Total pages in book: 122
Estimated words: 112884 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 564(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112884 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 564(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
“Lexi, I’m going to take a shower and then I’m going to come home and we are going to talk about things. And you are going to see how much different things would have gone if only you—”
“I’m done.” My voice cuts him off. “I’m done letting you darken my light, and I’m not coming back, not now, not ever, Trent.”
“You can’t leave me!” he roars.
“Yes, I can.” I finally inhale deeply. “And I did. Goodbye, Trent.”
twelve
Kirby
Three months later
I walk into the lobby and head straight over to the elevator. There is a man sitting behind the desk in the middle of the path leading to the elevators. He looks up from whatever is in front of him and he points at me. “Are you Materson?” He uses my last name, and I nod my head.
“I am.” I stop at the side of his desk and hold out my hand. “Nice to meet you,” I tell him.
“You guys going to bring the Cup home this year?” he asks, and I am almost tempted to roll my eyes in the back of my head.
“That’s the plan,” I politely answer, instead of answering him with the real answer. The season hasn’t even started, so how the fuck does anyone know who is going to win the Cup? “It’s never over until it’s over.”
“Isn’t that the truth?” He shakes his head. “Who would have thought Edmonton would have kicked you guys out of the playoffs.”
“Not us,” I tell him. “Especially since at Christmastime they were dead last.” I start to walk toward the elevators. “But you never know. Playoffs are a different beast.”
“They sure are.” He nods. “I look forward to watching.”
“Have a great day.” I finally break the conversation, walking over to the elevator and pressing the button to go up. I look up at the two elevators in front of me and then the two behind me to see which one is going to get here first. When the doors swing open behind me, I turn and head into the elevator and press the button for the fourteenth floor.
I take a step back in case someone else comes into the elevator and wait for the doors to close before it starts to move up. It stops on a couple of floors before it finally opens on mine, and I have to move around two people before stepping out into the hallway. I step out to face the other elevators and there is an office on one side and another on the other side. That’s it, two offices per floor. I make my way over to the office that has fourteen zero two on it before turning the handle and pushing it open.
“Hello.” I take a step into the empty office space and look around at the small space—gray carpet all around, four walls all painted a sterile white. A couple of windows in between to give the place more natural light, but not much, and the only overhead lights are the eight square bulbs in the tiled ceiling.
“Hey,” Kylie says, walking out of one of the two offices in each corner of the room, a smile on her face. “Finally.” She makes her way to me and I give her the biggest hug.
“I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever.”
“Relax.” I kiss the top of her head. “It’s only been three months”—she steps away from me—“and we FaceTimed at least once a week.”
“I want to say you look horrible.” She folds her arms over her chest. “But you look good. You even have a tan. I guess Canada agrees with you.” I shake my head. After the fundraiser, I knew I had to get the fuck out of town. That night I sent a couple of trainers messages to see who had a place on their roster and was lucky I had someone in Toronto who could take me. I booked a house on the lake.
We would do on-ice practice every single morning and then in the afternoon. I would do my training outside in the sun, since it wasn’t a hundred and fifty degrees. I flew back to Arizona two days ago when I took out Mrs. Visabell’s granddaughter to fulfill my part of the auction, and I was officially free of all obligations. I didn’t even spend the night in Phoenix. I couldn’t stomach it, so I landed in the morning and took a private plane out of there the same afternoon.
“I wish you would have come out,” I tell her. “The house even came with a boat and a Jet Ski.”
“I was busy”—she rolls her eyes—“quitting my job and then packing my shit and moving.”
“I told you we could hire you movers to do all of that.” Now that she finally caved and took up my offer to start up the foundation.