SWNOVELS Cross-Checked Hearts: Chapter 16
It’s been two weeks since I found myself in Isla’s bed. Two weeks since we’ve had a real conversation. And if I’m being honest, living in the same apartment as her is beginning to drive me mad. There’s only so many nights in a week for me to go out with the guys and forget about her, but I can’t let myself lose focus on what I’m really doing here.
She’s become such a distraction, even though she’s turned into a mute around me.
I don’t even know how to approach the conversation with her. Do I start with an apology? I know what Isla really wants from me and I can’t give her that. I’m not ready to ruin my friendship with my best friend, even if that means I can’t have her.
All of this is completely fucked and it’s fucking with my head every single day.
Isla has been distant and more withdrawn. She talks to her brother, but as soon as I walk into the room, she suddenly has something she has to go do, almost like she can’t stand being around me. I don’t blame her, because I feel the same damn way.
It’s a complete contradiction. I want to be around her, to spend time with her, but knowing I can’t have every part of her only makes it worse. It makes me want as much distance between us as possible. And every time I catch sight of her at school and I see her with that douchebag friend of hers, I want to put my fist directly through his face.
My jealousy is unwarranted because she isn’t mine to be protective of. But if she can’t be mine, she can’t be anyone else’s.
As I get off the ice and head back to the locker room, the thought of Isla and Silas plays through my head. I stood in the corridor of the building today, watching him as he opened the passenger-side door for her and helped her into his massive Jeep. Just thinking about his hands on her has me seeing red. Blood red.
I drop down onto one of the benches and set my stick down beside me before unlacing my skates. Cam comes strolling in and sits down next to me, facing the other direction as he sets down his gloves and helmet. “You good, Knight?” he asks me, glancing at me from the corner of his eye.
After sliding my feet out of my skates, I take off my helmet and set it down on the bench. “I’ve just had a lot on my mind lately.”
“Who is she?” Cam questions me as he puts the skate guards on the blades of his skates. I whip my head to the side, narrowing my eyes at him as he raises his eyebrows. “Come on, man. You can tell me.”
I swallow hard over the lump lodged in my throat. There’s no way in hell I can tell him. Shit, I can’t tell anyone about this. August walks over to us, pulling the tape off of the blade of his stick as he drops down onto the bench across from us.
“There is no girl, Cam,” August tells him as he begins to wrap fresh tape around the end of his stick. “Trust me, I live with him. I would know if there was a girl causing problems.”
“Yeah, there’s no girl.”
Cam narrows his eyes, his lips pursed as he shakes his head. “I don’t know. There’s definitely something going on with you and my best guess is it has to do with a chick.”
August raises an eyebrow at me. “You know, now that Cam says it, you have been kind of weird lately. You got a girl that you’re hiding from all of us?”
What the fuck.
My breath catches in my throat and I quickly force a laugh as I rise to my feet and grab my shit. “Seriously, there’s no girl. I’ve just been worried about my grades lately.” It’s a lie, but neither of them need to know that. I just need the two of them to shut up.
I go to grab my stick and just as I’m about to carry it to my locker, August grabs the other end of it. Dread fills the pit of my stomach as my gaze meets his. We’re both holding opposite ends of the hockey stick and I’m paralyzed by fear that he’s not going to let the topic of a girl go.
“Dude, let go,” he says, his eyebrows drawing close together. “I thought you wanted me to re-tape your stick for you?”
Letting out the breath I didn’t realize I was holding, relief floods me. “Shit, I forgot,” I admit, shaking my head as I let go of the stick and he takes it from me. I glance at Cam as he walks away from us, heading back to his locker.
August narrows his eyes at me. “I know your grades are fine. What’s really going on?”
Shifting my weight nervously, I say the first thing that comes to my head that isn’t Isla. “My mom said that Elias reached out to her, asking for my number.”
“Elias? Like… your dad?”
I haven’t told anyone. Hell, I haven’t even really talked to my mom about it. She mentioned it to me in private after dinner and told me to think about it and let her know. I haven’t thought about it until this moment because I had to detach myself from it completely. He left when I was six fucking months old. Why the hell was he reaching out now?
“Yeah, him.”
“Shit,” August sighs, his eyes filling with sympathy. “I’m sorry, bro. I had no idea. Are you going to talk to him?”
I shrug. “I don’t know yet.” It’s not a lie, because I really don’t know. He’s a stranger in my eyes, so what could he possibly want from me? I hope it’s not a father-son relationship, because that ship sailed decades ago when he left without a single phone call or letter.
August frowns as he begins to wrap the tape around the blade of my stick. “Let’s go grab a beer or something after we’re done here. We can talk about it then, if you want to, or else we can just get shit-faced instead.”
Smiling at him, I take my stick and nod. “Sounds like a plan to me.”
I swear, August is on some type of self-sabotaging path, because we end up at the sports bar where Poppy works at. She sees us as we come in and quickly moves to the other side of the bar as the other bartender helps us out. August opens a tab and orders us both a beer. His eyes are on Poppy but she doesn’t bother turning around to look at him.
“Did you know she was going to be working?” I ask him as Amanda, the other bartender, sets our glasses in front of us. “I thought you were trying to avoid any type of attachments.”
August shrugs as he takes a gulp of the hoppy liquid. “I don’t know her schedule, but I was hoping she would be here. Just because I don’t want anything with her doesn’t mean I don’t like to check in on her from time to time.”
“You know you sound a lot like a stalker, right?”
August cuts his eyes to me. “If I’m doing it in the open, does that really make me a stalker? I’m not, like, following her around and shit. I just like to drop in for a beer every now and then.”
Rolling my eyes, I shake my head as I grab the menu in front of us. “Have you tried to talk to her? I feel like that crosses some kind of boundary.”
“Nah, I’m pretty positive that she wants nothing to do with me. I mean, I did tell her upfront that it was just going to be a no-strings-attached kind of thing and she was down for it.” August pauses for a moment, wrapping his hands around his glass as he wipes away the condensation. “I don’t know, man. If she tells me to stop coming here, though, I’ll respect her wishes and stop showing up.”
Our bartender walks back over to us, taking our order as we each opt for some wings. August downs the rest of his glass and she takes it to refill it as I continue to sip on mine. August seems like he’s the one who wants to come here to drown his sorrows instead of me.
“You wanna talk about the shit with your dad?” he asks, and I silently thank him for not prying into it any more. This is how our friendship has always been and I honestly love him for it. August is more of an open book. He’ll share things without you having to dig deep for answers. Me, on the other hand, I keep my cards close and don’t say much unless I really want to.
And right now, I don’t want to talk about any of that. “Nah,” I tell him, shaking my head. “I need more time to process it myself I think before I’m ready to talk about it.”
August nods, picking up his fresh beer as he takes a sip of it. “I get it, bro. Whenever you’re ready to talk about it, I’m here.”
“Thanks, August,” I tell him, clasping his shoulder with my hand as I give it a squeeze. “You’re the best friend I could ever ask for.”
“And don’t you ever forget that shit,” he says, laughing as he lifts up his glass to cheers with me. I tap mine against his, the glass clinking, before we both swallow some of the liquid. I drain the rest of my glass and set it down for our bartender to refill it.
We fall into a comfortable conversation as we get our wings and another beer. We mostly talk shop, talking shit about hockey and the gossip from the guys. Believe it or not, guys gossip, too, and August has all of the tea on our teammates.
As we’re eating, I see Silas take a seat on the other side of the bar. He doesn’t notice us and even if he did, we’re not friends with him so there would be no reason to interact. Seeing him makes me think of her and the thoughts begin to spiral. She left with him after school, was she with him until he came here?
“Okay, who pissed in your beer?” August questions me, his eyes following my gaze across the bar. “Isn’t that Isla’s friend?”
I nod, dropping the bones of my wing onto my plate. “What do you think of him? She’s been spending a lot of time with him.”
“I don’t know. I don’t really know the guy.” August turns to look at me, raising an eyebrow. “Why are you so worried about who she’s hanging out with?”
I swallow hard over the knives in my throat and grab my beer to wash it down. Don’t fuck this up now, Logan. Act cool.
Shrugging, I set my beer down, plastering an impassive look on my face. “I’m not. He just seems like a douche and I don’t want to see her get hurt by him or something.”
“Mhm,” he murmurs, his eyes still assessing me as if he doesn’t believe a single word that comes out of my mouth right now. “Well, you don’t need to worry about her. I’ll make sure she’s good. And if he does anything, I’ll fucking break his hands.”
“Yeah, of course,” I say, nodding as I fill my mouth with more beer. August’s eyes linger on the side of my face for a moment and I can’t help but feel like I’ve already given too much away. I don’t like the way he’s looking at me, like he knows my secret or something.
The thing is… he has no fucking clue.