Chapter 2 #3
Inside the Range Rover, the heater blasts. She buckles in and immediately turns toward the window. The silence between us suddenly has mass and density.
I try: “So. Thrillers.”
“Yep.”
“How long have you been—”
“A while.”
“Cool.” Can’t say I didn’t try.
The windshield wipers scrape over a patch of stubborn frost. I can hear myself breathing, which means she can too, and I am now self-conscious about how I breathe, which is a new personal low.
“Nice car,” she offers, in the tone of a hostage complimenting the decor.
“Thanks. I bought it with all the money I get being overpaid to chase a rubber disk.” I wait for a chuckle. A hoot. Anything.
Silence.
Then, with what I can only describe as cosmically designed comedic timing, both our stomachs growl.
Not a delicate rumble. A full symphonic declaration of neglect. Hers first—a low, rolling thunder. Then mine—a reverberation you can almost feel through the floor of the car.
I clamp my jaw. Stare straight ahead.
Her stomach growls again.
And…I just…break.
I let out a snort. Then a laugh I can’t swallow.
She breaks second. That reluctant, traitorous sound—more breath than voice—like her sense of humor staged a coup against her dignity.
I spare a glance in her direction. “When’s the last time you ate?”
She shoots me a look, one brow raised. Cool. Sharp. But not biting. “I stocked up on mini quiches.”
Right. I flip on my blinker. “I know a place. Best cookies in Minneapolis. Ten minutes from—”
“No.”
One word. Clean. Final. A door not just closing but deadbolting and pulling a dresser against itself.
“It’s just cookies. I’m not proposing—”
“I said no.” She turns from the window. Those green eyes hit me like a check into the boards—not angry. Certain. “Coach asked you to drive me home. Home. Not cookies. Just home.”
And there it is.
Something old and familiar slides into place behind my ribs—the click of a lock engaging. The blue line. The boundary. The place where you stop letting people in, because letting people in is just giving them a head start on leaving.
“Sure.” Flat. Neutral. The media-trained, postgame voice I use when someone asks about the doping scandal and I have to smile and say I’m focused on moving forward. “Whatever you want.”
I flip the blinker off again.
Minutes pass, the streetlights pouring through the windows in stifling silence. She doesn’t want to talk, that’s fine.
We roll to a stop as I pull up to her place, and I let out a breath. Wow.
This is no apartment. It’s a storybook Tudor in the Lakes district—white stucco, steep slate roof, tall windows framed with exposed stonework.
This is not the home of a woman who needs someone to buy her cookies.
This is the home of a woman who has built something.
Who said no from a position of absolute, self-sufficient certainty.
What did I expect? That she was a damsel in distress?
She unbuckles. Reaches for the handle. Pauses. “Thanks for the ride.” Quiet. Careful.
“Yep.”
Another pause. Her lips part, gaze dropping to her hands as though fighting her indecision. Whatever she’s about to say, she doesn’t say it. She opens the door, steps into the snow, and shuts it behind her without looking back.
I drive home, not sure why I feel like a villain.
The apartment is dark, the silver city lights pouring into the shadowed hall from the massive floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room farther down. I drop my keys in a hollow bowl by the door as my apartment invites me in, the lights exhaling into lamps throughout.
My jacket smells like her—the voice from the elevator. It has to be. I’m losing my mind.
I trudge down the hall, and the living room sprawls out like the pages of a well-thumbed book. My safe harbor. Bookshelves line exposed-brick walls, groaning under the weight of my library, and in front, a worn leather sofa sags in the middle, waiting for me.
My feet scrape over the shabby rug, purchased my rookie year in the NHL, back when I barely had two cents to rub together. My knees hit the couch, and I let myself fall into it, face first.
Oh couch, how I missed you.
I let my muscles relax, one at a time, into the cushions, begging for rest after an exhausting day of smiling and handshaking. And elevators. And Everly.
My eyes snap open. Everly. I can’t unsee her now. She hasn’t changed, not really. Even with her new look. Her success. She’s still…
Something in my chest hollows out.
I sit up, my eyes traveling over the messy coffee table, searching for a pen and paper.
Because Sutton Blake is the only person who has never slammed a door in my face.
Dear Sutton,
I met two women tonight. One was a voice in the dark who told me everyone deserves a second chance. The other was a woman I’ve spent seventeen years being wrong about—or maybe seventeen years being right about. I can’t tell anymore.
The thing is, she treated me just the way I always thought she would. And I’m not sure I blame her. So I don’t know why that broke something in me, except maybe that I think I’d started to hope, and hope is the most dangerous thing I’ve ever carried.
I keep thinking there’s a version of my life where I’m not always on the wrong side of the glass. Where I don’t manage to screw everything up. Your books make me believe that version exists. Your letters make me believe I might deserve it.
Write back. Please.
—B.B.