Page 25 of Drop Pass

I dropped my leg and turned to face him. “What did you say?”

He chuckled and moved a foot back. “Dude, I’m kidding.”

I shook my head and went back through my motions.

“What was that about?” Murray asked from my other side.

“Arnold being an idiot.”

“Not surprising.” He sighed. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine.”

“Chloe said Elena called her this morning and said she brought over dinner last night and things didn’t go as planned.”

I shrugged. “It was fine.”

“What happened? Elena wouldn’t tell her. She just sounded really embarrassed.”

I realized the concern in his voice wasn’t for me. It was for Elena.

I met his gaze. “Nothing happened.”

“It didn’t sound like that. I heard her voice. She was really upset.”

If she hadn’t told them about the choking incident, she probably didn’t want them to know so I kept it to myself. “She brought over dinner. We ate. She left. I don’t know what else you want me to say.”

“Did anything else happen?” He was growing impatient but I wasn’t going to tell Elena’s story.

“No.”

He let out a sigh. “Kozlov, if I find out something else happened and you didn’t tell me first, I’m going to be really upset.”

I shook my head.

“You didn’t hurt her?”

I cringed. I might have bruised her when doing the Heimlich.

“What did you do?” His voice raised just a bit.

“Nothing. She just tried to…”

His eyebrows shot up. “What did you do to her?”

His words were now loud enough that we were gaining an audience.

“I had no choice. I had to—”

“You don’t have to do anything.” He growled. “You can just say no.”

I was starting to get some nasty looks and I realized they were all thinking the worst. Like I’d hurt her...in another way.

“No, she was choking and I did the Heimlich maneuver on her. I saved her life.”

His shoulders dropped and his face went blank. “What?”

“She brought over dinner. Everything was fine until we started dessert. She took a bite and it got stuck in her throat. She couldn’t breathe so I had to. I didn’t mean to hurt her, but when it didn’t work the first time, I had to do it harder.”