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Rufus narrowed his eyes at Sebastian, as if he knew what he was doing there and didn’t like it.
Well, that was too damn bad for him. He was here to get answers. “Is Chelsea in there?” He pointed at the door to the locker room.
Rufus just stared at him.
“Damn it, I know I hired you to be her bodyguard, but . . .” His voice trailed off as the door opened and several women skated out, mopping their brows and chatting. Amongst them was Chelsea, her ponytails damp with sweat. She didn’t see him and skated right past. “Chelsea,” he called.
She stopped and turned, a look of horror on her face. “Sebastian?” She glanced around and then skated toward him. The horror turned to anger. “Are you fucking following me? What the hell?”
“I wanted to know what was going on,” he told her, and found his voice was raising to match her tone. “Why would you keep this a secret?”
“Because I’m not going to quit and you can’t make me quit!”
He shook his head. “Why would I ask you to quit? I think it’s awesome.”
She looked a little dumbfounded at that. “You do?”
“Ooooo.” A girl skated up to them and began to circle them. “You got a hot date, Chelsea?”
“We’re not dating,” she said flatly.
For some reason, that pissed him off. “We’re married.”
The woman’s eyes went wide. “Holy shit.” She looked over at Chelsea, and when Chelsea didn’t deny it, the woman gasped and took a step backward. “I gotta tell the others.”
Chelsea groaned as the woman skated off. She put her hand on Sebastian’s arm and began to steer him away from the main traffic of the crowded hallway, full of skaters, fans, and everyone else. “Did you have to tell Gilmore? She’s such a blabbermouth.”
“Don’t you think you should have told them?” Why did that piss him off so much that she didn’t?
“Look, it’s nothing personal,” she said defensively. “Relationships and derby don’t mix. It requires a lot of practice hours and commitment, and more than one girl has had to break up with a guy because he wasn’t into her spending so much time on the track.”
“Have I struck you as the crazily possessive or overly clingy type?”
“Well no, but this isn’t a real relationship.”
Again, that kind of irritated him. And again, he dismissed it as irrational of him. Because hell, he was being irrational. But there was something about all of this that wasn’t sitting right, and it was striking a nerve. “No one knows that but you and me, and if you keep secrets, this is never going to work.”
“Oh, really? You’re one to talk, Bluebeard.” She nudged his shoulder with a pointed finger.
“Bluebeard?”
“Yeah, the secret room of creepiness? The one that you swear is nothing at all but you still won’t let me see it?”
“It’s just a study!”
“And Dexter was just a blood spatter analyst!”
“It’s nothing, I swear.” For some reason, the thought of showing her made his skin crawl. He never showed his art to anyone. No one ever understood it. No one ever got his obsessive need to draw and explore through art. No one in his family ever had, and he’d learned to hide it long ago.
“Well with that attitude, I think we’re heading for a divorce,” she said, glaring at him. It was the same glare she used on the track, and it startled him to see it. Game-Chelsea was a whole different woman than the one he knew.
“You want to talk about attitude, then?” he challenged, gesturing back at the auditorium where he could hear music playing as the halftime show continued. “How about the one-woman wrecking ball out there?”
Her hands went to her hips and she scoffed at him. “You don’t know shit about derby. You’re supposed to be aggressive.”
“There’s a difference between being aggressive and frightening your own teammates!”
She licked her lips, seeming uncertain for the first time. “I’m just a little off this week. It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine. You’re going after everyone out there like you have something to settle.”
“He’s right,” someone called out and skated past Chelsea, swatting her ass with a towel.
Chelsea scowled and moved closer to Sebastian. Her voice dropped to a low whisper so no one would hear them. “Look. Derby is my therapy. I get a lot of stuff out of my system on the floor out there.”
