Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 125257 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 418(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125257 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 418(@300wpm)
She’s gone.
There are two empty chairs, and not a bottle of champagne in sight.
I wish there were something I could do for her. For now, I dig in and channel my rage toward the opposing team. The instant the puck is free, I snag it, chasing it down the ice.
A D-man slams into me, or tries to, but I shove him away. Nothing is going to stop me now.
This puck is mine, and when I spot an opening, I sneak it past the goalie and score my second goal of the night. Another point to pad the total.
But even though we win, I’m not happy.
I can’t stop thinking about what happened to Remy. There’s nothing worse than people assuming they know you from what they’ve seen of you in public.
* * *
In the tunnel, Miller yanks off his goalie helmet. “What the fuck was that?”
“I know, right?” I shake my head as we trudge off the ice. “What a dick.”
That hardly covers it. If there’s an insult strong enough for that prick, I don’t know it. I need to spend serious time with a thesaurus—when I’m a little less angry.
Miller blinks, shoving a hand through his sweaty hair. “No, I meant—you were, ya know, fun and shit?”
I shoot him a look. “That’s what you noticed?”
But maybe it’s good he’s not focused on the breakup. Miller has eagle eyes, though it’s mostly for what’s happening on the ice. And I was happening on the ice.
“It’s nothing. We don’t need to talk about it.”
“But I kind of think we do, because it’s like you just peeled off a brand-new layer of the Lake onion that we didn’t even know existed,” he says.
“Nobody needs to know about my layers,” I warn Miller.
“Then you shouldn’t have been so fun in front of the whole arena.”
“I was not fun.”
“But you were, Lake Onion. You were.” He flashes a smile before he turns into the locker room.
But at least my fun side distracted him from what happened to my sister’s friend.
The whole time I’m untying my skates and shucking my shoulder pads at my stall, I think about how Remy must feel right now. Hurt, heartbroken, ashamed. I can’t believe some guy would be lucky enough to date her and then be dumb enough to let her go.
As I’m forced to talk to the media—where I give one-word answers that definitely don’t show my fun side—I’m wondering what Remy’s doing now. Is she curled up on her couch alone? Drowning her sorrows with friends? Torching the jackass’s things? That thought brings a sinister smile to my face.
But as I walk back to the locker room, post-media scrum, I spot a brunette in a Golden State Foxes ball cap and hoodie at the end of the corridor, head down as she counts a basket full of stuffed animals.
She’s…working.
That’s just not right.
I march right over to her. When she looks up, she squares her shoulders and adopts a smile, but her face is paler than before, like she’s washed off her makeup or something. Because that fucknozzle made her cry.
“Do you need a tissue?” I don’t have one, but I’ll find one.
But it’s like she didn’t hear me. She just turns up the wattage on her grin. “Hey, I didn’t know you were going to show off your stick skills tonight.”
Hmm. Didn’t expect a peppy response. “I didn’t either.” I narrow my eyes, trying to figure out how she’s really doing. “Are you okay?”
“Of course.” She pushes up the brim of the hat as if to show that she’s absolutely, definitely, totally fine. “Also, thank you—I’m so grateful. You were very helpful with your attention stealing.”
I call bullshit on her “fine” act. “You sure you’re okay?”
“Of course. I’m just sorry that you had to deal with that. I feel bad that my whole situation ruined the fox toss for you.”
That’s a deflection if I ever saw one. “I’m all good. I was asking about you.”
She waves a hand, like she can dismiss the whole night. “It might have been worse if you hadn’t stepped in.” Her tone is bright, with the no-big-deal-ness of, say, getting the wrong order at a coffee shop. “The Jumbotron operator probably didn’t realize what was happening. I guess it seemed like a real—”
She can’t utter the last word, but I can do the math—one ring box plus a Jumbotron screening equals proposal. Instead of finishing the sentence, she looks down at the basket full of stuffies. “I should go home,” she whispers.
Her quiet voice twists something in my cold heart. I can’t fix the night for her. But I can offer some small crumb of help. “Do you need a ride?”
The way I want her to say yes is a little ridiculous. Or, really, a lot.
3
HIS STICK SKILLS
REMY
Do I need a ride?
Such a simple, practical question. The same one my friends asked when they texted post-Jumbotron Dump. Did I need a place to crash, someone to hang out with, burn effigies with, binge noodles with—anything?