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“What I want to know is if Sloan has any sisters?” LaDuke asks.
Dix laughs. “No, but she has friends.” He wags his eyebrows at Sloan and I shake my head. As odd as it sounds, I want Dix and Colin and LaDuke to find this kind of happiness. Of course, I would never say that—best friends or not, they’d never let me hear the end of how I’m sapping this all up with a bunch of feelings.
But deep down, I know they get it. They don’t make guys better than these. Sloan isn’t the only reason I’m lucky; I was fortunate enough to get drafted alongside every one of these gritty, die-hard bastards I call teammates.
Seattle Wave forlife.
51
SLOAN
When the phone rings, I expect it to be Beck, but I look at the screen and see it’s a private number. I haven’t been answering those lately. I don’t know why I do this time, but I instantly relax at the sound of Anton’s voice.
“Anton. How are you?”
“I’m doing good, babe. Sorry to rush through the small talk, but let me get right to it: I’ve figured out how to get the Bloodhound off your back.”
“Oh, Anton! Thank you so?—”
“Don’t thank me yet,” he interrupts. “You have to get here quick. You know if he finds out I’m helping you, he’ll kill me.”
“To your place?”
“Yeah. Quick, okay?” He’s speaking faster than normal, a low, high-speed mutter that sets my nerves on end.
I’m already scribbling a note for Beck and half-jogging to the garage. I don’t see any of the security guys lurking nearby. Theymust be doing their rounds again. I’ll slip out and come right back before anyone even knows I’m gone.
I hang the note on the fridge and head out to the garage. I grab a pair of keys from the box in the garage, click the unlock button, and see which car beeps. It’s the Jag. That’ll work.
The drive to Anton’s isn’t far—ten minutes. I leap out of the car and rush up the walk.
I’ve barely lifted my hand to knock on the door when it swings open and Anton ushers me in. “In, in, quick. Bobby’s got eyes everywhere.”
Anton’s house is a hovel. Everything is either completely broken or halfway there. The carpet is stained brown shag and the ceiling is yellowed from years of indoor cigarette smoking. The kitchen is a galley crusted over with decades-old spaghetti sauce and God knows what else.
I don’t pay much attention to anything except Anton, because walking back in here is nostalgic. I used to come here with my dad all the way up until he died. It’s at that moment, the thought of my dad, that I look over my shoulder to the dining room. The Formica table with the red leather chairs sits in exactly the same spot it always did.
But it’s what’s on top of the table that I can’t believe.
On Anton’s table…
Are a dozen black roses.
I look from the vase to Anton but my gaze is drawn immediately back to the vase. I’m having awhat the fuckmoment. But there’s no way to deny it.
Anton is the stalker.
Anton, my father’s friend.
Anton, the man I grew up thinking of as an uncle.
Clearly, he wasn’t thinking of me as a niece.What the fuck is happening?
I start to retreat back toward the door, but I barely get two steps closer before Anton slides between me and the exit and then drops his hands to my shoulders. “Oh, Sloanie sweetheart. I have loved you since… well, I can’t remember a time when I didn't love you.”
I want to throw up. I want to scream. I want to throw up and scream. “Why… why didn’t you tell me?” It’s a dumb question, but I just need to buy time until I can think of what the hell I’m supposed to do.
“You were young. But since the day we met, I haven’t been able to think of anyone else. To be with anyone else without thinking of you. Iwaitedfor you, Sloanie, don’t you see? Since you were little. Until it was the right time for us to be together.”
