Page 103 of Double Puck

I salute her with the coffee. "Take it away."

She lets a full ten seconds pass, all five-foot-three of her tucked into that chair like a very calm cat. "So. Have you called your father?"

Fuck.

And there it is. Thirty seconds. She didn't even warm me up today. Straight to the daddy issues.

"Wow. We're just raw-dogging therapy today?"

Poppy's pen pauses. "Whenever you're ready."

"No. I haven't called."

"Has he stopped calling?"

"Nope. Every few days. Voicemails. One text with a photo of the game on his TV." I turn the mug in my hands. "I just don't know what I'd say. That's still the honest answer. I pick up the phone and there's nothing in my head. Nothing."

"You remember how we talked about that being allowed?"

I set the coffee down. "Can we talk about something else? Because something else has been chewing on me all week, and I think I might want your advice."

This gets the calmest woman in the world paying attention.

"Of course. Go ahead. What seems to be the trouble, Beck?"

I take a deep breath and let the week unspool behind my eyes.

Darcy laughing at my terrible joke on the boardwalk, then going quiet when I mentioned the guys talking about the roster after practice. Then when I took her to the lookout to watch the sunset, and we sat there with our fingers laced together, only for her phone to start buzzing with calls from Colin.

Her whole body stiffened like someone flipped a switch.

"Darcy knows something about the trade. I asked her on the pier, straight out, and she just deflected." I scrub a hand through my hair. "She didn't lie. She's too smart to lie. But I know her face now. I know the look she gets when something is difficult."

"Does it bother you? Her holding something back?"

"Of course it fucking bothers me."

"That must be hard. I can see you really like her."

I narrow my eyes. "Why do I feel like you're about to bring up my dad again?"

Poppy doesn't even blink. "Because most of your life, other people have known things about your life and decided when you got to hear them. Your father. Your brothers. Your whole family."

"Sure. Yeah."

"So a woman holding information about your career is standing on a very sore spot."

"Great. Love that for me." I pick the coffee back up because my hands need a job.

"Here's what I noticed, though." She tips her head. "When you talk about Declan, or your father, you are agitated. Frustrated. Angry, even. But just now, with Darcy… You don't sound angry with her."

"That's because I'm not."

"Why not?"

And I sit there like an idiot, because logically? I should be furious. If Declan pulled this I'd have flipped a table and lost my shit until he spilled the beans about whatever he's hiding from me.

But when Darcy's doing it?