Page 20 of The Kiss Connection

Wimps.

The boxes in the living room are shoved against the wall. Those are the last that will need unpacking, consisting of movies and vinyls.

My couch and new mattress were both delivered an hour ago, so at least I’ll have a place to sleep tonight that isn’t the wood floor.

“I ought to be pissed at you.” Conrad glares at me as he helps unbox my kitchenware. He doesn’t sound particularly angry, and I’ve seen Conrad steaming on the ice.

“Pissed at me?” I glance over my shoulder at him. “What did I do?”

Conrad is usually pretty upfront when something is bothering him. He’d been quiet when our teammates were helping carry boxes up to the apartment. I thought he’d been tired or had a late night out.

“You stood up a girl on a date. You used my name and my Kiss Connection account. That’s low, Myles, even for you.”

I wince. I should have realized that eventually Conrad would find out. I’d been hoping he wouldn’t notice, but there’d been a string of messages in the app between the two of us, technically between him and Juniper. I guess he looked and saw what happened?

“I didn’t stand her up…” I head into the kitchen, open the fridge and grumble about the beers all being gone. Right now, I could use a drink, something harder than water.

“That’s not what she said when she reached out to me. And since you set up a date with her as me, and I didn’t show, I’d say she was stood up. That’s shitty, Myles, even for you.”

I bite my tongue, not wanting to have this conversation with my closest ally. He’s one of my best friends, and I don’t want something stupid that I did to come between that, especially as teammates. We depend on one another on the ice.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have put you in the middle,” I say.

His eyes tighten as he stares at me. “I don’t give a rat’s ass about what you did to me. I care about what you did to her.”

“She deserved it,” I mutter and turn my back, opening another box and begin unpacking the glasses.

“What’d she do to you? Break your ice-cold heart?” Conrad mocks.

“Fuck you, man.”

Conrad laughs, letting my anger roll right off of him. He runs his hand through his unkempt hair. “Come on, tell me what happened. Maybe I can help.”

“You can’t help. That girl is a witch.”

Conrad’s gaze tightens. I know he despises any and all types of witchcraft, even metaphysical stuff he categorizes into witchery. He had a girlfriend in high school who was into that stuff, and she went a little too far with it, according to Conrad.

Not sure what that means, I never asked, but I also know how to push his buttons.

“For a witch, you carried on quite the conversation with her, on my account. Almost like you have feelings for her,” Conrad says. He finishes the last of the box and starts on another one, opening it and removing the silverware and cutlery.

“I don’t—have feelings for her. Can you drop it?”

Conrad stares at me, and for a second, I truly believe he’s going to let it go.

Until he opens his mouth.

“No. What did she do to you? She mock your dick? Take pictures of you naked out of the shower and it was cold? What did this girl do to piss you off?”

“It’s stupid.”

“So stupid that you can’t even tell your best friend?” Conrad beams and gives me his lopsided grin. It’s his signature smile.

“We exchanged a few words at Blue Line, the night of the 90s party.”

Conrad nods. “Yeah, I remember that night. Don’t remember her.”

“She dressed as Britney.”