“Just a second,” I tell her and wander to the front door. I swing it open and find my sister standing on my stoop with her coworker, my ex-girlfriend Dawn.
“You forgot?” Stephanie rolls her eyes. “Golf. My work’s charity golf tournament.”
This is going to go badly.
“Elle m’a dit que tu m’as promis,” Stephanie tells me in French so Dawn doesn’t understand.
Fuck me. I promised to attend the firm’s charity golf game as a celebrity guest when I was dating Dawn. I’d completely forgotten about it.
“Et vous ne pouvez pas annuler maintenant parce que notre patron vous attend.”
“Merde.” It’ll look bad for Stephanie if don’t show up.
“Miss me, Sebastian?” Dawn asks, batting her eyelashes expectantly and reaching up to hug me.
“Guys, I kind of have other plans. I just didn’t…”
“I’ll see you later, Frenchie.” Shayne’s voice is airy and calm, which fills my stomach with dread. She’s a blur as she whizzes past me, smiling serenely as she leaves.
“Wait! You don’t have to go!” I say urgently because I want to spend the day with her. I want to spendeveryday with her.
“Seb, this is for charity,” Dawn calls out as if reminding me I’m an asshole. “You promised me. Don’t bail on this promise too.”
What kind of bullshit is she trying to spew? I never promised her anything.
Without looking back, Shay gives a casual wave and keeps walking. “Bye. Have a good one!”
“That washer,wasn’t it?” Stephanie gives me a sympathetic look. “The one?”
“I’ll be back, guys,” I say and dart outside, slamming my heavy oak door behind me.
I jump down the five stairs that lead up to my front door and do a quick sprint to catch Shayne two houses down, about to turn off my street toward a busy main road. She’s only a foot in front of me; her long hair is over one shoulder, shielding her face from my view. She doesn’t stop walking even though I know she knows I’m here.
“Shay.” I step out in front of her and grab her arm just above the wrist. She glances at me and gently tugs her arm free. Her shoulders jut back and her head tips up a little.
“I totally forgot that I promised to play in a charity game at my sister’s law firm,” I mumble guiltily.
“Your sister?” Shayne questions with an arched eyebrow that screams “bullshit.” But before I can swear up and down Stephanie and I share DNA, she shrugs. “No worries. Go. I’ll Uber it.”
Her tone is so distant it disturbs me. It’s like we’re strangers. Like I’m just an arbitrary client at the gym who forgot a training class.
“I’d rather spend the day with you,” I say and place two fingers under her chin to draw her eyes up. “Seriously. I can cancel. My coach wouldn’t want me swinging a golf club with my wrist issues anyway. Not before playoffs.”
“Frenchie, really, it’s fine,” she insists and steps away. “We had random sex. You don’t have to cancel your plans because of it.”
She starts to walk away. And I grab her arm again. “Since we have sex every time we see each other, I don’t think you can call it random anymore. Seriously, Stephanie is my sister. I swear. I know you want this moment to be a shining example of why you can’t date a hockey player but it isn’t.”
“And the other one?”
Fuck.
“She’s Stephanie’s coworker.” That’s not a lie but it’s a half truth and eventually it may bite me in the ass. And I know, I can feel it deep in my chest, that if I’m not brutally honest with this woman I will ruin everything. I run a hand through my hair and sigh. “And my ex-girlfriend.”
She doesn’t storm off at that. She doesn’t blink. She doesn’t frown. She simply says, “Oh.”
She stares at me. I can’t figure out if her silence is good or bad. I just know it’s unnerving so I keep talking. “Everyone has exes. It doesn’t make me a player.”
“I know.” She mumbles but she won’t look me in the eye. I don’t like that. Not one bit. “I have to go.”
