Powerless (Chestnut Springs, #3)(2)

And I feel about the same.

Listening to her small-dicked future husband boast to a table full of family and friends I’ve never met about something that is honestly embarrassing—and sad—isn’t how I’d choose to spend a night off.

But I’m here for Sloane, and that’s what I keep telling myself.

Because seeing her right now, all downtrodden mere nights before her wedding . . . it feels like she needs someone here who actually knows her. The rest of the Eaton crew couldn’t make it into the city tonight, but I promised her I’d come.

And for Sloane I keep every promise, no matter how badly they hurt.

I expected her to be smiling. Glowing. I expected to be happy for her—but I’m not.

“You hunt, Jasper?” Sterling asks, all poised and pretentious.

The collar of my checkered dress shirt feels like it’s strangling me, even though I left the top buttons undone. I clear my throat and roll my shoulders back. “I do.”

Sterling picks up the crystal tumbler before him and leans back to assess me with a smug smirk on his perfectly shaved face. “Any big game? You’d enjoy a trip like this.” People who don’t know me nod and murmur their assent.

“I don’t know if—” Sloane starts, but her fiancé steamrolls her attempt at adding to the conversation.

“We all saw what your last contract came in at. Not bad for a goalie. So provided you’ve been responsible with your money, it’s something you should be able to afford.”

Like I said: douchebag.

I bite the inside of my cheek, tempted to say I’ve been horribly irresponsible with my money and don’t have a dollar to my name. But as lowbrow as my upbringing might have been, I have enough class to know that finances aren’t polite dinner conversation.

“Nah, man. I only hunt what I can eat, and I’m unfamiliar with how to cook a lion.”

A few chuckles break out around the table, including from Sloane. I don’t miss the quick moment where Sterling’s eyes narrow, where his teeth clamp and his jaw pops.

Sloane jumps in quickly, patting his arm like he’s a dog who needs soothing. I can almost feel her slender fingers on my own arm and absently find myself wishing it were me she was touching instead. “I used to hunt with my cousins out in Chestnut Springs too, you know?”

I’m tossed back in time, remembering a young Sloane keeping up with the boys all summer. Sloane with dirt under her nails, scrapes on her knees, sun-bleached hair all tangled and free down her back.

“It’s more about the thrill, you know? The power.” Sterling ignores Sloane’s comment entirely.

He looks at me like an opponent, except we aren’t playing hockey right now. If we were, I’d give him a quick blocker shot to the face.

“Did you not hear what Sloane just said?” I’m trying to be cool, but I hate the way he’s treated her through this entire dinner. I don’t know how she ended up here. She’s my best friend. She’s eloquent, and smart, and funny—does he not see that at all? Does he not see her?

Sterling waves a hand and chuckles. “Ah, yes. I’m always hearing about Wishing Well Ranch.” He turns to her with a condescending tone and a mocking smirk. “Well, thank goodness you outgrew whatever tomboy phase you went through, babe. You’d have missed your calling as a ballerina.”

His shitty response is worsened by my realization that he heard what she said and chose to ignore her.

“I can’t even imagine you handling a gun, Sloane!” one guy further down the long table exclaims, his nose a deep red from far too much scotch.

“I was good, actually. I think I only hit something alive once.” She laughs lightly and shakes her head, bright blonde strands of hair slipping down in front of her face before she pushes them back behind her ears and drops her eyes with a faint blush. “And then I cried inconsolably.”

Her lips roll together and I’m entranced. Instantly imagining things I shouldn’t be.

“I remember that day.” I glance across the table at her. “You couldn’t even eat the venison for dinner that night. We all tried to console you—it didn’t work.” My head tips at the vivid walk down memory lane.

“And that right there”—Sterling points at Sloane without even sparing her a glance—“is why women don’t belong out hunting. Too upsetting.”

Sterling’s overgrown frat buddies guffaw at his lame comment, which urges him to go all in on his assholery. He holds his glass up high and looks down at the table. “To keeping women in the kitchen!”

There’s laughter and a smattering of people offering “cheers” and “here, here.”

Sloane dabs the white cloth napkin over her full lips with a prim smile but keeps her eyes fixed on the empty place setting before her. Sterling goes back to gloating with the other guests—ignoring the woman sitting beside him.

Ignoring the piece of herself she tried to share with him. Ignoring the way he embarrassed her.

My patience for this night is quickly dwindling. The urge to slink into the background is overwhelming.

Sloane catches my eye across the table and gives me one of her practiced smiles. I know it’s fake because I’ve seen her real smile.

And this isn’t it.

It’s the same smile she gave me when I told her I couldn’t go to prom with her as her date. Taking a twenty-four-year-old NHL player wasn’t appropriate for either of us, and I was the asshole who had to tell her that.