“How’d the series go?” she asked, as if she didn’t already know. Ma followed all my games, cheering me on from the sidelines. She always had.
“Awful,” I admitted, flopping backward onto my bed.
“Game two looked rough.”
“You watched it?”
Shit. That meant she’d seen what my teammates had done. Or rather, what they hadn’t done—abandoning me for the Hawks to beat the shit out of me.
“How’re you feeling?” Ma’s question was deeper than my physical injuries.
My gusty sigh drew a laugh out of her.
“That bad?”
“I fucked up,” I said.
“Language, Tristan!”
“Ma,” I whined, then blushed when she didn’t say anything. “Sorry.”
“What happened?”
“A girl—” How could I explain this to her?
My mom laughed before I could find the words. “Is thisthat girl you’ve been avoiding talking to me about all semester?”
Ugh. Moms. Why did she have to be so damn astute?
“She—” I took a deep breath. “She did something shitty, and then I did something shitty, and then she did something shittier, and then I did something shittier, and now, everyone hates me.”
“Wow, kiddo, that’s quite a complaint.”
“Ma!” The last thing I needed was for her to give me a hard time about this, but dammit, I was smiling despite myself.
“That doesn’t sound like a healthy relationship.”
Her words drew me up short. It wasn’t. It wasn’t healthy at all. When Eva had been in trouble, instead of asking how I could help, I’d doubled down on being an asshole. Now, her life was in danger, and so was her father’s.
Fuck.
When I didn’t say anything, Ma prompted, “You seemed like you really liked her.”
“I do. I did,” I corrected.
“You do,” she corrected me right back. “And it seemed like she might like you too?”
“I thought she did,” I muttered. “But?—”
“But?”
“But she obviously didn’t trust me enough to tell me the truth.”
“Was she cheating on you?”
“No.”
“Was she lying to you?” Did it matter that she was selling secrets to Jed Carter instead of the bratva when her father’s life was on the line? And hers?
