Total pages in book: 122
Estimated words: 114951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 575(@200wpm)___ 460(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 575(@200wpm)___ 460(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
“So you’re asking me to give it all up,” I said hoarsely. “To choose you over hockey. To forfeit my dream and stay.”
Her lips parted, trembling. “No,” she whispered, shaking her head, sobbing now. “No, that’s not what I want. I just—”
But she didn’t finish, because she knew. Deep down, she knew there was no other way.
And I knew, too.
I couldn’t have hockey and have her, too.
So I pressed a kiss to her forehead, breathing her in like it was the last time — and I knew in my heart that it was.
“I love you enough to leave,” I said. “Please love me enough to understand.”
Just like that, I’d made my bed.
I was prepared to lie in it.
But I knew I’d never sleep again.
The Ending of Us
Ariana
Present
We couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful day.
Tampa in mid-October could still be sweltering. I’d discovered that with much chagrin as a girl who grew up in Connecticut and stayed in the northeast until very recently. I missed the leaves changing and the cool weather, but I had to admit — this wasn’t bad, either. The humidity had dropped, it was pleasantly warm, and the sky was pure blue, not a cloud to be found.
That might have been the first sign something was off.
Days like this were meant to be uncomplicated. And yet, as I stood at the end of my long driveway waiting for Shane, my pulse skidded too fast, anticipation buzzing beneath my skin in a way that felt wholly inappropriate.
Shane pulled up and stopped short of the house, just where I’d asked him to. I hadn’t wanted him any closer. The house loomed behind me, quiet and watchful, and something about leaving it like this — slipping away without a word of my plans to my husband — felt wrong.
It was wrong the way my excitement outweighed caution. It was wrong how easily I’d said yes. The fact that I hadn’t told Nathan about it was all the proof I needed that this wasn’t innocent, no matter how carefully I tried to frame it in my own head.
But I was just curious enough to ignore every warning sign and say yes, anyway.
“This is an upgrade from your old Pontiac,” I mused with an arched brow, the wind blowing my hair as we cruised through the streets of Tampa with the top down in his Jeep Wrangler. It made me smile, that he could have picked any luxury car in the world, but instead he’d gone with something so unmistakably him.
The boy I’d once known — the one who lived for hockey and sunshine and any excuse to be outside — would have worshipped a Jeep. And somehow, it also suited this new version of him just as well: coach for the Tampa Bay Ospreys, easygoing, settled, sun-browned, and thriving in a life I never quite pictured him having without me.
“God, do you remember the summer the air conditioning broke in that thing?” He shook his head. “Grandma and Grandpa insisted I had to save up and pay to fix it on my own.”
“Oh, how dare they,” I mocked.
“Hey! I was too busy with school and hockey to carry a job,” he defended, and then he hit me with a boyish grin. “And you, of course. Mostly you, in fact. I think I could blame the whole no-job thing on you, really.”
My cheeks heated furiously, and I shook my head and looked down at my hands folded in my lap. “Hush.”
He did, his grin still in place as he let his left hand hang out the window while the right thumbed a beat on the steering wheel. He used to lean the other way. He used to have his left hand on the steering wheel and the other on my thigh.
He had the perfect playlist on, one I couldn’t help but wonder if he’d made just for today. When Snow Patrol came on, my smile mirrored his.
“Is music still one of your love languages?” he asked as we turned into Ybor. My eyes grew wide, the explosion of color hitting me instantly — candy-bright murals, wrought-iron balconies draped in string lights, a band warming up outside a bar even though it was barely ten in the morning. The scent of roasted Cuban coffee and hand-rolled cigars drifted in through the open Jeep, mixing with the humid Florida air.
“Always,” I breathed, still looking around in awe.
When we stopped at a streetlight, someone pointed at us, and the group of what looked like twenty-somethings jumped up and down before one of them yelled out, “Hey, Coach! Great game on Friday!”
Shane smiled and waved at them just as the light turned green, and they nearly melted down at the acknowledgment.
It didn’t seem to faze Shane, though, who just shifted hands on the wheel and asked me, “Do you listen to the same stuff you used to, or have you found new artists to love?”