Page 7 of Replay (Toronto Blaze #3)

I’d been hurt. Badly hurt. Devastatingly hurt, the way it is when you’re a teenager and everything is new and your hormones are going at warp speed. And my parents had let me live with that, feel that horrible rejection and inadequacy, because of their own agenda.

“I’m sorry, Katie.” Josh’s voice was soft. “I would have explained, if I’d known they hadn’t. But I don’t get why they didn’t talk to you.”

I blew out a breath and lifted my head. “Did you hear about Nora?”

He frowned. “Your sister? Did something happen to her?”

“She got pregnant.”

“When? She was in med school, right?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Mom and Dad were big on education. They had to drop out of school when they got pregnant, and they wanted to be sure we could finish our own degrees. Nora was supposed to be a doctor, so getting pregnant was a big bump in that road.”

Josh watched me, waiting for me to continue. He’d always been a good listener.

“Anyway, it was right around the time that you—” I flapped a hand his way. “She announced she was pregnant and was dropping out of school to have the baby. Mom and Dad were freaking out. They were really upset about it, and that Arlo wasn’t the one dropping out of school.”

Josh cocked his head. “Arlo is the father? And did they think that would happen to us? That you’d get pregnant and drop out? We were careful.” He bit his lip. “Mostly.”

“I know. But Nora was too.”

“Huh.” Josh’s brow was creased. “So, they lied to me?”

I shrugged. “Kind of? I mean, they’d already been talking to me about how what school I picked was a big decision, and I shouldn’t let other factors influence me.”

“Like me.”

“Like you. And then when Nora got pregnant? That gave them something else to worry about. With Nora pregnant, I was the daughter left to make the family dreams come true.”

His shoulders drooped. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have texted you like that. I should have talked to you.”

But he wasn’t the only one. I’d been so insecure in how I looked and my lack of social popularity that I hadn’t asked him any questions.

“I’m sorry too, Josh. I should have asked you why you were doing it.

I was just too hurt. And then when I heard you were with Rhonda…

” That had convinced me my low self-esteem was correct.

“Mom said it would make sure you didn’t choose a school for me.”

“It worked.”

“Fuck.”

Exactly. And I was going to have a long chat with my parents. I’d been so pissed that Josh had taken away my autonomy, but they’d done the same thing. They were the new targets of my anger. Apparently I wasn’t totally over what had happened back then.

“So, are they happy now?” he asked. “You got your degree, you’re getting your master’s—they must be proud of you, huh?”

If only it was that simple. They weren’t happy that I moved to Toronto. They wanted me to get my degree but also stay home where they could feel part of my success. I needed some distance to feel free.

I had to process all this new information. And for that I needed alone time. I stood. “Sure. Well, thanks for the donairs and the apology.”

Josh stayed seated, eyes on the countertop, shoulders tensing. He wanted something else.

“So, Katie, I was hoping…” He rubbed his hand over the back of his neck, looking up at me through his ridiculous eyelashes.

I crossed my arms. “What?” If he thought we could pick up from where we’d been before he smashed my heart, he was sooo wrong.

I understood he’d been manipulated, but there were years of resentment to work through.

And I wasn’t in Toronto to find a boyfriend.

I had my own dreams, and Nora’s life was still an object lesson.

“That maybe we could be friends?”

My jaw dropped. “You want to be friends?” Josh Middleton, star of the Toronto Blaze hockey team, was not suffering from any lack of people wanting to spend time with him. He wasn’t lonely, so why?

He nodded. “Yeah, I’d like that. We could be friends, right? We used to like to watch movies and stuff. We had fun, even without sex.”

“Why would you want me for your friend?” I’d seen the people wearing jerseys and T-shirts for the team on campus, and a lot of them had Middleton across the back. Not as many as Cooper, but still. He was a professional athlete. Everyone would want to be his friend.

“I like you.”

There was no reason for that to make me waver, for my defenses to soften. He liked me? How was that possible? It had been five years. He didn’t know me. “I’m not the same person I was five years ago. You might not like the me I am now.”

But that felt wrong even as I said it. Back in high school, we shouldn’t have fit. Yet our differences somehow balanced out and we worked. Those basic character traits, they couldn’t have changed that much, could they?

Josh frowned. “Well, some things have changed, obviously. Like, I’m in the NHL now and not living with my mom. And you’re not with your family, and you’re doing your math thing. But you’re still you.” His frown cleared as he settled that.

“I might be a total bitch now.”

He grinned. “You were a bitch sometimes back then.”

“I was not!”

He nodded. “When you talked about Rhonda—” He stopped and shook his head.

“I’m really sorry. That was a shitty thing to do.

I was so mixed up. I felt miserable, but I thought our parents were smart, you know?

And Rhonda, she was a real bitch. She kept trying to say bad stuff about you, so we left that Valentine’s dance early and I took her home.

Then I went driving for a while, just trying to clear my head. ”

That memory still stung. Especially when Rhonda had hinted, oh so snidely, that she and Josh had left early and gone to her home.

Josh was staring now at the empty donair bag. “I think…I think I kinda knew I’d messed up, and that it had been the wrong thing to do. But I knew you wouldn’t forgive me anyway.”

I swallowed a noise in my throat. That anger and hurt back then had been the only thing that got me through.

Josh shook his head and looked back at me. “I’d really like it if you’d give me a chance to be your friend.” He gestured at the wrappers. “We can do things like this, stuff from home. And…”

“And?”

His grin was back. I shouldn’t have given him that inch.

“Maybe watch some Star Wars stuff? Have you kept up with that?”

I crossed my arms. “What if I have?”

“And that new Lord of the Rings series. I bet you’ve watched it at least twice.”

Three times, actually. “Maybe. Did you watch it?”

“Yeah. We have time to kill when we’re traveling. What do you think about that Sauron guy?”

I frowned. “That’s not what’s in the books.”

“No?”

“I know you didn’t read them, but in the Silmarillion …”

An hour later, Josh left. After he’d suckered me into expounding on my favorite TED Talk, we’d discussed TV shows.

And then what it had been like for him in Nashville before he was traded to Toronto.

And I finally made him leave because I had homework.

I’d totally forgotten about the upcoming confrontation with my parents and just gone with the flow.

He’d always been good at that—untangling my worries by just being him.

I still had to work out what I was going to do about my parents, but I wasn’t as tense now. My head was clearer. That was thanks to him.

I guessed we were friends now. Were we? He’d kind of Joshed me into it, and I’d given him my phone number.

But without him distracting me, was that what I wanted?