Page 38 of Ruthless Edge

Then, we ran into Sienna and Rory heading into the game. I introduced everyone, then the girls had started chatting with Owen, who had politely invited them and their boyfriends to join us for dinner, and my whole night shifted. There was nothing simple about it now.

Now I'm sitting through the most surreal dinner of my life waiting for the replacement food and trying to remember what normal feels like.

Knox and Ethan come back from outside about ten minutes later. Knox sits down. He looks marginally calmer, which I'm choosing to accept as an improvement. Madison, who has been talking almost continuously since we sat down, picks up the conversation exactly where she left it, not at all fazed by the whole tray of food scattered on the floor near us.

I'll say this for Madison, she's genuinely enthusiastic. She loves hockey. She wants to talk about hockey. She has questions about hockey and she asks all of them and listens to the answers with real interest. Under different circumstances she'd be a perfectly good dinner companion. Under these circumstances she's a reminder of the type of girl Knox has spent years collecting, which is to say pretty and uncomplicated, and exactly nothing like me.

"I was talking to my friend about hockey players," Madison is saying, "and she said they’re supposed to be stars both on and off the ice." She giggles and looks at Knox. "You know… in the bedroom."

I choke on my water.

Not a graceful choke. A genuine, full-throated, have-to-put-the-glass-down choke. Around the table, everyone suddenly becomes very interested in their drinks.

I refuse to look at Knox.

I will not look at Knox.

Instead, I focus on Owen, which is what I should have been doing all evening. He's easy to talk to. He's genuinely interested in what I'm saying. He asked me things on the walk over, real things, questions about our program and what I want to do after graduation and whether I'd decided on the research psych track or the clinical one, and he listened to the answers. He's good.

"Tell me about your family," I say. "Do you have siblings?"

"Two," Owen says. "Older brother, younger sister. My parents are still in the Midwest. Indiana." He settles back slightly. "Very normal family. Embarrassingly normal."

"That sounds nice, actually."

"It is. My mom called me this morning to ask if I'd be eating enough this week, so."

I smile. "That’s great.”

“Do you have any siblings?” he asks.

"She has a sister," Knox says. "Two of them, actually. Twins. Still in high school."

I turn and look at him.

Knox is arranging his silverware. He says it like he’s just dropping a fact into the conversation.

Owen glances between us. "Oh, that's⁠—"

"And her parents are divorced," Knox says. "Her dad's in Portland. Her mom's still local."

"Knox," I say.

He looks up. "What?"

"Stop."

"I'm just contributing to the conversation."

“We don’t need your help.”

He shrugs. "Just speeding this whole get to know you thing along."

He looks completely unbothered by this, which makes it worse. Owen has now arranged his expression into something carefully neutral that I recognize as active discomfort being professionally managed, and I do not have to be a psychologist to see that.

This is the thing that doesn't track. Knox knowing those things about me means he not only paid attention to me when I was talking, but actively remembered what I said. I don't know what to do with that. I don't know what it means. I shelve it because the only other option is to think about it at a dinner table and that is not a viable alternative.

The replacement meals arrive. Everyone picks up their forks. The conversation redistributes around the table into smaller pieces and I focus on mine with Owen, keeping it easy, asking about his non-psych classes, and for a few minutes it almost works. It almost feels like what it was supposed to be. Owen has good taste in restaurants and the food is genuinely good and he's smart and warm and makes me feel like I'm saying interesting things.