Page 13 of Forbidden Forward
“Turn on your screen,” my caller demands.
“Wow. Where’s the love? You don’t have any sweet nothings for me, like, ‘Hey, Colby. How are you today? I’ve been thinking about you’?”
“Hi, Colby. How are you today?” my sister mocks.
“Fantastic. How about you?”
She sighs, and it’s like a spear to the chest. “I’m fine.”
I drop onto the settee, my palms growing clammy. “You don’t sound fine.”
“Will you stop that? You read way too much into the things I say. I. Am. Fine. A little bored, but fine.”
Bored because she’s stuck in one place, and that’s my fault.
“And don’t you dare start up the blame game in your head, Colby James, or I’ll hang up on you.”
My sister might be four years younger than I am, but she fills that age gap with her fierceness. If she were a hockey player, she’d be the enforcer on the team, and she’d be feared by everyone in the league.
I chuckle when I answer. “Well, I guess I’d better turn off that switch because I don’t want you hanging up on me, Lindsey Gail.” I articulate her name to throw back some good-natured shade.
“That’s better. So what are your plans for your week off?”
“Well, since you’ll be off gallivanting on some fancy cruise I’m not allowed to—”
“The timing didn’t work,” she reminds me. “Besides, it’s not for people like you who have two perfectly functional legs.”
Ouch. The reminder is one more jab at the perpetual gash I carry inside me, even though she doesn’t mean for it to be. I’m happy she gets to be with people she relates to on a level I can’t, but man, it stings.
Get over yourself, my inner voice chirps.
“Let me rephrase. Since I don’t get to have my first choice, which is to come see you, I scheduled the kids for twice this week. There were five here this morning.”
“Did you take them sailing?” Her elation is palpable and catching.
“No, the weather was shit so we stayed in, but we still had fun. I think they just like being on the boat, you know? Something different from what they’re used to.”
“That’s a really nice thing you’re doing there, Colby.”
No, it’s not a “nice thing,” but I don’t go there because we’ve had that argument too many times before, and I don’t want to spoil our conversation. In truth, what I do is my penance, which sounds wrong because penance should be painful, shouldn’t it?
“It’s the same thing I did there, no different.” I rub the back of my neck, and the little hairs that need trimming prickle. “They’re so damn excited to learn, and that enthusiasm rubs off. They absorb everything like little sponges and always want to know more. That’s fun for me. Plus, I get to talk sailing to my heart’s content.”
“Ad nauseam,” she snorts. “Are you ever going to tell them what you do for a living? They’d be pretty excited about that too, I bet.”
“Nope. Works better when I keep that part of my life separate.” My stomach clenches. Those two lives collided when Jackie Harper made her surprise visit today.
Lindsey’s voice turns coy. “Dating anyone yet?”
“None of your business, Lins.” Pale green eyes flash through my mind, and I shake my head to get rid of them.
“Which tells me you’re not.” Lindsey laughs, a soft, tinkling sound that warms me. It always does. “You need to get out there and meet someone. Have some fun.”
That should be my line to her, but in our case, it doesn’t work in reverse, and my gut cinches a little tighter. “Who says I’m not having fun?”
“I meant with someone of the opposite sex who’s closer to your age than Peggy or the kids you work with. You need to find a girl who loves sailing—and hockey—as much as you do.”
Jackie Harper’s out, then. She has zero experience with boats, on full display earlier with her ignorance of etiquette and the correct terms. As for hockey, I have no fucking clue because I didn’t ask her. She has to like it if her brother plays, right? Or hate it because she was dragged to every early morning practice and late-night game as a little girl. Not that she would ever be a blip on my romantic partner radar screen. Nope, not in a million years. Then again, no one has been, so I’ve got nothing to go by.
