Awk-Weird (Ice Knights, #2)(64)

“Temporary,” he finished for her, the single word like razor blades on his tongue.

Silence as solid and subtle as concrete landed between them. God, it hurt. It fucking wrecked him, scraping him raw. This was what happened with change? With leaving behind his usual process? Well, fuck that. He didn’t need it, not any of it. He’d be better on his own at home and making the same plays on the ice as he always had. It’s what he knew.

“You should get off your feet,” Tess said, breaking the unnatural quiet. “Do you need water? Aspirin? What can I do to help?”

A day ago, that list would have been miles long and all consisted of the same damn thing: stay. Now? There wasn’t a damn thing she could do for him besides wreck the sense of settled certainty he’d built his life around.

“I don’t suppose you can magically make it so that I’m back on the first line and get Coach to can his ridiculous idea that I need to learn how to play differently?” he asked, not even bothering to try to keep the skate-sharp edge out of his tone.

Tess took a step forward, arms outstretched toward him, before seeming to realize what she was doing, coming to a halt, and lowering her arms awkwardly. “I’m sure he’s only trying to make you a better player. I know it’s hard, but—”

“You know?” He let out a bark of a laugh filled with the icy anger surging through him. “How in the hell would you know that when all you fucking do is run away? That is what you’re doing right now, isn’t it? Running?”

Her cheeks flushed. “You’re full of shit.”

“If believing that helps you sleep at night, then who am I to dissuade you?”

“That’s rich coming from a man who can’t accept that things move on, that change is inevitable.”

“I’m not an idiot,” he snarled. “I know that. I also know that when things are working, you don’t fuck with them. My routines work. They’ve gotten me this far.”

“Where’s that?” she shot back, stalking forward, her moves jerky and stiff with fury. “On the second line with a coach breathing down your neck that you need to improve your game and still in love with the same on-again, off-again girlfriend who you’ve been dating since the dawn of time?”

It was a good shot—fuck that, it was a great shot, one that slid right between the pipes so fast and hard that he’d barely had time to see it coming before the red goal light was flashing. “You don’t know a damn thing about what you’re saying.”

“It’s a good thing I’m out of here, then, as soon as I find Kahn,” Tess said.

Her words were final but there was a shake to them, a tremble that sliced through all the anger to the vulnerable center of him. But he didn’t call out to her when she whirled around and marched through the house, but she didn’t find the kitten. No matter how much she called or where she looked as Cole sat on the couch and watched, Satan’s little fur ball never showed his fuzzy butt.

Standing in the doorway between the living room and the hall, a duffel bag slung over one shoulder and a suitcase at her feet, she looked at him and sighed. “I can stay tonight so you’re not alone, make sure you’re okay.”

“I’ll be fine.” Something in the sympathetic look in her eyes now that all her anger seemed to have burned away made his gut twist, and he lashed out. “All I really need in my life is to go back to what it was. Anyway, Marti is coming back in a few minutes.” The lie came out smooth and easy. “She just needed to grab a few things from her house before she could spend the night. What’s between her and me? It’s anything but temporary.”

Tess flinched, his shot landing with a force he immediately regretted. Fuck, he was an asshole. He shouldn’t have said it, but he was still flush with an angry heat, his head pounding and his chest aching. He was in fucking agony and he wasn’t going to be the only one in it.

Pursing her lips together, she closed her eyes for a beat before opening them and staring at him with a cool neutrality. “When Kahn comes out of whatever hiding spot he’s in, please let me know and I’ll come get him.”

He nodded, not trusting himself to say anything at this point because if he opened his mouth, all that would come out would be him begging her to stay, and he’d be damned if he did that. She wanted to go? Good.

Tess nodded, more to herself than to him. “I’ll text you about the next doctor’s appointment if you want to go.” She looked around, her bottom lip quivering. “Until then.”

Then she walked out of his living room, his house, and his life. And he let her go because it was past time he got back to his usual routine, the way he’d always planned for his life to work out.

And finally everything was perfect, so fucking perfect that he was grinding his teeth to powder as her taillights disappeared into the night.





Chapter Nineteen


That damn kitten was somewhere in his house. The clues were all there the next morning. The shredded paper towels in the kitchen, the scattered Xbox games on the coffee table, and the sad little mewling from the end of the hallway where the evil fur ball sat in front of Tess’s bedroom door and glared at Cole as if all of this was his fault.

“I didn’t tell her to go. She didn’t want to be here,” he said, keeping his words soft and steady as he inched toward Kahn. “Now, stay right there and I’ll take you to her.”