And maybe this is what Priest was trying to say.
This was getting in my way…and he could see it.
Well, fine. But I still wanted to bite him.
Especially when he was just as guilty. Only he’d attached some sort of just-trying-to-be-honorable-paying-for-my-mistakes badge on his lack of defense, leaving mine looking like fear.
God, that sucked.
I’d rather eat one of Tilly’s sweaty wristguards than choke down that truth. You know, if she could find them.
The time to really let Tilly have it had passed, and I wasn’t even sure I wanted it back. It was like having a knock-down, drag-out fight and thinking of a bunch of points, good one-liners, and quips well after the fact.
When you wanted to recreate the moment so much that you tried to niggle the person into the same fight again so you could give those digs life, even as you knew they’d never land with just the same oomph as if you’d said them from the beginning.
You know, manipulative girl shit.
We all did it.
We were fucking pros at it.
So now I reached that point I had to try not to recreate it, right? I mean, it shouldn’t be so hard since I’d never said a single nasty word about her parents and it’s not like I couldn’t have, but I didn’t.
You’re welcome, Tilly.
This was really a one-sided thing.
Going back to that place meant taking barbs—again—and with everything ahead of me and the way I lashed out the other night at Lana’s mother, I should probably avoid that. I’d just never wanted to hurt her the way she hurt me.
To do so meant turning her back into Tilly the Cyborg again or worse, Tilly the Wench.
So tentative pseudo friendship it was.
Without another word, we skated over to the bank and climbed up to join the rest of the team.
“Today we’re starting with boundaries. The kick rail and handrails on the track in Philly will have a bit more flex than the ones here,” Priest said as he curled his fingers around the padded rail and yanked, resulting in barely any give. “It’s designed to absorb some of the force when you hit. You’ll learn to appreciate that.”
“Bashing into the railing…looking forward to it,” Eve said with a spark in her eye I hadn’t seen in what felt like forever. The anger that gave her a barbed edge since our goodbye seemed to be softening.
I hoped it was…not for me, for her.
“Give and take,” he said, his lips twitching at the corners. “You’ll send others into the railing too.”
She smiled. “That’s the part I’m looking forward to.”
He laughed and started to skate backwards with us following him like a cluster of ducklings as he laid out the plan. “You need to get used to bumping into the kick rail,” he said, kicking it as he said it, “and not letting it slow you down. You’ll feel the drag on the edge of your skate. You’re going to get driven into it a lot. I don’t want it in your head when you do,” he said, his eyes on mine.
Gee, I wonder if he was thinking about me when he said that?
Blink. Blink. Blink.
Subtle, Coach, subtle.
“We’re going to do laps. Keep your skate along the edge at all times. The track is going to pull you down. If you stray, steer back.”
“Don’t make it obvious you’re looking, but girl, his shorts are doing that thing again,” Rory said behind me, followed by a hum of pure female appreciation.
My eyes went right to the front of his shorts and I rolled my lips inward with what I saw.
“There are two ways to fight the pull…” he started.
Could he maybe use different words? Slide, tug—ummm, never mind.
“Keep your right skate along the rail while you pump with your left. Or you can do reverse crossovers with your left foot to keep you propelled at the top of the track. You’ll master both. I want your feet to know exactly what to do by feel. Then we’re moving on to transitions and jumps.”
I sighed and bit my bottom lip, watching the red material move back and forth, back and forth.
“Mayhem!”
I shot up straight, lost my balance, and righted myself. “What? Damn!”
A wry smile curled over his lips. “You’re going to want some of that super cold ice you’re so fond of when we’re done.”
Was he talking about the jumps or the outline of his junk?
“He caught you staring,” Rory said, snorting out a giggle from behind me.
“Shut up.”
“I wonder if he’s a shower and a grower?” she said since she clearly didn’t know what shut up meant.
My skate dragged along the kick rail and I stumbled. “Oh. My. God. Would you stop?” I hissed over my shoulder.
“I think she already knows,” Marty said, squeezing in tight behind Rory.
“We haven’t done anything,” I mumbled.
I wanted to. I really fucking wanted to.
But he had those flaming asshole tendencies that made me want to choke him.
And that damn no kissing rule.
I wasn’t breaking it on principle. He wasn’t breaking it on honor.
One of us needed to end the misery.
I had a feeling if I was the one driven to cross the line first, I was going to suck his face clean off his skull.
And Rory would be asking why I’m not sucking the anaconda in his pants.
Well, I wanted that fucker too.
“Yeah, but you don’t have to do much more than kiss for him to grind that eager son of a bitch against you,” Rory said. “He looks like he’d be a total grinder.”
“We have a no kissing rule.”
“Girl, why?” Marty asked. “Get frustrated and pissed off out here on the track, then work that shit out on his dick off the track. Seems like
