False Start (Straight No Chaser, #1)

by Casey Hagen

“She died.” I had to get out of here. I didn’t want this heart-to-heart. I didn’t want to give a shit. And I definitely didn’t want to bond over two dead mothers. I stood, grabbed my skates, and turned away from her without a glance. “You don’t have to leave.” Her words came out in a rush to my retreating back. Like she was desperate to hold on to something. Only I was a bad bet and the worst possible anchor in any damn storm. I stopped but didn’t turn around. “I think I do. This… whatever this is, it’s not a good idea.” “I thought you said you weren’t the enemy?” she said quietly, my words coming back to haunt me, like everything else in my past. Just one more reminder why this had to stop now, before it went too far. Before I lost the iron fist on my willpower and gave in to the attraction, immersed myself in her, until it soothed my loneliness or worse. Until she became someone I couldn’t walk away from. I turned to look at her one more time over my shoulder then. “And you said we aren’t friends.”