Chapter 17 #2
“Anyway,” Riley says. “Look at it this way, you’ve already made one huge, life-altering decision to try to go to the Olympics, and you still have a really good shot to do it.”
It’s super clear she’s not talking about me with that last part.
“Hey, so do you! It’s four years until the Games. You’re going to come back stronger than ever.”
“Maybe,” she says, picking at the worn cotton of the hospital blanket. “But I can’t ask Freddie to sit out a year and wait for me. It’s not fair.”
“Did you talk to him about it?” I ask softly.
“No,” she says, and there are tears welling in her eyes.
Reaching out, I grab her hand and squeeze it as the first tears start to fall. “Talk to him about it. Trust me. He might surprise you. In fact, I’m pretty sure he will.” I know he will, he did for me. He’ll do it for her too.
“But it’s not fair to him.” One tear falls and then another.
“Let him be the judge of that,” I say, and she nods, squeezing back and then letting go to wipe at her face.
“Here,” Ben says, reaching over and handing her a box of tissues.
“I’m such a mess,” she says, laughing through the tears.
“You have a pretty decent excuse,” I joke.
“I guess so,” she agrees, laughing harder, but then the tears win out. “I don’t know how I’m going to do this.” She tries to muffle the sobs with the edge of her blanket, but it doesn’t do much good.
I move toward the head of the bed to hug her, but Ben’s ahead of me, an arm around her shoulder, pulling her into him and making soft hushing noises. He gets it. Just over a year ago he was in a hospital bed like this one. He’ll know what to say to Riley when she’s all cried out.
A throat clears from the doorway. “Uh, everything okay?” Freddie asks, walking into the room with a cardboard tray of fruit and a couple bottles of water. Smoothly, he drops it all on the table at the center of the room before stepping gingerly toward the bed.
Riley makes some kind of noise in the back of her throat, but Ben shakes his head and eyes Freddie with clear meaning, a silent conversation between bros.
And its meaning becomes clear as soon as Ben speaks.
“Could you two give us the room? I need to talk to Riley in private, ACL patient to ACL patient.”
“Uh, yeah, I was going to head back to the hotel anyway,” I say, biting my lip. “I have some stuff I need to take care of.” I don’t, but it’s an easy excuse.
“It’s pouring outside,” Freddie says, moving over to the table. He grabs an umbrella and holds it out to me. “Take this. I walked over here earlier.”
“But then you’ll get soaked on the way back,” I say, shaking my head, trying to clear it. We haven’t talked since he released me from that hug, and it shouldn’t be weird, but it is. It’s so polite and awkward and weird and I hate it.
“Please,” he says, practically pushing it into my hands. “I don’t mind the rain.”
“Or here’s an idea, you two could just walk together, umbrella looks big enough for two.”
“Shut up, Ben,” Freddie snaps at his best friend, but then bites his lip when his eyes land on Riley again.
Ben snorts, sending him a rude gesture with his fingers. “Shutting up. Now get out.”
And then we’re out in the fluorescent glow of the hospital hallway, staring at the closed door.
“I guess we should,” Freddie says, gesturing down the hall to the elevators.
“Yeah.”
We head outside and he was right. It’s pouring, way harder than it was when we left the arena, but the hotel is only a few blocks away and there’s something that feels new and extremely grown-up about walking down a Paris street, cafés and shops on one side, the Seine on the other, blending in with the city.
To the people we pass, we probably look like a couple, huddled under the same umbrella, walking with purpose in, well, at least not completely awkward silence.
The walk is a short one and we jog up the steps to the hotel, where a doorman holds the door open.
“Bienvenue,” he says, nodding to us as we pass by. Freddie closes the umbrella and holds it out dripping on the spotless marble floor and I smile apologetically at the doorman, but he waves us away and we head for the elevators.
We’re on the same floor and the tinkling music in the elevator is the only sound as we rise up.
His room is a couple of doors into the hallway and I’m farther down.
“Thanks for not letting me get soaked,” I say when he stops at his door.
“Anytime,” he says, shooting me a grin before I turn and head to my own room.
I pass the key over the scanner and the door clicks open. It’s pitch-black inside, curtains drawn, lights out. There’s a Maria-shaped lump in the center of her bed; she and Charlie probably just got finished with training for the day. She always naps after practice.
In fact, a nap seems like a really good idea. I pass a mirror on the way to the bed and grimace. My hair might be a lost cause. The rain barely touched it, but the moisture in the air was enough to make my curls a puffy mess.
I pull the bulk of it into my hands and twist it around into a ballet bun, keeping it loose enough that it doesn’t look like a poop emoji on the top of my head, which has definitely happened more than once.
A few pieces fall out the back of it and my bangs aren’t quite long enough to pull back, so they frame my face nicely.
Not that it matters. I’m going to curl up with some French TV show I don’t understand and let myself drift away.
There’s a knock at the door. I bet Maria ordered room service, forgot, and then fell asleep. I don’t even check the peephole before opening the door.
“Freddie?”
“Yeah,” he says, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. “I know you said you had some stuff to do, but I thought maybe—”
“Maybe?” I prompt when he stops talking to just look at me.
“Right. I thought maybe that instead”—he hesitates before saying in a rush—“what are the odds you want to get out of here, go somewhere?”
“Me and you?”
“Yeah,” he says finally, holding out his hand, ready to shoot for it.
I shake my head instead, smile, and grab my bag. “Even odds. Let’s go.”