Page 11 of Lovesick (The Minnesota Mustangs #1)

An uncharacteristic blush stains Crew’s cheeks, and I’m surprised that he isn’t used to having the ground he walks on worshipped by everyone around him.

He tosses me a sideways glance that screams Help me , but I just give him a noncommittal shrug.

Once my father gets started on hockey, he never stops.

It’s been the main topic of family dinners for years now.

“I can’t wait to see the upcoming game,” my mom says, a saccharine smile affixed to her cherry-red lips.

“You’re coming too, right, pumpkin?” my father asks.

Oh my God. Pumpkin?! In front of a guest?! I want a sinkhole to open underneath me and swallow me whole.

Crew snorts, but he quickly covers it up with a convenient throat clear. “Yeah, you should come,” he tacks on nonchalantly, maintaining a disturbing amount of eye contact with me, as if he’s waiting for me to break first .

God, I forgot how blue his eyes were. Like crystalline waters lapping at the tideline, eroding sand with a mouth made of spume. I get this strange urge to drown myself in them—similar to the way lemmings commit suicide by jumping off cliffs. An inexplicable gravitational pull.

The nerve he has to speak to me.

I contemplate my answer for a second, but then I get a brilliant idea. “Sure, I’d love to come ,” I acquiesce, making sure to emphasize the innuendo as I stare at Crew, slipping the tines of my fork between my lips seductively.

Judging by the way he bristles, I know I just implanted that dick-wetting memory of me riding his face in that sexually deviant head of his.

And I’m a sick fuck for loving this flustered side of him.

He chokes on something, frantically reaching for the glass of water in front of him before draining it completely. Everyone just stares in awkward silence while the excessive sound of gulping permeates the dining room.

Yes. Choke, motherfucker.

My poor mother’s face pales. “Are you alright, sweetie?”

Crew waves her off with a grimace. “Went down the wrong pipe,” he wheezes.

“Say, speaking of the game, I was meaning to discuss it with you, Crew,” my dad interjects, carrying on as if the tension between us isn’t so palpable that you could cut it with a butter knife.

Crew’s near-death pallor mutates into an alarming shade of green, and he drops his utensils to save himself from another food-related failure. He does his best to steady his voice, but I can hear the undercurrent of uncertainty riding each waver. “Yeah?”

“I hope this doesn’t impact your performance, but I wanted to give you a heads-up that an NHL scout will be attending the game this Friday. For you. ”

Yikes. I don’t even have to do any heavy lifting to destroy his life. Though Crew does strike me as one of those people who does well under pressure. Kind of like how resilient cockroaches are when you smack them with a shoe.

Instead of straight-up choking this time—and no, I would not perform the Heimlich on him even if a gun was pointed at my head—he just sits there with a glazed look over his eyes, similar to a shell-shocked war veteran in the middle of a flashback.

A few seconds pass without a response. I kick him in the shin underneath the table.

He cringes but catches on. “That—that’s amazing. I promise I won’t let it distract me, sir.”

Who’s the terrible liar now?

My father polishes off his plate, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “Oh, and while I’ve got you here, keep the guys on the team away from my daughter, yeah?”

For the first time this entire dinner, I freeze. Not only that, but I feel my heart fall out of my fucking ass. Crew, thankfully, is in the same boat as me, but instead of losing his ability to speak, he resorts to laughing.

My dad doesn’t joke. Rarely does. In fact, not a lot in this world makes him smile aside from his family, a particularly good slap shot, or funny cat videos.

When Crew realizes that my father is, in fact, not joking, his laughter peters off and he schools his expression. “Of course, sir.”

An approving smile hikes up the corners of my father’s mouth. “Atta boy. And if you try anything yourself, I’ll personally make sure you never see the light of day ever again.”

“Dad!” I shriek.

Oh my God. Did he seriously just threaten him?!

I can’t believe this. I could accept the fact that I was going to see Crew at hockey games, but to have him be involved in policing my love life? Seriously? First off, I can date whoever I want. Second off, if Crew thinks I’ll go along with this idiotic arrangement, he’s got another thing coming.

The rest of dinner is unsurprisingly quiet—and thankfully uneventful. I have the pleasure of walking Crew to his car and airing out the house of his cologne. It’s a miracle I got through dinner without gagging.

The night sky is bruised in alternating shades of violet—a pointillism of stars sprawling across a nebulous backdrop—and the gibbous moon hangs over our heads, illuminating the ribbon of road underneath our feet.

The whole street is quiet save for the chirp of unseen crickets and a susurration that slithers through the gnarled branches of dogwood—ones that harbor flaxen leaves curled and moth-eaten from the changing season.

The bone-deep chill sparks goose bumps on my exposed arms, but I don’t mention it.

Despite Crew being parked across the street, the walk seems tiresome.

“Sooo…” he begins, interrupting the beautiful, beautiful silence.

I don’t bother looking at him. My only job is to get him from Point A to Point B, and I don’t “C” a need for conversation. Annoyance brews in my stomach, acidic enough to scorch a hole through the lining completely.

“Just because you’re buddy-buddy with my dad doesn’t mean we’re going to be,” I tell him with clipped breath, crossing my arms over my chest to try and conserve heat.

Thanks to the cold, my nipples are the equivalent of small torpedoes, and if Crew even jokes about it being a bodily response to his charisma, I’m going to throw myself in front of an oncoming car.

When his voice rends the air, it crackles like a bank of embers catching on peeling, parched timber. “I promised I’d look after you.”

“No, you promised to keep the hockey team away from me. Which, by the way, is a ridiculous request in itself. ”

The crunch of pebbles and gravel underfoot stops, and I make it a few strides before realizing that he’s halted in the middle of the goddamn road.

I hate to admit it, but his little trap works at snaring my attention because I finally meet his gaze.

The color of his eyes seems darker in the mood lighting—no longer blue, but a gray akin to winter slush.

Crew raises his hands in surrender. “Look, I’m not trying to get on your dad’s bad side.”

Instead of compromising and backtracking, I stand my ground, facing him. “Mine is worse,” I insist, flashing him a glare that could freeze hell over.

“Oh, please. You seriously expect me to believe that you, a pocket-sized princess, are going to evoke a wrath stronger than the man who has the ability to tank my entire hockey career if he sees fit?”

A growl coils in my chest. “Don’t call me that.”

“I’m sorry, would you rather I refer to you as ‘your royal highness’?” Sarcasm clings to that forked tongue of his, as thick as caramelized sugar. Everything about him strikes a match on my very flammable nerves.

“You won’t refer to me as anything because we’re not on speaking terms.”

“Uh-huh. And what am I supposed to tell your father?”

“Is that really how you want to live your junior year of college? Being my dad’s pack dog?”

“You’re one to talk,” he retorts, and the sharp, piercing truth unmoors the once-unshakable foundation beneath my feet.

Red eclipses my vision, rage coursing through my bloodstream. My fists clench of their own volition as cotton clogs my ears, drowning all sound beneath a ruthless river of whitewater. “What the hell does that mean?”

Finally, Crew’s good guy guise splinters, and I witness the first sliver of unadulterated hatred peeking out from a jagged facade.

“You think I didn’t notice the way you agreed with everything your dad said?

You didn’t protest about coming to the game, and you sure as shit didn’t protest when he practically appointed me as your unofficial bodyguard. ”

I open my mouth to counter his argument—with what, I have no idea—but he doesn’t allow me the chance to speak.

“You want to know what I think, Merit? I think you’re scared of disappointing Daddy.

I think that the real reason you hate me isn’t because I’m a hockey player, but because I have the freedom to live my life in ways you can’t.

This pettiness is nothing but a smokescreen for your goddamn jealousy,” he snaps, the tendons in his upper body writhing as he crosses his arms over his hulking chest. There’s a newly lit fire blazing in his eyes, and I was stupid to think that carelessly throwing around gasoline wasn’t going to have dire consequences.

I lose my grip. As simple as that.

I stomp over to Crew with my self-destructive tendencies, closing the figurative and literal distance between us until I’m no more than a few inches from his smug face.

“You know what? You’re right, Crew. I am jealous.

I’m jealous that life seems to be so easy for you, and that you can just go around swinging your dick without any repercussions whatsoever. ”

Despite being so close to him, there are no butterflies fluttering around in my stomach, and a clearly misguided part of me mourns that sensation.

What am I doing? Why am I being so mean?

Do you think he plotted this whole scheme as some ploy to get back at you for ghosting him, Merit?

God, are you really that self-centered? You don’t know anything about him, and making assumptions isn’t going to get you anywhere.

Whether you like it or not, you two have to coexist under your father’s surveillance.