Chapter Thirteen
Monroe
I’m in the middle of scrubbing the floor outside of the women’s locker room when I see Elsie’s shoes walk up beside me. Her perfectly white sneakers stop directly in front of me.
“Come to check in on my janitorial duties?” I grit out. It’s the end of my first full month of work and I’ve been coming in earlier and earlier so I can avoid the skaters.
“Get up, Mo.” Her gruff voice carries down to the floor I’m still level with. I push myself up onto my knees, then stand, dusting off my leggings.
“I’m trying to get out of here before six, Elsie.”
“I know what you’re trying to do. Shut up while I’m talking, would you?” I roll my eyes and glare at her. She exhales a breath. “I wanted to tell you I’m glad you’re back on the ice.”
I freeze. “Who told you?”
“Nobody had to tell me, you dimwit,” she says. “I’ve got security cameras all over this place. Your key card alerts me every time you open the damn door at eleven at night.” Oh. Shit.
“I’m sorry. I should have asked if I could use the rink that late.”
“You know damn well I don’t care about you using the rink. This is a good thing,” she says, softer this time. I hate it.
“Okay, well, then why does it feel like I’m in trouble right now?”
“I also know when McKnight comes in.” Oh. Shit. Again.
“And?” The snark in my response is heavy.
“Rhodes is a good kid.” She doesn’t elaborate.
“Okaaay,” I respond, not following where she’s going with this.
“I’m happy for you…if you’re spending time with him.” Elsie looks physically pained by this interaction.
“Oh my God, Elsie, there’s nothing going on between us.” Lie. But the last thing I need is her telling my dad that Rhodes and I have some kind of thing happening.
“Mm-hmm,” she grunts. “Anyways. That’s all I wanted to say.” That’s about as sentimental as I’ve ever heard her.
“Thank you, I think?”
“All right,” she finishes. Thank God. “Go home, Mo.”
“I’m not finish—” I start.
“Focus on getting ready for the clinic. I don’t want you scrubbing my floors anymore. Your dad thinks it’s character-building.” She shakes her head. “Go home, work on your school stuff and get ready for the clinic.”
I exhale a heavy sigh and nod. At least I don’t have to clean toilets anymore.
It’s not even six a.m. when I make it back to my Jeep.
And though I have been practicing getting more comfortable on the ice again, I’ve been putting off planning my clinic.
I used to build these in my sleep, but I’m out of practice—and out of touch with the version of myself who used to live for this kind of thing.
In a few weeks, there will be twenty-four ice skating hopefuls on the ice, waiting for Rhodes and me to lead them.
And I’ll be out there trying like hell not to embarrass myself. Thank God Elsie gave me the youngest group this time around, because I definitely don’t feel confident teaching an advanced class. This group will have very little ice experience, and I barely feel qualified to teach that.
The pit in my stomach grows at the thought.
When I get back to my apartment, I drop onto the couch and open my laptop. My old lesson plans are still pulled up from earlier, the titles staring at me like a challenge.
“Precision, Power )
Monroe (8:15am): you truly are insufferable.
Monroe (8:17am): also not everything is about you, McKnight. Elsie doesn’t have me on morning janitorial duty anymore.
I watch his little text bubbles pop up and disappear for a few seconds before my phone is actually ringing. Rhodes McKnight lights up my screen.
I groan, but decide to answer it.
“Access to me via text message isn’t enough?” I snap. “Now you have to call me too?”
A low chuckle filters through the speaker, deep and infuriatingly smug, curling low in my stomach in a way I refuse to acknowledge.
“Good morning to you too, sweetheart.”
“Quit calling me that.”
He ignores me completely and continues talking.
“What are you doing right now?”
I glare at my laptop. “Aside from being spectacularly annoyed at the Wolverines’ idiot captain?”
“Yes, Monroe,” he says patiently. “Aside from that.”
I hesitate into the receiver.
“Staring at my past clinic lesson plans.”
“And how’s that going for you?”
To lie or be honest? I decide in a split second.
“Poorly,” I say. “I can’t perform any of the skills I need to pull this clinic off.”
The silence stretches for a second, and I can hear him thinking. I immediately regret the fact that I said anything at all. I should have just lied.
Then his voice comes through, smooth and unmovable. “Do you have class today?”
“Uh,” I stumble over the unanticipated question. “Not today, no. Just homework.”
“Okay, I’m breaking you out. Text me your address.”
I blink. “What?”
“You need to clear your head before you look at lesson plans that a future Olympian wrote,” he says, as if this were obvious. “And then you need to start from scratch.”
My stomach twists. A sharp pang in my chest. “That future Olympian used to be me,” I mutter.
“I know, Abrams,” he says softly. “Put your shoes on. I’ll see you in ten.”
He hangs up on me and I stare at my phone. At the open text thread. My fingers hover over the keyboard.
I could just…not text him. If I don’t send him my address, he can’t come get me.
Instead, I type it out and hit send before I can chicken out.