Twisted Shot (Skate Me Home #2)

Chapter 1

MILA

Sleeping with a coworker in secret is a lot like skydiving. A reckless thrill people romanticize, right up until they’re strapped into a parachute, staring into the abyss, and wondering for the umpteenth time if this leap of faith is worth it.

Sure, it could work out. Maybe it’s a slow, heady climb of breathless anticipation, tension winding tighter with every stolen glance and flirty text.

Or the chute might not open, and someone could plummet face-first into a field of jagged rocks and shattered dignity.

And Mila Anderson is plummeting.

She sits bolt upright on the edge of an aggressively modern sofa, blinking at Richard’s laptop in disbelief.

She’d previously been nursing a cup of chamomile tea, dutifully reviewing his Q3 projections and marketing strategy deck like the supportive, almost girlfriend she thought she was.

Or at least, like the almost girlfriend who did not just stumble upon a nearly naked selfie from another woman to her man.

Now she’s freefalling through a cloudy haze of dismay.

Her short, fledgling relationship with Richard flashes before her eyes: every time he turned off notifications when she walked into the room, every late-night “client call” he took from the balcony, every moment he placed his phone face down on a restaurant table with that oily little smile.

She did not mean to snoop, really. But his Messages app, wide open on his laptop, wouldn’t shut up, pinging like a desperate little bird slamming against the condo’s spectacularly oversized window.

She’s only human. A woman can only take so many dings before she gives in to curiosity, or, as she now knows, straight-up masochism.

ASHLEY

Is she gone?

***

I can’t wait to see you, babe.

Then, as if that wasn’t enough to kick Mila’s heart straight into her throat, comes the kicker, a topless selfie. Buxom brunette. Pouty lips. Strategic arm placement for maximum cleavage and minimum doubt they’re fucking.

Mila blinks once. Twice.

But no—there she is, clear as day. Ashley Gibbons, the chirpy little social media strategist Richard insisted they bring onto the team because “she’s just so innovative.”

“Classy,” Mila mutters under her breath, clicking the trackpad to minimize the window before it can traumatize her further.

Ashley, with her fake-nice smiles and high-pitched giggles and that habit of leaning a little too close when Richard is talking.

Mila takes a long sip of chamomile tea like it might calm the rage simmering in her bloodstream.

Spoiler: it does not.

She stares out the window of Richard’s downtown Toronto loft and laughs.

It comes out sharp, like a cork popping off a shaken bottle.

The view is perfect. The furniture is curated within an inch of its life.

Even his plants look more successful than most people she knows.

She spies a fiddle-leaf fig that is absolutely preening in a tall white pot, its broad leaves polished, upright, and stretching toward the glass.

The sound of water trickles from the bathroom, a soothing reminder that Richard has absolutely no idea his carefully constructed house of cards is crumbling in real time.

Mila leans back on the uncomfortable sofa and crosses her arms.

She’s not heartbroken. Not gutted. Not crumpled on the bathroom floor in some tragic cinematic heap.

No. She is incandescently, spectacularly pissed.

Pissed that she broke her own rule and dated someone from work. Pissed that she let herself be swayed by his calm, buttoned-up logic, that she let him convince her being with him wasn’t just a good idea, but a grown-up one. Sensible.

And most of all, she’s pissed that after years of keeping her guard locked up so tight it squeaked, the one time she let someone past it, he managed to prove her right in the most cliché, humiliating way possible.

She crosses her legs, one bare foot bouncing in the air as she eyes the open PowerPoint deck on his screen.

It’s the type of presentation she imagines herself delivering one day when she finally earns that promotion at Hollis Group, standing at the head of the boardroom table beneath the steady gaze of Jaryd Hollis and the entire C-suite, her own team at her back.

She must admit. Richard’s presentation is good.

Or it was good.

Her lips twitch into a slow, dangerous smile.

She doesn’t scream. Doesn’t hurl the laptop into the bathroom. Doesn’t even scroll back to Ashley’s selfie and zoom in to judge her fake tan and monster lash extensions.

Nope.

She gets strategic, tapping a few keys to flip through the deck.

She leaves the first two slides alone. Can’t spook them too early.

She adds a few juicy typos to slide three. “Pubic” relations instead of “public.” “Stratigic” instead of “strategic.”

On slide four she inverts the revenue graphs, painting Richard’s team as a sinking ship to rival the Titanic.

She deletes slide five completely. Say goodbye to his Q3-4 growth strategy.

Yes, it’s immature. It’s petty. It’s the most satisfying thing Mila has done in months.

She saves the new, sabotaged version under the same file name, then emails it back to him, like the sweet little helper he thinks she is.

Mila closes the laptop, gently placing it on the glass coffee table, and rises to her feet. She hears the water shut off seconds before Richard appears in his towel-wrapped, smug glory.

“Hey, babe,” he says, rubbing at his sandy-brown hair. “You staying over?”

Mila fakes a grimace and reaches for her throat. “Actually, I’m not feeling great. Think I might be coming down with something.”

His face twitches. “Oh. Yeah, yeah, no worries. You should go home and rest.”

She grabs her bag and slips it over her shoulder. “Wouldn’t want you getting sick before your big presentation.”

He chuckles, completely missing her sarcasm. “Exactly. Richard’s got a big day tomorrow.”

Mila cringes inwardly. She really won’t miss his third-person flexing. Richard talks like he’s his own hype man. “Richard doesn’t do second place,” or “That’s how Richard wins.”

He thinks it’s charming. It’s not. It’s the verbal equivalent of finger guns.

She breezes past him, the faint smell of his expensive body wash making her stomach churn.

He leans in and kisses her forehead—chaste, distracted—and then she’s gone.

No fireworks. No breaking dishes.

Just Mila, strolling calmly out of his designer loft with her head held high, her dignity intact, and the knowledge that tomorrow morning, when Richard opens that deck in front of Jaryd Hollis, his very expensive reputation will spontaneously combust.

Maybe dating a coworker really is like skydiving.

Mila’s chute didn’t open—but Richard’s got cut.

The second the heavy glass door of Richard’s building swings shut behind her, Mila sucks in a breath so deep it scrapes the bottom of her lungs. The night air in the city hangs thick and humid, filled with the buzz of traffic, streetlights, and a hundred conversations she’s not part of.

For the first time in weeks, Mila doesn’t feel on edge.

She feels...tired.

Her heels click against the concrete as she crosses the street to the parking garage, unlocking her car and tossing her bag into the passenger seat with a little more force than necessary.

By the time she hits the highway heading north toward Port Perry, the city lights are shrinking behind her in the rearview mirror, and she’s left alone with the hum of the tires and the low simmer of her thoughts.

The adrenaline is wearing off fast, leaving her hollowed out and pissed off all over again. And underneath the emptiness comes the creeping, fizzy edge of panic.

“What the hell did you do, you absolute idiot?” she mutters at the windshield.

Her brain is off to the races, frantically trying to build a legal defense for her actions while simultaneously pelting her with insults for being such an impulsive hot mess.

Did her sabotage feel incredible in the moment?

Oh, absolutely. Like popping bubble wrap made of pure vengeance.

Was it a dumb career move to sleep with a coworker and then sewer him? Yeah, that too.

Mila tries to comfort herself with the fact that the deck wasn’t client-facing, though she knows her logic is flimsy at best.

She drums her fingers against the steering wheel. Without really planning it, she thumbs her phone off its holder and taps the first name in her favorites.

It rings twice before Natalie picks up.

“Mil?” Her warm, familiar voice fills the car over the speaker.

“I know it’s past your grandma bedtime, but I was hoping you could talk,” Mila says, trying to keep the hopefulness out of her voice.

“Rude,” Natalie mutters. “But yes, I am still awake. You okay?” Her voice dips into that serious, almost sisterly register.

She knows me too well.

Twenty years of friendship will do that.

“I’m fine,” Mila says breezily. “Just your average night. Caught Richard cheating with a coworker, sabotaged his big presentation while possibly ruining my career, and now I’m on my way home to drown myself in Pinot. Really thriving over here.”

Natalie emits a strangled sound that’s part gasp, part hiss. “I never liked him.”

“You never like anyone I date,” Mila reminds her.

“Yeah, because you have trash taste. It’s my cross to bear.” There’s a pause, then Natalie’s voice softens. “Are you okay?”

“I mean, not great. But I’ll survive,” Mila says. “Nothing a trip to a rage room and a baseball bat won’t fix.”

Her voice shrinks a little, smaller than she’d like it to be. “But I’m worried I might have monumentally screwed up by getting involved with him. Richard’s senior to me. He’s got friends in high places. And I can’t afford any enemies if I want that promotion.”

“Babe, it sounds like Richard’s made his bed,” Natalie says, clucking her tongue. “He can lie in it.”

Mila considers this, then shakes her head. Natalie doesn’t grasp the way corporate politics can chew women up and spit them out with a smile, not the way she does.

“You know what you need?” Natalie asks brightly, her tone flipping back to cheerful like a coin.

“A hitman?”

“A vacation.”

Mila snorts. “Where am I supposed to go? My living room?”

“No, dummy. Here. Hartford. Come visit me for the weekend.”

“I can’t just—” she starts, but Natalie cuts her off.

“Yes, you can. Jesse and Jake have their opening game Saturday night. It’s gonna be a whole thing. Tailgates, parties, questionable hot dogs. You love that crap.”

“I do love hot dogs,” Mila agrees thoughtfully. “And parties.”

Jesse, Natalie’s younger brother, is heading into his second season with the Hartford Whalers—a scrappy pro hockey team affiliated with the Brooklyn Mavericks of the NHL.

Last year, amid a whirlwind of locker room drama, road games, and fisticuffs, Natalie ended up falling for one of Jesse’s teammates, Jake MacDonald.

It wasn’t planned, and it definitely wasn’t convenient, but it happened anyway.

Jake retired at the end of the season and promptly took a job as the team’s assistant coach.

Now the two of them are building a life together in Hartford, complete with a fixer-upper and a rescue dog.

They’re so disgustingly happy Mila feels like she’s watching a rom-com on fast-forward.

“Exactly,” Natalie says. “And you still haven’t met Gordie Howl.”

The corners of her mouth tug upward for the first time all night. “I am not calling your dog Gordie Howl.”

“Why not? That’s his name.”

“Was his name your idea or Jake’s?”

“A little bit of both,” she says, clearly proud. “The writer in me can never resist a pun, and Jake finally fulfilled his life’s ambition of scoring a Gordie Howe hat trick last season. It felt...destined.”

“Poor puppy never stood a chance.”

Mila sighs dramatically, but her heart’s already halfway to her best friend. “I can’t just drop everything and leave, you know.”

Natalie doesn’t miss a beat. “You’ve got nothing to drop. Your ex is trash, your job is half remote, and your cat hates you.”

“First of all,” Mila says, indignant, “Wednesday does not hate me. She’s just discerning. Like a moody art critic who only shows affection twice a year, and only if you’ve earned it.”

“You’re the same person.”

Mila smirks. “Exactly. That’s why we get along.”

Natalie’s not wrong. She rarely is. They’ve been inseparable since they were six, ever since Natalie accidentally nailed Mila in the face with a dodgeball during gym class then cried harder than Mila did.

Back then, Natalie was all elbows and wild pigtails, and Mila was all sass and scraped knees.

Mila practically grew up in the Mitchell house, eating their food, hogging their couch, and getting scolded by Natalie’s mom like she was another one of her kids.

When Natalie’s parents died six years ago, she felt like she lost a piece of her own family.

“But are you sure Jake is okay with me crashing?” Mila asks, flicking on her turn signal. “Isn’t this a big deal for him? His first game behind the bench instead of sitting on it…”

“Totally,” she says. “Jake will be too busy to care. And Jesse will be thrilled.”

Mila is quiet for a moment, considering.

“Alright, I give. I’ll drive down tomorrow.”

“Perfect! I’ll have the guest room ready for you,” Natalie says. “I’m glad you’re coming. It wouldn’t be a proper Whalers game without you yelling deeply inappropriate things at the players.”

Mila laughs again, and it’s like she’s shaking off a hundred and eighty pounds of Richard-shaped disappointment.

“Text me when you get home, troublemaker,” Natalie says.

She hangs up, still smiling, the dark country roads stretching out ahead of her full of promise.