Luckily, I managed to move a thousand miles away, but poor Sasha is still stuck with him since she’s only sixteen. Even when she turns eighteen, I doubt he’ll let her leave. She’ll be stuck being an underappreciated, overworked skiing prodigy.
Dad is prepared to throw money at every coach in the northern hemisphere, if it means Sash gets to be the next Lindsey Vonn. Ideally without the injuries, but I’m not sure he’s concerned about her safety anyway; he just wants her to win.
Thankfully, he hates hockey.Careless, violent sport for people who lack discipline and crave chaos, he says. It was Mom who signed me up for Mr. H’s team all those years ago. She was pregnant with Sasha at the time and needed something that would tire out her energetic five-year-old.
I didn’t take to skiing like my dad had hoped, and I can proudly say I’ve been disappointing him every day since. He wouldn’t even be surprised if I told him what has been going on recently, but it would involve answering his calls, and that isn’t something I tend to do.
Plus, he’d only find a way for it to be my fault.
The intensity of Robbie’s stare feels like it’s burning into my skin, which jolts me from my thoughts.
Annoying him is my favorite thing to do, and it makes me realize why JJ likes being an asshole so much. Rob keeps dropping things on the floor, banging his phone against the TV remote to make a clanging noise, and after about ten minutes of getting no response, he’s started coughing loudly.
I keep my eyes on the TV and smother the urge to smirk. Mike Ross is about to nail another case when Henry elbows me in the side. “Robbie is trying to get your attention. Are you ignoring him on purpose?”
“Great question, Henry, thank you,” Robbie shouts dramatically. “Are you ignoring me on purpose, Nathan?”
When I finally look at him, he’s staring at me like an unimpressed mother.“Sorry, buddy. Did you want something?”
Robbie mutters something under his breath, followed by a loud huff. “Have you organized my birthday party?”
“You mean the surprise birthday party? The one youspecificallysaid you didn’t want to know anything about? So it was, y’know, anactualsurprise?”
Six weeks ago, Robbie told me he wanted a surprise party for his birthday, claiming hosting parties is very stressful and time-consuming. He didn’t want to deal with the problems of his own birthday, so I needed to do it. I told him if it was such a hassle, he didn’t need to organize our parties anymore.
He called me a dipshit and told me to grow up.
“If the surprise is you haven’t sorted anything, I don’t fucking want it.”
Henry immediately stands, his eyes darting between me and Robbie, and rushes toward the stairs. Robbie follows his fleeting frame with narrowed eyes before flicking back to me. I shrug it off, acting like I don’t know Henry has been worried about spoiling the surprise for weeks. The kid doesn’t have a poker face, and he’s convinced himself with only a few more days to go, he’s going to fail at the last hurdle.
“You need to relax, Robert,” I say, knowing using his full name will rile him up a little bit more. “Stress isn’t good in your old age.”
I think that’s the end of it, but instead, he scratches at his jaw and makes anuhmsound. It’s not like Mr. Confident to struggle with his words, so now he has captured my attention like he wanted to. “Did you…Did you invite Sabrina?”
Oh, this is fun. “Who?”
I narrowly avoid the cushion he launches in my direction. “Don’t be a dick,Nathaniel. You know who she is.”
Three weeks ago, when I was royally fucking up with Stassie, Robbie was getting better acquainted with her best friend. He won’t tell me what happened, claiming he’s a gentleman, but it’s hard not to draw your own conclusions when she only left on Saturday afternoon, wearing one of his T-shirts.
I haven’t seen her since, so I thought it was a one-night thing but judging by the nervous look on his face, maybe not. “Would you want her there? In the hypothetical situation where there is a party?”
“We’ve been talking, so yeah. Hypothetically.”
Robbie has no problems with women, but I can’t pretend he doesn’t rotate them when he gets bored. The fact he’s talking to her and not only hooking up with her is a good sign.
“Noted. Ready for practice?” I ask him, carefully changing the subject before I give away party secrets.
“Yeah, let me get my sweatshirt first.”
Shit.Now I have to find a way to get Sabrina here.
* * *
JJ issprinting down our street as I’m putting Robbie’s chair into the trunk of my car. Pressing the button to lower the falcon-wing doors, I climb into the driver’s seat and put the car into reverse, automatically locking all the doors.
He bangs on the window, panting and mumbling something inaudible. I lower the window a little so I can hear him. “Don’t leave without me, you douchebag.”