I swallow, and it feels like I’m pushing razor blades into my throat. There is one explanation, but I can’t give it. Because I have no proof, nothing other than my gut instinct. And the moment I bring up my father in this conversation, I know Uncle Vic is going to assume that I’m working with him.
Too many times, I’ve shown Vic that I’m not someone he can trust. I’m like the boy who cried wolf, and now that it’s actuallynotme, I have no moral history to call on. There’s no point in arguing or trying to fight this.
It was foolish of me to think I’d ever be able to get away from my dad. I spent too long being one kind of person to ever think I could come back, even after a year of service with the FBI.
“Wren?” Luca asks, his voice breaking when he turns to look at me, and that’s my final straw. He’s not defending me, not telling Uncle Vic there’s no way it could be me. That I care about this team too much—and I care aboutLucatoo much—to do that to them.
Luca followed his instincts when it came to me back at the start of the season, and he’s following them again now.
“I’ll get my things,” I say quietly. When I stand up, there’s a Frost security guard standing in the doorway with a blank look on his face. It settles in that this is who I’ve always been. From the moment I landed in Milwaukee until now, I’m the kind of woman you’ll find detained by security.
I walk to the door. I keep my head straight. I nod at the guard and force myself not to look back… because I know it will hurt too much.
Luca
“Hey.”
I knock on the door to Sloane’s room cautiously, and when she looks up at me, it’s with a glare so molten I’m surprised she doesn’t turn me to ash on the spot. For a second, we hang in the standoff, me at the door, and her not inviting me in, until I let out a breath and cross the threshold.
Sloane has been put on bed rest for the remainder of her pregnancy, which shouldn’t be more than a week, now, if the baby comes by her due date. But Callum said she’s been losing her mind. My sister is not the kind of person who likes to be still, and I can only imagine how she felt this morning when she read the news.
I take a seat in the armchair next to her bed, staring straight ahead at the TV on the opposite wall that’s playing a re-run from our last playoff game. We barely squeaked by.
That seems to be the theme.
I’m still reeling from that meeting in Coach’s office. Wren’s admission to feeding the other teams information.
Though, she never actually admitted that she did. She just gathered her things and left quietly. Is that enough of a confession, or was that for some other reason? Maybe she realized she didn’t want to actually be with me, and saw getting fired from the team as an easier break-up method for the strange relationship we’ve been carrying on with.
“Luca.”
I startle, coming out of my thoughts and looking over at my sister, who stares back at me with eyebrows drawn so low it’s almost cartoonish. She’s pissed.
“Sloane,” I start, clearing my throat, trying to figure out how to move forward. Cal was right—I should have told Sloane before she found out about it, and now it’s too late. I can practically hear my best friend pacing in the kitchen, worried about his wife.
“I should have told you—”
“O-oh,” Sloane laughs sarcastically, the sound cutting through the room. When I look over at her, she’s tilting her head condescendingly, frowning at me with an expression that could rival our mother’s. “Which part, Luca? The part about you and Mandy getting a divorce in the first place? Or the part where it was never real? The part where your entire family—and all your friends and teammates—flew out to Vegas to celebrate a relationship that didn’texist—?”
“—it existed, Sloane—”
She rolls on, like I’ve said nothing. “Or the part where you’re notreallydating Wren either? And Mom and Dad had her over for Christmas, and now we have pictures withtwowomen who mean nothing to you!”
“Sloane.”
She stops, breathing hard, as she pushes her hair from her face. For a second, I wonder if I should go. Getting this worked up can’t be good for her or the baby. But if I leave, she’ll probably just call and leave me a dozen threatening voicemails—like she has already—and saying it to my face might be more cathartic.
“I’m not like you,” I say finally, even though I want to address the point about Wren and me not being real. But how can I? She left today without a word, without a fight. Maybe it’s because she was actually betraying the Frost, or maybe because she’s done with me. Either way, I have no room to argue that the thing going on between Wren and me is the realest relationship.
“The thing with Mandy—it was supposed to be easier for everyone,” I say.
Sloane laughs and it comes out watery. I grab a box of tissues from the nightstand and hand it to her.
She glares at it, and me, before taking it and settling it in her lap. “Luca, do you realize how much of a shit sister I thought I was? IhatedMandy. Couldn’t understand why the two of you would be together. But Itriedbecause I love you, and I wanted to support you. And all of that for what? This isn’t just aboutyou. It wasn’t just a fake marriage between you and that woman—you forced the rest of us to be complicit. Mom and Dad with a fake daughter-in-law. And what if you’d hadkids?”
Her voice rises to an ear-splitting pitch, and for the first time, I can see the logic in how that might have been bad. Cal’s insistence that he take a year off from the Frost—no matter how foolish—comes from a place of pure love for Sloane.
Would I have done that for Mandy?
