Chapter 10 #2
He ignored her protest. “You think you’re so tough, but you’re an open book. The kind with a soft, flexible cover.”
What did that even mean? She burst out with a high-pitched “Ha!” They stared each other down for a beat, two beats. As the crackling in the air ramped up, so did the prickliness in her fingers.
She caved first. “If that’s the case, then what am I thinking right now?”
“You’re thinking you’re grateful I’m here because Trevor is a creep, and just the mention of his name has you putting up every defensive shield. I mean, look at your arms! You’ve got them wound so tightly around yourself they could be a straitjacket.”
With an awkward shake, she loosened her arms and let them dangle at her sides. Showed him. Vulnerability swamped her, leaving her exposed and more on edge than before. “For your information, I haven’t given Trevor a thought until you brought him up just now.”
Sam advanced, his movements smooth yet threatening as he bumped against her personal bubble. His presence filled her space, her lungs, and she couldn’t breathe. “No? Maybe you should think about him.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because you need to stay alert. He could be stalking you.”
“I could say the same about you. You’re the one breaking into my office. You’re the one standing here. Not Trevor.”
Amusement danced in his eyes, and his eyebrows lifted right along with the corners of his mouth.
“You think I’m stalking you?” Virtually and physically backed into a corner, she kept her mouth closed for fear the wrong thing would come out.
No point in giving him more ammo. “So tell me, Rossi, what were you thinking? Was I close?”
She swallowed and lifted her chin. “Thought you could read my mind.”
“I can. And I do think you’re grateful I’m here.
And now you’re thinking you wish we were friends again.
” She was about to deny—a knee-jerk reaction—when he softly added, “I know I do. I’ve missed talking to you, Ange.
” His gaze fastening on hers, he stepped to her side, and relief eased her tautened muscles. She could breathe again.
Going for casual, she scooted onto the edge of her desk and nearly slipped off in the process.
“You’ve missed talking to me? Why? Because you can’t just run to me whenever you need someone’s shoulder to cry on, like you did when Brianna broke up with you?
” Bitterness she hadn’t intended wove through her words.
Harsh, Ange. But she needed distance from this man because her control was strained to a breaking point.
The elephant was rattling its cage again, trying to come out in the open.
Sam took a seat on the edge of the table across from her and loosened his tie, regarding her as though she were an interesting bug he planned to study. “I didn’t come here for sympathy tonight, and I didn’t come to you for sympathy that night either.”
Then why did you come to me? Unsure she was ready for the answer, she took a different tack. “You were crushed when she walked out. Four years is a long time to be part of someone’s life.”
“Not really, if you add up the times we actually were together. I was gone a lot. I didn’t see her much, and she was more of an illusion I’d built up in my mind. Funny, but when I would tell my buddies about her, it was only about her looks.”
“Well, duh, because she was gorgeous. You’ve admitted that’s why you were attracted to her.” He opened his mouth, and Angie thought he might balk. She held up her hand. “I’m not judging. You were an immature teenager.”
“No doubt.”
“We all were,” she rushed to add.
He let out a mirthless chuckle. “Some more than others. As for being crushed, it was only my ego. I’d seen the writing on the wall for a while. Hell, I think I saw it the first time we went out.”
Absently, he scratched the side of his clean-shaven jaw. Did she prefer him this way or with that sexy stubble? He looked good both ways.
Stop! Thank God he couldn’t read her thoughts.
He lined up the tails of his tie. “Looks can be important, but they’re also overrated.
You know how you meet someone and you think they’re attractive, but the more you get to know them, the more flaws you see?
” Angie gave him an encouraging nod. “That was Brianna for me. And even as dumb as I was back then, I knew from the beginning it wouldn’t last. I was traveling a lot, and I knew exactly what Brianna was after because she talked about it. All. The. Time.
“It worked for a while because I liked the idea of having a steady at home, and she could tell everyone her boyfriend was a hockey player headed to the NHL and a fat bank account. She finally got tired of waiting around for that big moment, and that’s when she decided I wasn’t worth it and chased someone who looked like a bigger paycheck. ”
Angie sagged against her desk as her twisted emotions unfurled a fraction. “Do you regret dating her?”
“That’s an interesting question.” Now he slid the tie from its knot, pulling the loop over his head and stuffing the thing into his jacket pocket.
His navy blues regarded her, and she found it hard to focus her attention elsewhere.
“If I hadn’t dated her, I wouldn’t have gotten to know you.
Know what really bothered me about that whole thing? ”
Angie shook her head, afraid to speak.
“Breaking up with her meant I broke up with you too, in a way. Like, we couldn’t be friends anymore.”
The surprise train just kept chugging at her.
“Sam, of course we could have been friends. We were friends. Isn’t that why you came to me that night?” she blurted out.
He shook his head. “No, Angie. That attraction thing I was just talking about. It works the other way too. You meet someone and they don’t grab you at first, but as you get to know them, they transform into someone beautiful …
like you.” The look in his eyes told her this was no joke.
“I didn’t come to you that night for sympathy.
I came to you because I figured I could finally go after the girl I really liked. ”
“What?” Her voice came out as a raspy choke.
“Yeah, I know. Makes me an asshole for dating one girl but really wanting to be with her best friend. I didn’t realize it for a long time because I had so many plates spinning in the air.
Plus, I didn’t want to admit it, but Brianna saw it.
She accused me of it once. I’m not proud of feeling that way, but I never acted on it …
until that night when you came to my game in San Jose.
You were going to school out there. Remember that? ”
Seriously? How could she forget?
Angie had needed an escape from their Minnesota hometown, so she’d pursued her education in sunny California.
“Of course I remember.” Best night of her life—until it was the worst.
“But then I got a text that told me to report to the Blizzard’s AHL team, the Hawks, that I was being called up,” he continued.
“And you left.”
“I left.”
“Without a word.”
“Yeah.” He stroked his curls as if trying to tame them, but they stubbornly sprang up again.
“That was a shit thing to do to anyone, let alone you. I had all kinds of excuses at the time, but that’s all they were.
Excuses. To this day, I’m not sure why I cut you out of my life like that.
Maybe I was afraid I couldn’t have both you and hockey, you know? ”
“And hockey was number one,” she murmured.
The movement was tiny, but he flinched. “Yeah, it was. I kept thinking of all the people who worked their asses off and sacrificed to get me to that point. My dad, my mom, my coaches. I didn’t want to fail them, if that makes sense.”
“What about those times I texted you to see how you were doing? You could have at least said, ‘Hey, I’m alive!’ Instead, you ghosted me.”
He pointed at her phone beside her paperwork.
“Notice I’m not calling from the same number?
That’s because I lost my phone somewhere between San Jose and reporting for my AHL debut.
When I arrived, it was a whirlwind, and when they found out I’d lost my phone, they got me a new one with a new number.
Said I was better off not hanging on to the old one because people might stalk me.
I was only supposed to give that new number out to close friends and family. ”
While his answer made sense, it stung like rock salt being mashed into her old wound. “And I didn’t make the list.” A statement, not a question. “What was all that BS about us being such good buds?”
His gaze slid away for an instant before coming back to rest on hers.
Pain turned them a shade of blue that reminded her of the trough of a turbulent ocean wave.
“You should have made the list. I’ve thought about it a lot these last few weeks, and I came to the conclusion that I was scared you’d be too big a distraction, just like my coaches warned me you would. ”
“Your … coaches warned you against me?”
“My minors coaches, and not you specifically. They constantly told us not to get involved in anything that competed with hockey. ‘This is your big chance. Nothing else matters.’ That kind of stuff. The head coach even badgered some of the guys into dropping their girls if they wanted to make it to the NHL.” Sam pushed out a lung-deflating sigh.
“I could see myself wanting to hang out with you and losing sight of what I’d been chasing for so long, so I bought into what he said.
I didn’t want to get derailed from my dream—not that you or anything you did would derail me on purpose, but if anyone could have done it, it was you.
I know that sounds shitty, but avoiding you was more about me worrying I’d get so wrapped up in you that nothing else mattered.
That’s the truth. Welcome to my twenty-year-old mind,” he huffed.
“Angie, I am so, so sorry I hurt you. I shouldn’t have run out like that.
If I’d understood myself better back then, I could have explained it to you, and we could have stayed friends until … ”
“Until?”
“I don’t know. Until we were older, more established, like we are now. And maybe we could have picked it up again.”
Regret shimmered in his eyes right alongside the truth of his confession.
The resentment she’d been lugging around for the past six years suddenly crystallized and crumbled.
Could he have handled it better? Absolutely.
Had he hurt her? Yes, he had wounded her deeply.
Could she find the grace to forgive him?
Maybe she could. He’d only been twenty. Neither of them had possessed high adulting skills in their arsenals back then.
In the end, it hadn’t been about him rejecting her; it had been about him staying hyperfocused on the prize.
And she had been that odd scene that didn’t fit in his story.
“And now?” she ventured.
“Now? I’d like to think I’m older and wiser, but hockey is still number one.”
“Or not. It sounded the other night like your father and brother are your number one.”
“And therefore hockey is,” he tossed back.
“And once more, I ask you what you’ll do when there is no more hockey.
Even if you climb to the top, your body will give out one day, and you’ll have to stop, even though your mind might still be willing.
Tell me, Sam, if you won the lottery tomorrow or a genie appeared and wiped away every last one of your financial worries, would you still want to play hockey? ”