Page 24 of Best Things in Life

If I can’t have Sarina, if I’m backing away from her and going away quietly so he can have her, then he’d better damn well make her fucking happy. For fuck’s sake, I can make her miserable myself and that’s what she looks like now.

“I’m warning you to stay out of my business with Sarina,” he says in a low snarl. “She’s not yours. Clearly. She’s here with me tonight and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you tell me how to handle her when you fucked up so royally.” He laughs. My anger spikes and my blood rages. “You’re the last person I’d listen to for advice about Sarina.”

I shove him back hard so that he thuds against the wall and he’s about to launch back at me, fists bunched and ready, exactly what I need. My eyes see only red and my grip on whatever sanity I had was gone and it feels fucking good.

He comes at me and I raise my fists, not backing away, when I feel a commotion behind me.

“What the fuck are you two doing?” Dooley’s voice rises higher than I’ve ever heard it.

“Are you crazy? Get a grip,” Summer says, her voice sharp but calm. Bigs drops his fists and relaxes his stance, stepping back, and I turn around.

I didn’t expect to see Sarina standing there with Dooley and Summer, hands on her hips and calm except for the lasers of disgust shooting from her eyes.

“Sarina,” Bigs says. She shifts her eyes from me to him, looks at him from head to toe, sees he’s a little disheveled and I’m not even sure how that happened.

I have nothing to say because I don’t fucking answer to her, do I? And she’s not interested in hearing from me. She turns away and takes Dooley by the arm, leaving with him.

But my legs don’t get the message from my brain because I move to go after her until Summer grabs my arm, stopping me. Every muscle is wound up and hitting the red zone on the tension meter. When Bigs shoves past me to go after Sarina, the reality hits me. All over again, like a Ground Hog Day punch to the gut.

We go back to the table and Sarina is there with Dooley and Emily and a few of the guys. Bane’s on the dance floor but I can’t tell who he’s dancing with because he’s fucking surrounded by girls.

“Where’s Bigs?” Summer asks, glancing around in her inconspicuous way.

“No idea, but this isn’t good. You need to go find him.” I look directly in her eyes and she studies me a beat, then nods.

“I will… I’ll bring him back.”

“Sure. No hurry.” I smirk because as much as I want Sarina to be happy, I know she doesn’t belong with fucking Bigs. He’s a good man, but he’s not good for her. Not after what I’ve seen—or rather not seen.

Sarina is standing with Dooley, moving to the music and looking around, and I know her. She’s dying to dance. That need in me to not let things go takes over. I want her to know how I feel in case it matters.

“Let me satisfy that longing you have,” I say in her ear as I come up behind her, not touching. She spins around and I give her a soft smile, the kind that’s supposed to communicate that I’m harmless—the kind of smile that lies. Louder, I say, “Let’s dance.”

She doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even nod, but when I take her hand to lead her to the floor, the sizzle hits me. She follows and the shock of it, the déjà vu of us together on a dance floor at a homecoming dance fries my mind, sends all kinds of dangerously blissful chemicals shooting around my head. If I didn’t have practice at holding down unholy amounts of excitement playing in championship games and having girls throw themselves at me over the years, I’d have lost all my cool and be stumbling onto the floor right now, not to mention stumbling over my words. As it is, I clear my throat when the music changes to a slow dance as soon as we hit our spot in the dancing crowd.

“You look beautiful,” I say, hoping she can hear all the things under my words, that she’s everything, that she’s amazing and worth more than a hundred of Bigs. She rolls her eyes and the simple her-being-her look shatters my tension. My arms itch to pull her into me, but I keep my head.

We dance together barely touching, which is something I never thought possible.

“So you have my attention now,” she says. “Explain what the fight was all about. Between you and Bigs.”

“That’s not why I wanted to dance with you.”

“No? Then this is—”

She starts to pull away and I close my arms round her, holding on, my instincts winning over, not a single rational thought involved. I’ve lost my fucking cool. Shit.

“Wait. Don’t…” I say.

She stares up at me, waiting for something, and I swallow down a boulder of emotions filled with guilt and longing and pride and all the willful determination that led me to this point in my life. Wherever the fuck that is. On the verge of my final season at SPU—the one where I get drafted into the NHL. Fuck.

“I’m sorry.” They’re the only words that squeeze through the block, leaving emptiness behind. “For everything.” I croak out the words and see Summer with Bigs in the far corner. She has him turned away from us but I can’t count on that lasting. So I release Sarina from my hold, take my hands off her succulent body, and take a step back.

“That’s it? That’s all you have?” She searches me, disappointment flashing and disappearing in a storm of self-righteous anger. I nod and disappear into the crowd without looking back. But it doesn’t matter because I can feel her accusing eyes searing into my back down to my very soul.

Was that my last chance? Was she giving me the dance to turn the clock back and instead I used the opportunity to double down on my mission to be a fucking NHL hockey player? Accomplished. Miserable. Desolate.

Dredging up the words my supposedly fucking wise older brother told me, I slice through the crowd and the bullshit and head for Coach, who stands conspicuously near the main entrance—or exit, in his case. My brother’s words? There’ll be plenty of time for women later. You’ll find the true love of your life when you’re a grown man, not some teenager in puppy love.