My lip curved up before I could stop it. “Shut up.”
She laughed with me, not at me, and it felt good. Really good.
“He knows me well enough to understand I don’t get involved withhockey players,so when I tell him about the name mix-up, I’m hoping he’ll think it’s funny.” Her cheeks reddened, and she looked down at the table instead of my face.
Now my own curiosity piqued. “Involved?”
She grinned again, scrunching her nose in the process, but it felt like a knock-off version of the smile I’d seen before. “He doesn’t need to worry about us having a sordid affair or anything.”
It took a few seconds for me to process her words and their meaning. When they clicked, I clenched my fist around my pencil as anger bubbled up. “Do you think he’ll be worried I’m going to hit on your or something? That wouldneverhappen.”
The openness in her clear, sky-blue eyes faded at my words, and she sat up straighter. My heart lodged in my throat at her expression, and for the life of me, I wasn’t sure why I’d said it so aggressively.Probably because I’d thought about putting my mouth on her body.
She spoke again, but her voice lost the softness it had moments ago. “My pointexactly. He has nothing to worry about.” She slid out of the chair and walked to a cabinet, grabbing a box of Pop-Tarts from the top shelf. The movement caused her sweatshirt to ride up, exposing a sliver of her lower back, and I darted my gaze away as heat filled my face.
I told the girl I would never hit on her, yet here I was, getting flustered over her lower back. And notanygirl. My teammate’s sister. A guy who made or broke the chemistry on the team. A leader on the ice. Michael was liked and respected, and everyone would follow his lead. This was not good. Putting my head down, I forced myself to read the same line in the text three times, hoping it would stick.
Her soft footsteps moved toward the living room, and I glanced at her as she bit into the Pop-Tart and walked into her bedroom. I should feel better.
She said her brother might find it funny, yet the unsettled feeling in my chest had me standing up and heading in her direction. The conversation ended without warning, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to be done talking to her. When I got to her door, I spotted her sitting on her bed, her legs crisscrossed. She lifted her gaze from her phone to me.
Surprise registered for a second before she tilted her head. “Yeah?”
“Thank you for telling me about…why you haven’t talked to Michael yet. Thanks for, uh, sharing it with me.”
“Mm hmm.”
She narrowed her eyes, paralyzing me in the doorway. Was she mad? Angry? Upset? I had no idea, and scratching the back of my neck didn’t help me figure it out.
“Look, Ryann,” I said, realizing I hadn’t used her name out loud since the first moment we met. “You don’t have to find a new place. We can figure this out once you tell him.”
She bit the side of her lip, and her jaw tightened. She took a shaky breath and leveled her gaze at me. So much emotion swirled in her eyes that I couldn’t look away if I tried. Then, she nodded. “Good. You’re not the only one searching for something, Jonah. Our goals might be different, but I’m no less motivated than you are.”
“What’s your goal?” I tried thinking about what she shared and couldn’t figure out her endgame. To be independent, sure, but was that it?
“Ah,thatis personal.” Fire flared behind her eyes, and a mixture of respect and curiosity had me taking one step into her room. Her gaze zeroed in on my feet, and I immediately backtracked.
“I’ll call the landlord tomorrow and add your name to the contract so you can sign it. I hope that’ll make you feel more secure.”
“Thank you.” Her tone was clipped, but her entire body sagged with relief.
I was so sick of pity and wanted someone to listen. Maybe it was how small and cute she looked in the stupid sweatshirt, the fact her toenails were a different color than the day before, or even how she didn’t look at me with pity. Maybe one of those reasons was why I opened my mouth and said the words I never spoke aloud to another person since my ex—who told me tocalm down.
“I’m the reason my mom traded our family in for another.”
Her gaze sharpened, and she leaned toward me, the hand holding her Pop-Tart freezing midair. “Why would you think that?”
“She hated hockey.”
“Okay, so?” She rolled her eyes, like I was a child spouting off nonsense. “A motherleavingher family because she dislikes something doesn’t make a lick of sense.”
Her words seemed to pierce the air, a knife stabbing through with her sharpness.
I gulped and found my nerve, the secret desperate to rush out. “She was tired of spending all her time and money for me to chase my dream. The last two years before coming here, she refused to go to games, claiming she needed to be herself again. Something she apparently did with my best friend’s married dad.”
“Jonah,” she said, the edge of her voice dulling as she slid off the bed and stood at the side. “That’s sofuckedup.”
I barked out a laugh, devoid of real amusement, but it felt good to release the pent-up breath. “Yeah, it really is.”
