Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 113072 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 565(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 377(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 113072 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 565(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 377(@300wpm)
“Is it?” I shrug, my anger rising to a boil. “I have no idea. Last time we hit a roadblock, you left town and forgot my number. Pardon me if I can’t vouch for your history of toughing it out in difficult times.”
And the second I say it, I wish I could claw it back. That wasn’t fair to him. I need to move on from our teenage crap. His blue eyes flare with anger, and I see him take a slow breath. The kind you take when you’re trying not to say something you’ll regret.
Meanwhile, Chris Isaak sings mournfully about his broken heart in the background.
“Just say it. Whatever it is,” I demand. “That was out of line, and I’m sorry.”
He just shakes his head. “Don’t bring up shit that you don’t really want to dig into, Ice Princess. You won’t like what I have to say.”
“Oh yeah? Would it be worse than your grumpy silence? Because that’s so much fun already.”
His face falls. Then he does a snappy little bracket turn and skates for the exit.
“Chase Merritt! We’re not done with our ice time. Don’t bail. Not again.”
He steps off the ice and grabs his phone and his sweatshirt. “You’re so angry at me that you never stop and think. Maybe I didn’t block you for spite.”
“Then why did you?”
He slaps his skate guards over his blades. “Because she made me.”
“Who did?” But the moment I ask, the truth pools like ice in my stomach.
“Sister Walsh,” he says. “She stood over me and watched me do it. Can’t believe that never occurred to you before.”
And while I’m standing there with my jaw unhinged, he turns and goes.
Chapter 28
I’m the stupidest woman alive.
That’s what bounces around in my head for the next few days as I attend another tournament for junior ice hockey players and numbly plan my master class.
Of course my mother made Chase block me. Of course she did. But then she lied about it, which is so much worse.
This is what men do, she said. They tell you they love you, and then they leave. I believed her, too. Because it was demonstrably true.
Or was it? On the one hand, it’s not like Chase to obey my mother’s rules even after she fired him. But he was only nineteen, and he’d just lost his job, and apparently there’s more to the story than I thought.
Meanwhile, Veena has emailed, asking Chase and me for our musical selection. And Chase has been silent. He’s on a road trip and likely busy. But that leaves me to obsess about it alone and replay the footage from our ill-fated practice.
It’s hard to watch without cringing. Every step, every stroke, every move was out of sync. On our best try, we made it only fifty seconds into the routine before we almost killed each other.
What’s happened to us? We used to be effortless.
We need more practice. But even if Chase were speaking to me, we couldn’t rehearse this week. The team has flown off to play both teams from Florida. Darcy went with them, leaving me to brood alone in my apartment.
All the wrong people are trying to get in touch with me, too. There are passive-aggressive texts from my mom, asking when she can visit. I’m so mad at her that I don’t acknowledge them at all.
Then I get a text from my uncle nagging me to call my mother, because she’s worried about me. I ignore him, too.
The one thing that goes well is that I finally get my first paycheck from the Legends. I immediately write a rent check to my management company, with an apology. Sorry about the delay! It won’t happen again.
Here’s hoping.
On my last day of solitude, I head over to the practice facility, which is a ghost town. My plan is to figure out how the Legends’ camera equipment works, and maybe even do a little figure skating.
Alone on the big rink, I lace up my figure skates and take a few laps. Maybe I should simplify our routine. The audience only wants to see Chase do some figure skating. If I just got out of the way, he could probably do okay on his own.
Maybe we can trade off somehow, taking turns as the lead skater while the other person circles in an unobtrusive way?
That would just be weird, says the panel of judges in my head.
You shut up, I answer back.
I grab my phone off the bench and crank up our music. At center ice, I close my eyes and just let the song wash over me. I’m not the same girl I was the first time I choreographed a routine to this music. I didn’t have a bad knee, a broken heart, and a failed marriage.
I didn’t really understand that hearts could break, even if the composer was valiantly trying to warn me.