Chapter 24 #2
She nods once, like she understands why that might’ve been my first instinct.
But she’s still watching me closely.
“But it didn’t stop,” I say. “And one day I lost it. Practice had ended, and I saw him push the kid into the boards from behind. Unprovoked. Just mean. I snapped.”
I can still feel the sharp echo of my skates cutting across the ice. The way my fists found that asshole’s collar and slammed him into the glass.
“It turned into a full-blown fight. I didn’t just throw a punch—I beat his ass. Told the team exactly what he’d been doing and dared anyone to defend it.”
Sloane’s face shifts. Not shock. Something closer to admiration flickering under control.
“They suspended me. Called it ‘conduct unbecoming.’” My voice turns flat. “The official line was that I’d attacked a teammate and violated team code. They never investigated the reason. Never made a statement about the rookie. Just buried it. Quiet. Clean.”
“And then they didn’t pick up your option.”
I shake my head. “Nope.
“What happened to the kid?”
I shake my head with a bitter chuckle. “They were going to keep him on. Even with all the bullying. But he asked for a trade and evidently got it. It was kept quiet too.”
“And the vet?”
“Still on the team. Still getting praise.”
She blinks. “Jesus. It’s Joshua Leonard, isn’t it?”
I take a bite of steak and nod, not trusting myself to speak.
“Ugh.” She flops back in her chair. “I’ve always hated that guy. He’s the only player in the league that my father and I agreed was the most overrated player to set foot on ice. Of course, Dean wanted him on the team last year for our inaugural year.”
Dean’s a fucking asshole, but I don’t say that aloud.
I tilt my head. “I have to admit, a lot of things I’ve heard about your father haven’t been positive, but that’s nice to hear. My father would’ve sided with the prick.”
She raises a brow. “Seriously?”
“Oh yeah.” I pause a moment, deciding how much I want to reveal to her.
Because once I do, she may leave and never come back.
I take a chance anyway because I need her to understand.
“My father was just like Josh. A bully who loved to pick on the weak, kicking them while they’re down.”
When she doesn’t say anything, I keep going. “On one hand, I have to thank the bastard. If I hadn’t wanted to stay out of the house so much when he drank, I wouldn’t be the player I am today.”
I blow out a breath. “On the other hand, he also gave me his temper, and I have to fight it every day. Because when I don’t—like during the fight with Josh—it costs me.”
Sloane lays a hand over mine. “Hey, we all get some of our parents worst traits. But listen to me…”
She stops talking, waiting for me to look at her.
And when I do, I know I’m in way over my head with this woman. “Yeah?”
“I’m not running, Maddox.”
“I’m beginning to see that.”
We hold the stare for a few beats longer.
Sloane Carrington isn’t like any other woman I’ve ever known. She’s wise beyond her twenty-eight years, and that scares the shit out of me.
With her, I forget the years between us, and she makes me…want.
Everything. With her.
Finally, she pulls her hand away, picking up her wine glass. “Have you talked to the kid since then?”
I’m glad one of us can fucking speak. I’m having trouble finding my voice. Where the hell did that come from?
I clear my throat before I can speak. “No. Last I heard, he’s overseas and playing well.” I turn my head and look out the wall of windows in the living room. “You know one of the worst parts of the deal?”
“What’s that?”
I look back at her, meeting her gaze. “I didn’t defend the kid for a thank you. But after the incident, he refused to speak to me. Like I’d been the one to bully him.”
She pursues her lips. “Do you know why?”
“Nope. And I didn’t ask.” I push my plate away, most of my appetite vanishing. “I thought it was better off that way, especially given the fact I’d been suspended.”
We’re quiet a moment before my eyes meet hers, my hands loose on the edge of the counter. “So, yeah. When people say I’m hard to work with, they’re not wrong. I just don’t back down when it matters. And for me, that situation mattered.”
Sloane shakes her head, her voice soft but fierce. “You did the right thing. You protected someone when no one else would.”
“That’s not what the media said.”
“You really care what they say?”
I pause. “Not until it started costing me teams. Then, yeah. It got to me.”
There’s a flicker of something in her eyes, but it’s gone so quickly, I think I imagined it.
She gets up and crosses around the island to stand in front of me. I expect her to touch me, but she doesn’t. She just looks me dead in the eye.
“Thank you for telling me.” She glances toward the portfolio again before looking back at me. “And thank you for sharing your drawings with me.”
I swallow, throat tight. “You still think I’m a risk?”
She lifts a shoulder. “Sure. But now I think I’m the one who should be protecting you.”
A laugh huffs out of me.
She doesn’t say anything at first. Just slides her fingers over mine—light, soft, no pressure to speak.
I don’t deserve her comfort, but I take it anyway.
When I finally look up, she’s watching me. Not with pity. Just knowing.
“You always carry that much weight around?” she asks.
“Only on good days.”
She chuckles quietly and sits back down.
“So I told you a story. Time to tell me one.”
She nods once. “Fair. What do you want to know?”
“That day you wrapped my shoulder, you said you skated competitively. Tell me about it.”
She draws in a breath, tucks her long legs up beneath her.
“I started figure skating competitively when I was seven years old.”
“You started young.”
Her gaze drops to her almost empty plate. “My mother died the year before, and my father said I needed something to do. So he hired the best coach around and got me out on the ice.”
When she stops to drain her wine glass, I want to reach out. I know what it’s like to lose your mom as a kid, though I can’t imagine being just a small child.
Before I can say anything, she continues.
“So I did as my father wanted and threw myself into skating. By the time I hit sixteen, I was ranked top five in the southeast. Nationals. Junior Olympic qualifiers. It was my whole life.”
I blink. “Seriously?”
She nods. “Dead serious. Had the routines memorized, the costumes stitched, the whole damn schedule taped to my mirror.”
“So why’d you stop?” I ask, already knowing I won’t like the answer.
She doesn’t meet my eyes this time. “When I failed to make the Olympic team the second time, my father fired my coach and said I needed to do something I wasn’t a failure at.
And since I was his only child—his legacy as he always loved to remind me—that meant I went into business with him. So that was that.”
My jaw tightens, and I can’t help but think I’m glad I’ll never have to meet the man. “And you just…quit?”
“Didn’t have a choice. I buried it. Went to school, learned the business, and became who he wanted me to be.”
I let the silence stretch between us, let the weight of that settle. Because I know what it’s like to be shaped by someone else’s hands. To carry a version of yourself around that doesn’t feel like yours.
And hate every minute of it.
“You still skate?” I ask quietly.
“Sometimes.” She smiles, but there’s something wistful underneath. “When no one’s around. Late nights at the practice rink.”
Fuck.
That image hits hard—her out there under the dim lights, alone on the ice, chasing ghosts and memories.
“You ever let anyone watch?”
She shakes her head. “Never.”
I don’t know why that gets to me the way it does, but it does. Like she’s offering me a piece of herself no one else gets.
I clear my throat. “How’ bout a race?”
Her eyebrows shoot up. “You’re kidding.”
I shrug. “Let’s see if you still got it, Carrington.”
She laughs—bright and unexpected—and it punches through the quiet like sunlight.
“If you lose,” I add, “you’re watching Slap Shot with me. No complaints.”
“And if you lose?” she fires back.
“I won’t.”
She narrows her eyes. “Cocky much?”
“Only when I’m right.”
She stands and starts to clean up, but I stop her. “Leave it for now. I want to see you skate.”
Her eyes are lit up, a fiery green competitive gleam in them. “Meet me at the rink. And prepare to eat ice.”
When she looks like that, I’d rather eat her, but I’m the one who made the no sex rule tonight.
What the fuck was I thinking?
So, instead, I follow her out, grinning like a fucking idiot the whole way.