Chapter 13 #2
“Oh.” Anna took a deep breath. “The relationship was simply dysfunctional…my mom was complicated and my dad…”
“Was an asshole?” Lucy suggested crisply. “Really, the things Dax told me… I can see why he’s so glad to cut off contact.” She laughed. “He says he’d rather get a puck smashed between his legs than speak to or see him again.”
Anna lowered her gaze to her gin and stirred it with the straw as guilt gnawed at her.
She hadn’t told Dax that their father had written to her for exactly the reasons Lucy had just mentioned.
It would make him angry that she’d replied.
But, he’d be even more furious to learn that their dad lived near Phoenix and she wasn’t just traveling to the away games to take care of injured hockey players.
She needed closure, though. Her parents were the reason she thought long-term happiness was a fairy tale, and not the watered-down American versions.
No, the original German ones, where heels were chopped off and princes were riddled with thorns.
And lately, she’d grown…sick of short-term happiness because it usually just left her angry, disappointed, or confused.
Time to change the subject.
“Oh, Anna, we’ve gotten off topic. So, who’s your kissing guy?” Lucy wanted to know.
God, no. Not that subject again!
“I’m interested in that too.” Penny rested her elbows on the table and looked at her expectantly.
“It’s nobody. I made the whole thing up,” she replied hastily.
“Great, so that means you can sign up at Match Me!” Maddie suggested enthusiastically. “If you’re still single? I’ll find you the love of your life.”
If Anna were a cartoon, she’d be sweating bullets right now. The love of your life… Who could guarantee love for a lifetime? She had trouble imagining love for a few weeks.
“No thanks,” she said hastily. “I’ve had my fill.”
Maddie grinned broadly. “So, you have a boyfriend?”
“No!”
“An ex-lover?”
“No, no. Not an ex-lover.”
“A current lover then?” Lucy waggled her eyebrows.
“No, no. Not a lover…”
“That sounds like a boyfriend to me,” Penny said, laughing. “A boyfriend no one knows about. How exciting.”
“No, to be expected,” Lucy said, shrugging. “If Jack and Dax were my brothers, I’d keep my boyfriend a secret too. Way too stressful.”
“Hey. Jack’s not that bad,” Penny defended her better half. “He doesn’t mind you using Tinder, for example. He thinks Dax needs to chill.”
“Oh, in principle, he has to,” Lucy agreed, grinning. “But his high energy has its upsides.”
Anna grimaced. “My brother, Lucy! My brother.”
“Well, shut me up and tell us about your mystery man!”
Anna sighed.
She wanted to be honest, simply be honest after all these years of never having any girlfriends to confide in because her parents or her entire living situation had been too embarrassing. And, after all, she didn’t need to mention any names.
“Okay, there’s this man…”
“I knew it!” Lucy thrust her hand in the air triumphantly.
“For more than a few months, right? Because I could have sworn I found some shirt buttons on your couch, and every time you checked your phone, when you were about to kick us out, you had that look on your face…the look that didn’t exactly scream I can’t wait to get back to studying.
Shit. She and Lucas hadn’t been that cautious after all.
Anna was surprised no scouts with marshmallows were gathering around her because her cheeks were a campfire. “Yeah, okay. I’ve been seeing him for a while,” she capitulated.
“Goodness.” Penny nodded, impressed. “Your family’s really good at keeping secrets, aren’t they?”
Oh, she had no idea.
“How do you know him?” Maddie asked.
“I met him on Tinder,” she lied hastily.
“And you’re together? Really?” Penny looked at her hopefully. “And things are getting serious, and you want to tell your brothers so I don’t have to keep it a secret? I hate keeping secrets!”
She grimaced. “No, not exactly.”
Penny groaned and Lucy leaned forward. “Why not?”
“Well, we were actually enjoying something purely physical, but we both agreed that it was not getting us anywhere right now and…” She sighed. “I don’t know, do you think it’s possible to stay friends with an ex-lover?”
“That’s your plan?” Penny asked, frowning. “From fuck buddies to just buddies?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
“Hmm,” Lucy said. “Do you like him?”
Dumbfounded, Anna opened her mouth. The question was simple, but if she was honest, she hadn’t given it much thought.
Sure, she was obsessed with him, but did she like Lucas? As a…person? Not just as a sexual partner who made her laugh and groan, but as a person?
She liked his dry humor and that he used few words but still expressed himself clearly.
She liked that his body spoke only to her.
She liked that he had accepted his niece into his life without thinking twice, and obviously loved her very much.
That he could apologize, even if it sometimes took a while.
She liked that he saw her as Anna, not as Jack and Dax’s sister.
That he made her feel like the most beautiful woman in the world. That he…
“Okay, she likes him,” Maddie interrupted her train of thought. “In that case: No, don’t stay friends with him.”
Blinking, Anna glanced up. “Excuse me?”
“You shouldn’t stay friends with him,” she repeated slowly. “If you have even the slightest feelings for the guy or feel bad when you spend time with him.”
Well, she didn’t feel bad around Lucas. Quite the opposite. She felt damn good. But that didn’t mean she had feelings for him!
She realized she used the word ‘feel’ a lot when she thought about him, but that didn’t mean she had feelings. The two were very different.
Right?
“You look like you’re panicking,” Lucy frowned. “Why?”
“I…I don’t have feelings!” she exclaimed.
“No feelings ever at all, little goblin? Sounds brutal,” she replied with a smile.
Anna laughed mirthlessly. “You know what I mean.”
“Oh man, she’s as bad as her brothers,” Lucy whispered meaningfully in Penny’s direction.
“Lucy!”
“Yeah, yeah, sorry. But you sound like Dax. So the guy you don’t feel anything for is lucky.
” She smiled and clinked her glass against Anna’s.
“Cheers to your secret boyfriend. And don’t listen to Maddie.
You can be friends with an ex-lover if you want.
I do it all the time. But you don’t want to undress friends. So if that’s a problem…?”
“It’s not,” Anna said stiffly. “That’s…over.”
“Well then,” Maddie said, “let’s talk about something else because the underlying tension here is making me nervous.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Penny agreed, also clinking glasses.
Anna smiled and pushed Lucas out of her mind. You don’t think about friends all the time, after all…