Love on Ice (Manhattan Mavericks #1)

36. Felix

36

FELIX

“ I ’ve fallen for you, too, please be patient.” I play those words back through my mind. I’m not proud of myself for pretending to be asleep when she came in, but I was mortified by laying my heart on the line and her rejecting it, or so I thought. I don’t know if she is going to remember saying it this morning, but her request to be patient with her I’m going to respect. She knows how I feel. I’m not going to push the subject again, I just have to be patient. What is a week or a month to wait for the woman you love? It’s nothing compared to the lifetime you will have together.

I’ll wait.

The weekend in The Hamptons was fantastic. Harper never brought up what was discussed on the beach, and I never brought up what she whispered to me in the middle of the night. We had such a great weekend with a great bunch of people. I continued to show Harper that I was model boyfriend material, and I could feel her giving in a little. Maybe it helped that I let her whip my ass at tennis again. When we got back to the city we fell into our natural flow for the last couple of weeks until now.

The summer is up, and I head out of the city to training camp for the next three weeks. Tonight, I am moving in with my brother, into his flat. Most of my stuff went during the day while she was at work.

“This is it then, I guess,” Harper says as she nervously chews her fingernail.

“The summer is over. All my things have been moved to my brother’s and tomorrow I head to camp,” I tell her. “Come here.” I pull her into my arms and hug her tightly, her arms shoot out and wrap themselves around me as she holds on to me just as tightly. “My feelings for you haven’t changed.” Harper gasps, it’s the first time I’ve acknowledged what was said in The Hamptons. She pulls away and looks at me, tears are already rolling down her cheeks. “I’m not going to contact you while I’m gone, I want to give you some space to work out if you’re willing to give me a chance.”

“Felix.”

I shake my head. “I’ll respect your decision if you don’t want to keep dating me, and I’m happy to still be friends, maybe with some benefits,” I tease as I lean in and kiss the tears from her cheeks.

“I’m going to miss you,” she stutters through her shaking breath.

“I’m going to miss you, too, princess, but it’s for the best.” I lean in and kiss her softly. She deepens the kiss, and I let her. I want to savor as much as I can of her because three weeks of her not being in my life is going to suck. I have faith in what we have. Don’t they say distance makes the heart grow fonder? Or let her go, and if she comes back, it’s meant to be or some bullshit like that. I’m letting her go for now, but I will be coming back for her. She doesn’t really have a choice, but I’m hoping she makes the right one anyway.

“My Uber is here,” I tell her. I ordered one on purpose, knowing I wouldn’t be able to drag myself away from her otherwise.

“Okay.” She sniffles before she hugs me again. “Thank you for putting me back together again.”

“Same goes for you,” I tell her as I reluctantly peel myself from her arms. I give her one last wave from the front door and my heart breaks seeing her tears, but I need her to realize that there is no one else for her other than me and stop being so fucking stubborn. She needs to get over her hang-ups over our age difference, too.

I step foot into the apartment, and Frankston greets me with a slobbery kiss. I try and keep the tears in but it feels like I’ve left something behind. Your heart. Harper has your heart. I hug Frankston and he licks away my tears.

“Fuck, man, I’m sorry,” Pierre says as he walks down the hallway and sees me. He walks up to me, pulls me into a giant bear hug, and crushes me.

“I love her,” I confess to him.

“I know, man, I know,” he says, thumping me on the back with his hand. “She’ll come around, I’m sure of it,” he tells me. “Come on, let’s have our last beer before hell starts.” We walk toward the kitchen, and he hands me a beer. “Look, I haven’t been around Harper in years, but I do remember the guys always calling her ice queen because she always kept her cards close to her chest. I’m guessing from the stories I heard in The Hampton’s about her dating history that her friends have teased her about that. She’s dated a lot of assholes, and the latest ex who seems crazy. She’s skittish about relationships.”

“Yeah, you could say that,” I answer, sipping my beer.

“There’s nothing more you can do. You showed her who you are, now it’s up to her to work out what she wants,” he explains.

“I’m just hoping it’s me.”

“I have faith. You two look good together.” Then he shudders. “The thought that Harper Rose could be my sister-in-law gives me the creeps.”

That makes me chuckle. “How are things with Issy?”

“Yeah, we’re not talking about that,” he says, shutting me right down.

“If it’s not the Princes of Quebec,” Emmett Black, the captain of The Mavericks says, greeting us as we turn up to training camp. “Not sure what it’s like back in your old teams, but no one is a superstar in this team. We work as one and share the glory equally,” he warns us both. “I don’t have time for divas.”

“I can assure you, that’s not us. We just want to play and win,” my brother tells him.

Emmett glares at us. He’s trying to work us out, which is understandable as we are the new guys joining the team, and it’s always hard bringing in new people to an already working dynamic.

“Any grudges get settled on the ice. I won’t tolerate off-ice drama, and neither will Coach Anderson.”

“Understood, I think my brother and I have had enough drama for a lifetime,” my brother says.

“We also don’t tolerate teammates messing around with other teammates’ partners, know that,” he assures us. We both nod in understanding at him. “Right, well, I guess welcome to hell, boys.” He chuckles.

And it was hell.

I thought I had been keeping up with my fitness during the summer, but fuck me, Coach Anderson is working us hard, or maybe they are hazing my brother and me to see what we are made of. All in all, it’s a great start to training camp. I’m thankful they work us so hard so I can push the ache away of not walking Harper to work. The thoughts of wondering what she is up to. How her day is going. I don’t have time for any of that as each night my brother and I collapse into our beds exhausted.