sweat.”
“Boys are gross.” God, that sounded lame. “You’ve, uh, you’ve always wanted a dog. I think—well, thought. Anyway,” I said with a jerky nod. “Koda, right?”
Christ, this was as stop and go as an old man with a prostate problem trying to take a leak.
“Yeah. And now Koda has one of my wristguards. The furry little freak.”
“I’ve got an extra pair.” I tossed them on the bench next to her and finished strapping on my knee pads.
She half turned. “Thanks.”
“No problem.”
We didn’t look
