Total pages in book: 188
Estimated words: 179812 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 899(@200wpm)___ 719(@250wpm)___ 599(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 179812 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 899(@200wpm)___ 719(@250wpm)___ 599(@300wpm)
But when I see the notification of an article on my screen tonight, it’s not about me or Snow or predictions about his performance. It’s something even worse. It’s the news of Isadora and Stellan. They’re engaged. My eyes fly through the article as I read, trying to absorb every word all at once. It says that someone spotted a ring on her finger while she was out with friends. And sources close to them say they got engaged in secret and were keeping it on the down low. And is it because they didn’t want to hurt Stellan’s twin brother who also happens to be Isadora’s ex-fiancé? After that, they go on to compare the two rings, the one Shepard gave her and the one Stellan has proposed with.
What fucking assholes!
Before I can think about it, I call him. He picks up on the second ring and his voice fills my ear. “You okay?”
And then it fills my heart because I called to see if he was okay. If I read the article, I bet he did too. He may have found out about it at practice, in front of everyone. Clutching my phone in my hand and standing stuck to the door of my—his—room, I ask, “Where are you?”
“Are you guys okay?” he asks again.
“Yes. Yes, we’re fine,” I tell him, realizing he’ll never answer me until I give him the answer he’s looking for. “Where are you?”
He takes a couple of beats to answer and my heart squeezes and squeezes in my chest. Then. “I’ll be home late.”
“Is it true?” I ask then and wince myself so I don’t even know what he’s going through. All I know is I don’t have to tell him what I’m talking about because he knows. Because he hasn’t spoken a single word in the last however many seconds.
He hasn’t even breathed.
And God, I can’t breathe either. I can’t breathe with this pain in my chest. But somehow, I manage to whisper, pressing my spine against the door, “Come home. Please, come home, Shepard.”
“Why?” he asks, his voice rough, cracked.
“Because I…”
I love you. I love you so much. I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone and please let me make it better. However I can. However you want. I’ll do anything you want me to. Just please come home.
“Because you what,” he growls, angrily, torturously almost. “Talk to me about what I deserve and all the fucking hardships I’ve gone through. All that bullshit you never stop reminding me. Or maybe you wanna talk to me about my practice and fucking smother me with your belief that I can do it and that I can prove them fucking wrong.”
“Shepard, please, you—”
“Because if that’s what you want to do, then I don’t know how many times and how many ways I can tell you to fuck off. I don’t need your fucking friendship. You know what I need from you. Unless you’re ready to give me that, leave me the fuck alone.”
Chapter Twenty
He’s leaving for his first game tomorrow.
And he’ll be away for a few weeks before he comes back for his first home game. I don’t really know who makes these schedules and how it all works—Snow probably would—but he’ll have pockets of time when he’ll be away and on the road. But he’ll get to come home too.
I’m getting ready in front of the bathroom mirror. Because his team is having a going-away party, or more like a gala, to kick off the season and as part of his family, Snow and I are invited. Honestly, I’m nervous. I’m used to serving at these events, not going as a guest. I didn’t even have a dress, so Tempest lent me this really pretty and sexy black dress.
Made of satin, it’s a bodycon that fits me like a glove and has a really long slit down one side. It’s strapless so my shoulders and my back are bare, not in a strip club-y way though. More in an elegant, classy way like I’ve seen women at these events be.
I’m putting the finishing touches on my lipstick when I hear the front door open and then slam shut. I frown at myself in the mirror. Who is that? Everyone should be arriving at the party right about now. Everyone who lives here anyway, except me. Because I’m still getting ready and I’m supposed to ride with Tempest, but she said she was running late.
Snow spent the day at Callie’s because Callie called yesterday and said she’d love to have Snow over so they could bond. And since Snow does want to bond with her new half-sister, she agreed. I also think she’s been getting a little stir crazy, sitting in the house all the time. while recovering. Their plan was to leave for the party from Callie’s house.