Chapter 67
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
SOPHIE
The problem with public gestures is that you can’t pretend they didn’t happen. You can’t just go home, throw on your pyjamas, and erase the memory with wine and re-runs of your favourite show. Not when you’ve got Ollie skating holding a sign that says
“SOPHIE, DON’T MAKE US ADOPT HIM.”
I’m still in my seat. Still stunned. Still blinking under the blinding rink lights like I’m in some kind of fever dream.
Mia leans toward me, elbow digging lightly into my ribs. “Say something.”
“Like what?” I mutter. “Nice choreography? Great use of signage?”
She smirks. “How about the fact he just confessed his undying love to you in front of, what, four thousand people? And a televised broadcast?”
I shoot her a look. My heart’s doing somersaults, but my face refuses to admit it.
“Bit dramatic, don’t you think?”
Mia raises an eyebrow. “You like dramatic. You’re just mad it wasn’t your idea.”
She might not be wrong.
I glance down at the ice, where Murphy’s still standing, hands straight down by his sides with his fists clenched now, like he doesn’t know what to do with himself. Jacko pats him on the back. Ollie says something that makes him laugh, but he’s not really looking at them. He’s looking at me.
And it’s that look. The one he used to give me across the bar when I was mid-rant about something utterly pointless and he looked like he’d never wanted anything more in his life than to kiss me stupid.
The one he gave me when we were tangled up on his sofa, legs everywhere, laughing so hard we couldn’t breathe.
I hate that look. I hate that it still works.
“You okay?” Mia asks, more gently now.
I nod. Or shake my head. Honestly, who knows?
“I don’t know what to do with this,” I admit. “He didn’t lie. The photo did look bad. What does that say?”
Mia tilts her head. “It says he’s a complete idiot, but one who’s clearly trying to unfuck his mistakes. Loudly.”
I cross my arms over my chest and try not to shiver. It’s not from the cold.
“Do you believe him?” I ask.
“I do now. Dylan does too. And Dylan doesn’t exactly hand out second chances like party favours.”
I chew on my lower lip. The signs were ridiculous.
Hilarious. So painfully him. And that speech?
God. It was messy. Honest. Full of cracks and hesitations and unfiltered vulnerability.
That’s the bit that gets me. Not the words, but the way he said them.
Like he wasn’t trying to win me back with a scrip, he just wanted me to hear the truth for once.
I look back down at the rink.
Murphy’s still there. Waiting.
My legs move before my brain catches up. I stand, slowly. Mia squeezes my arm but doesn’t say anything.
I descend the steps of the stand one at a time. Each one feels like a decision I haven’t fully made.
By the time I reach the rink-side barrier, Murphy’s looking at me as though he’s afraid I’ll vanish. Or worse, that I’ll keep walking.
I rest my hands on the edge of the barrier.
“What now?” I ask quietly.
He looks terrified. But he walks toward me anyway.
“Now?” he says, stopping in front me. “Now I wait. For as long as it takes. Until you’re ready to talk. To scream at me. Throw a drink in my face. Anything you need. Just not nothing. Please not nothing.”
I hate that he sounds scared. I hate that I understand why.
“You made your point,” I say. “Loudly. With signs.”
He chuckles. “Jacko wanted to add glitter. I vetoed it. You’re welcome.”
I crack a smile. Just a tiny one. “Appreciated.”
We stare at each other.
The silence stretches, but it doesn’t feel empty. It feels full. Charged.
“I’m not ready,” I tell him.
Murphy nods. “That’s okay. I’m not asking for anything. Just don’t block my number. That would kill me.”
I snort. “You send a voice note every day like a hostage trying to prove he’s alive.”
“Is that too much?”
“The one where you sang the chorus to ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ almost got you reported.”
He grins. It’s crooked and a little sheepish and so painfully him I want to punch him and kiss him at the same time.
I sigh. “I don’t know what this is. Or what I want it to be. But I came tonight. That counts for something, right?”
His expression softens, and he reaches up, resting his gloved hands against the glass between us.
“It counts for everything.”
The atmosphere in the rink is still buzzing, people whispering and glancing my way as I linger at the edge of the rink. Murphy’s stepped off the ice now, flanked by Ollie and Jacko. They’re giving him space, but not too much, which is probably wise, given what happens next.
Because of course she shows up.
Tabloid Girl.
Draped in some sort of faux-fur monstrosity, heels that have no business near an ice rink, and sunglasses like she’s auditioning for Love Island: Arctic Edition.
She pushes through the crowd of media that’s loitering near the rink for the charity event, waving her press pass as if it’s the bloody crown jewels.
“Oh my God, Murphy!” she squeals, like we’re all deaf and blind and haven’t just seen what happened on the ice. “That was so moving.”
She struts, yes, struts, straight across the rubber matting and onto the rink-side rubber just as I’m stepping forward.
Murphy sees her and visibly stiffens. “Not now.”
But she barrels on like she didn’t hear him. Or maybe she just doesn’t care.
“I just wanted to say, for what it’s worth, I never meant to cause any trouble between you and…” She looks me up and down, eyes raking over my boots and hoodie as though she’s found something stuck to her Louboutin. “…her.”
Oh no.
No, no, no.
Wrong day. Wrong bitch.
“Excuse me?” I step forward, arms folded, tone like a loaded weapon.
She bats her lashes. “Just wanted to clear the air. No hard feelings. We were just having fun that night, but if he says nothing happened, then hey, no harm done, right?”
I don’t even feel the blood rush to my head. I don’t feel anything. I’m so cold it’s clinical.
“You know what I hate, Tabloid Barbie?” I ask sweetly.
She blinks. “What?”
“Women who mistake destruction for attention. Who see something they can’t have and decide to break it, just to see if they can.”
Murphy is already moving to intervene, but he knows better than to get in front of me when I’m in full flight.
“And you,” I continue, stepping closer, “you didn’t just come on to my boyfriend. You posed for that photo. You wanted a headline. You wanted to be relevant for five minutes, and you didn’t care who you hurt to get it.”
She huffs a laugh. “God, are you always this dramatic?”
“No. Only when I’m about to make someone a viral meme.”
And before she can blink, I give her a hard shove; palms flat to her fur-covered shoulders.
She goes skating backward in those stupid heels like Bambi on a sugar high, arms flailing. Hits the ice with a squeal and a squeaky sort of whumpf.
Flat on her back.
Floundering like a fish out of water in fake lashes and ego.
The crowd gasps.
And then erupts.
Laughter, cheers, applause. Someone shouts “KARMA!” and I don’t even flinch.
Murphy stares at me as if I’ve grown wings.
“You just…” he starts.
“I know.”
“She flew.”
“She did,” I say, deadpan. “Majestic, really.”
He starts to laugh, the full, belly-deep kind I haven’t heard in weeks.
Then he lifts his hand.
And I slap him a high five so solid it echoes.
Tabloid Girl is still wriggling on the ice, trying to find her dignity. It’s gone, sweetheart. That ship has sailed.
“Drinks?” I say, brushing off my hands.
Murphy nods like he’s just seen the second coming. “Drinks.”
And I let myself smile because maybe we’ve just turned the page.