Scoring Off The Ice (Ice Kings #2) - Stacey Lynn Page 0,83
think about what I said to her earlier. But she either took off or refused to answer her door. Not that I blame her. I’ve run different scenarios in my head, but none are good. There’s a chance we can stay together, but only indoors and then that makes her feel like my dirty secret. I do not want her feeling that, either.
It’s now going on eleven. I am exhausted. My brain will not slow and my heart will not stop racing.
A knock hits my door and I hurry to it.
Paisley. I will fall at her feet. Explain everything. Apologize forever for hurting her so deeply earlier it’s possible it hurt me more.
I open the door without thinking and immediately a hand hits my chest and I’m shoved backward.
Jason.
“What are you doing here?”
“I think the better question is what the hell is wrong with you?”
“What?” Behind him are Jude and Newman. This has the makings of a beat down even if they won’t raise fists and I’m confused, because the expressions on their faces are all the same. Furious. I focus on Jude. “What have you heard? Did she call Katie?”
“No. Saw her getting trashed at Roxbury with her friends where you were supposed to bring her.”
“Trashed? Is she okay?”
“I think we’re all more concerned with what happened to you tonight.”
They step in and fan out. Newman is smart enough to not let the door slam, though. He catches it at the last second and asks, “Angelo?”
“Sleeping. But I just got him down so don’t yell at me too loud.”
“What happened?” Jude asks. “And don’t say you fucked up. All men do that.”
“I fucked up.”
“I just said—”
“I know. But Angela is back. She wants Angelo. Or she wants us, I think. Her motives aren’t clear yet.”
“And you’ll give her that?” Jude’s teeth grind together. “After she abandoned him?”
“I will let her think whatever she needs so she doesn’t steal my son back from me. Yes.”
“Have you called Luke?” Jason asks.
“I did.” I explain everything from the moment Angela surprised me outside the rink. The men curse. Repeatedly. More questions with What the fucks? And That bitch than I ever heard us say. “I can’t… the night he came, we should have called the cops, but I didn’t want a public record. Luke said we’d handle it privately and it all seemed so easy. She said she promised she didn’t want him, so…” I screwed up. I’ve been doing it since the beginning.
We should have suspected she had something in the works when she was so elusive after stating she was easy to find.
“Let me figure out what I can.” All of us turn to Jason.
“How?”
“Angela. She has friends. She’s not the only puck bunny around and she used to come to the clubs with a few I spent time with.” By spend time with, he means screwed. Probably more than once.
“And they’ll tell you something?”
“Please,” he scoffs. “A promise of a night with me and they’ll be singing like canaries.”
“Until then?” Jude asks. “You really going to stay away from Paisley? I thought you loved her.”
“Perhaps because I love her is why I should stay away.” We haven’t even been together long. Is it possible we have moved too fast anyway? What twenty-two-year-old graduate student wants to be raising another man’s baby?
She has never said these things.
It’s Angela’s voice in my head, casting doubts from earlier.
It still worked, even if I’m eighty-five percent sure she can speak nothing but lies.
“You’re an idiot,” Jude says, and he points at my door. “Even I know that, and I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed. But that girl loves you. She’d do anything for you. All you have to do is tell her.”
“I will. When I can.” When I have my head on straight and know what I am doing with Angela. “Paisley. Is she okay?”
“She cried in my arms if that tells you anything,” Jason says, still frowning at me like I am an idiot. I might be. “But Katie’s there and she’s with friends. She’ll be fine. I’m sure someone will take care of her.”
I don’t like the implication that it’s not me, but I caused this. If he expects me to shove past them to go get her, I will not. I don’t want to use her and pull her back and forth, and I definitely do not want her to have to deal with Angela.