Chapter 35 Ari #2
“No, Ari. New Year’s. There was nothing fake about that,” he said. Her mind wandered back to that night. To the instant familiarity, the tenderness in their eyes, the kiss so good she’d run away from it.
“There wasn’t,” she admitted. “But everything since then has just been pretend.”
Drew shook his head, refusing to accept her answer.
“The dates, the obvious chemistry, the way you look at me and how I look at you? That was all fake, too?” he challenged, taking a step closer. She was mad at him, but that didn’t make him or the low, slow tone of his voice any less attractive.
“It was just an act to fool Harrison and my friends,” she said coldly, determined not to fold.
“And last night … was that all pretend?” he asked with a look that made her feel completely exposed.
No, nothing about last night had been fake.
What use was there in pretending when there was nobody else around?
How could she ever convince herself that the way she’d kissed him had been pretend?
That the ways their bodies had moved in perfect, synchronized motion had been just for show?
The way they’d touched each other and the things he’d made her feel had been more real than anything before.
She didn’t want to believe that it was all a casual extension of something that had never been real to start with.
But she had to, for her own good. So, she put on her most unbothered expression.
“Drew, it was just sex,” she said. A woman standing nearby waiting for her coffee looked over, intrigued. Ari felt a little embarrassed but stood her ground.
“We both know it wasn’t just sex,” he said, looking her in the eye. It sent a tingle down her spine.
“Okay, fine.” She shrugged. “But it was a mistake,” she said.
She saw him flinch as soon as the words came out of her mouth, but she needed to keep going.
“I knew it would be a mistake when I walked into your hotel room last night, and you probably knew it was a mistake this morning when I left,” she said plainly.
The silence lasted too long. She didn’t realize how much she’d wanted him to object until he didn’t.
It stung. The woman stood beside them, eavesdropping on their conversation, giving her a sympathetic look she couldn’t bear.
She needed to leave the café as soon as she could, so she asked J?rgen, who was clearly listening to their conversation, too, if he could put her drink into a takeaway cup. But Drew followed her to the counter.
“I was going to tell you,” he said.
“But you didn’t,” she sighed, suddenly exhausted. Ari didn’t have the patience for shoulda woulda couldas.
“I just didn’t want to do anything that could risk making you worry or throw you off your game. Once I realized how you and Thandie knew each other, I figured you would be better off not knowing.”
He sounded sincere, and she could understand the logic. But he’d hit upon the one thing she couldn’t look past in a real relationship: dishonesty.
“I don’t want to be a girl you lie to, to protect their feelings.
I don’t think you lied to protect your ex-girlfriend’s feelings, and I don’t think you held back the truth to protect mine.
I think you did it because you’re too much of a coward to face having a difficult conversation,” she said.
Her words had stung him. She could tell by the look on his face.
But Ari needed to tell the truth. A part of her wanted him to defend himself, or even throw a painful truth back at her or take something she’d told him up on the roof and use it as ammunition.
But when he spoke again, his tone was calm and even.
“You’re right. It was cowardly to avoid telling you the truth.
I should have told you sooner. But as flawed as I am—and my god, do I have a long list of issues—I’m not one of the guys you’ve dated in the past, Ari.
You can push me away all you like, you’re entitled to it.
But I’m not the kind of person who’s going to go back and forth with low blows,” he said, holding her gaze before reaching behind her.
He took the cup of matcha the barista had left on the counter and handed it over to her.
“You should drink it before it gets cold,” Drew said.
She was too shocked to do anything but take the cup. She’d become so accustomed to chaos in every other part of her life that she didn’t know how to respond when someone was calm and measured instead of letting a conflict become a fight.
She took the cup and let him gently ease her away from the counter.
When she looked back, she realized that they’d been holding up the line.
At least seven other customers were looking at them, some with annoyance, clearly desperate for their coffee.
Others were curious, trying to eavesdrop on their conversation and connect the dots.
Ari was still trying to make sense of it all.
“I should have told you about Thandie, and for that, I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. But Ari, I like you, and I think you feel the same. I don’t want to throw away what we have because of my mistake.”
“Drew…” she said, trying to stop him from carrying on. She wanted to end the conversation before it could further complicate her feelings for him, but Drew wasn’t done.
“When I listened to you talking about your teammates, your family, and your friends, I listened because I cared. I wasn’t trying to strategically get information about you.
When we went on those dates, I went because I genuinely wanted to get to know you.
I wasn’t trying to trick you,” he said. Ari could tell from the look in his eyes that he was telling the truth, which was somehow more terrifying than a complicated lie.
“I didn’t tell you about Thandie because I didn’t want you to think that anything that had passed between us was insincere,” he said.
She believed Drew. But she also knew Thandie. She couldn’t convince herself that Thandie wouldn’t try to use this against her. They were both highly competitive athletes who would use every piece of information available to them to play the game to their advantage.
“But you knew this whole thing would make her more determined to crush me, right? The villain in her life dating her brother?” Ari shook her head as she thought about the implications.
“How many times has she asked you about me to try and figure out the weak spots she can use against me on the rink?”
“Thandie doesn’t know.”
Ari could feel time standing still.
“What?” she asked in confusion.
“Thandie doesn’t know that we’re together … that we’re fake together. She doesn’t even know that I know you,” he admitted.
Ari’s jaw dropped. Somehow, it was even worse than she’d thought. That was the moment she truly began to spiral.
Ari had known Thandie Dlamini since she was fourteen years old, and if there was one thing she knew about her, it was that she lashed out the moment she felt like she was out of control.
She played her very best when she was slighted.
And if Ari and her teammates won their match against Team Finland, they might end up playing a quarter or semifinal game against Team USA.
The team Thandie had been fiercely captaining for the past year.
Ari suddenly felt lightheaded. So, she walked over to a nearby table, sat on a stool, and sipped her matcha.
She stared into the distance, thinking of all the poor decisions that had led her to this moment.
Drew took the stool across the table from her.
His face did not reflect the seriousness of their predicament.
“She’s going to murder me,” Ari said, nodding in acceptance as she took another sip.
“She’s not going to murder you,” Drew said, slightly amused.
“Do you know your sister? I’m a feminist, and I wholeheartedly support women’s wrongs. In fact, I love women’s wrongs! But Thandie is capable of doing wild things in the name of revenge.”
“No, she’s not like that. She’s just … she’s a very … the thing with Thandie is…” began Drew, who had clearly just remembered who his sister was.
“Your sister is one of the best players in the world,” Ari said, because even she could give credit where it was due.
“She’s incredible on the rink, especially when she’s got something to prove.
But when she’s been slighted—and I mean this with all the respect in the world—your sister terrifies me. ”
“Come on. Thandie?” he scoffed. “She’s harmless.”
“When a Canadian player said something bad about her in an interview, she and Team USA made sure to demolish Team Canada in the next game. When someone on the Danish team got her in trouble for unsportsmanlike conduct, she spent the rest of the season strategically stopping them from even touching the puck,” Ari recalled.
“If that’s how she reacts to small things, can you imagine what she’ll do to me if she thinks I’m dating her brother to mess with her head? ”
“Shit,” he said.
“Shit, indeed. We are in some major shit.”
“What are we going to do?” he said, resting his arm on the table. She sat up in her chair.
“We? We?” She shook her head in astonishment. “There is no we, Andrew Dlamini! You got us into this mess by letting this keep going when you realized that me and your sister were connected. You knew it was a bad idea.”
“It takes two to make a bad idea work, though, doesn’t it?
” he said, a slow smile curving up across his face.
He was so attractive it was annoying her.
She was supposed to be mad at him, not laughing at his jokes.
So, she tucked in her stool and got ready to leave.
As terrified as she was of Thandie, Ari wouldn’t even get the chance to play against Team USA if she and her teammates didn’t nail their next game.
“I don’t have time for this,” Ari said, shaking her head. “I have one of the most important games of my life in less than twenty-four hours, and I have no idea what I’m doing,” she continued, the panic beginning to rise.
“Hey,” Drew said, gently laying a hand on her shoulder.
She was still mad at him, but something about the warmth of his hand and the softness beneath his eyes calmed her down a little.
“You do know what you’re doing. You’re an excellent player, your teammates love you, and you’re going to do a brilliant job, like you always do.
Okay?” he said with a kind, reassuring smile.
It worked; she immediately felt more relaxed.
But she forced herself to turn around and leave him.
It was that damned smile that had landed them in this situation in the first place.