4. Chapter 4 #3
She stops a few feet in front of me, breathing a little harder from the quick pace, and wraps her arms around herself.
“How lovely of you to show up,” she says. “And then run away,” she adds.
I glance back toward the rink, then at her again. “I didn’t show up to watch the toddler league. I was passing through, and they saw me.”
Her soft face changes. There’s a flicker of disbelief, then disappointment that morphs into anger. She opens her mouth, and the first syllable comes out before she stops herself and presses her lips together.
“What was that?” I ask, leaning my head in.
She hesitates just for a moment before looking at me dead-on with the cutest stern look I’ve seen.
“That was very immature of you,” she says.
I bite my tongue to keep my lips from stretching into a smile. A single raised brow is the only response I give her, silently forcing her to elaborate.
“Toddler league? They were excited to see you, and you speak of them like that.”
I hold her gaze. She’s angry enough now that she’s stopped trying to manage how her words land.
“And the way you keep acting about them is… honestly, Mr. Mercer, it’s embarrassing.” She finishes, then blows out a breath through her nose.
Mr. Mercer. So formal.
“Feel better now?” I ask with a tilt of my head.
“No!” She shakes her head, confusion in her eyes from my lack of reaction.
“Seriously, what is wrong with you?” She stops herself, putting a hand in the air.
“I’m sorry. But I haven’t told anyone about the way you acted the other day.
I don’t know if you meant it as a joke, but it wasn’t funny.
It was inappropriate.” Her voice almost goes into a whisper at the last part, and her eyes look around.
I take all of it, every little bit of heat she throws at me.
Feeling bad that I made her uncomfortable would be the normal thing to do.
Not to me. I’m enjoying the fact that she came after me in the first place.
That she cared enough to get angry that I refuse to join her and the kids.
That she’s choosing to spend this much energy on me.
I let the smallest hint of amusement touch my mouth.
“You get this worked up over everybody?” I ask.
“I’m not worked up.” Her frown deepens.
“This is the second time you’ve come chasing me down the hall.” I look at her for another beat. “That’s a lot of feelings, Snowflake.”
Her expression shifts at the nickname, and her cheeks immediately turn even pinker.
“My name isn’t Snowflake,” she says. “And if you’d actually bothered to ask, you might know that.”
I hold her eyes and give her exactly what she asked for.
“I don’t need to ask to know, Lilly.”
Jesus, does that land.
Her frown disappears, replaced by stunned silence. Her pretty lips part to suck in more air.
She’s giving me a lot of attention for someone who’s ‘not worked up.’ I’m already far enough gone that this alone feels good. Just having her talking to me, looking at me. Spending herself on me, even like this. That’s more fuel on a fire that did not need help.
“Lilly!” Coach’s voice cuts across the hallway before she can answer me.
She looks over her shoulder.
“Coming!” she calls back.
Her eyes come back to mine, and some of the heat in them has cooled, enough to put distance back where it belongs.
“I won’t bother you anymore, Mr. Mercer,” she says.
Please do.
The words rise so fast in my head it almost feels like they made it out.
She turns, walking back down the hall the way she came, and a second later, Coach steps into view. He goes straight to her. One arm wraps around her shoulders as he says something I don’t catch, and she tips her head toward him when she answers.
My blood turns cold. There’s nothing overt in it. Nothing I could point to if somebody asked. But from where I’m standing, through the ugly lens my head has already built for him, it looks intimate enough to rot my mood on sight.
For one quick second, I nearly call after them and tell her fine. I’ll come. I’ll skate with the kids, run drills, smile, do the whole fucking song and dance right now if that’s what it takes to pull her attention back off him and onto me. I’ll give her what she wants. Whatever she wants.
The impulse hits hard enough for me to actually open my mouth, but the words don’t come out. They never do where kids are concerned.
That same thing in me slams down, turning want into paralysis the second small bodies and small voices come into the picture.
So I stand there and say nothing as they keep walking. The sight of it is scraping at me. I hate him for it. I hate myself more because I’m standing here wanting something I could’ve had if I were built a little less wrong.
They get farther down the hall, their voices dropping with the distance, and I’m about to turn away before I hear him ask.
“You packed your things for camp?”
My eyes snap back to them.
Camp.
“Almost, yeah,” Lilly says as they disappear around the corner.
Summer camp. She’s going to the Youth Academy summer camp. With him.
Well. There goes my fucking weekend.