CHAPTER 112
Ana
“THERE’S A STORY that goes with the necklace,” Troy says, his voice nervous.
“I have a few minutes to spare,” I say nonchalantly, but feel the way my heartbeat continues to leap in anticipation.
By every truth he’s sharing with me.
By all the things I never thought he remembered about me, even cared about me.
And he got me a necklace?
A very thin, dainty gold chain with a small diamond in the shape of a star.
It’s the smallest, cutest star.
“I got it right after PyeongChang,” Troy says, watching me as I gaze at the sparkling little diamond like I’ve never seen the precious stone before. “I know it’s super corny. A star. Because you won.” He breathes out a shy chuckle.
“I love it,” I promise, feeling a little speechless. “Thank you so much, this is way too much.”
“Hey, I never said it’s real.” He flicks his gaze up at me. “It’s as real as it gets.”
The twinkle of his green eyes makes me think he’s not referring to the pedant, or maybe it’s because I want him to not be.
And maybe I don’t deserve it anymore, not after how I behaved around him, how awful I treated him. But I extend my palm to him with the necklace in it, for him to take and put it on me.
My heart clings to my chest, only resting back when Troy’s lips slide into a half-grin, moving his hands behind me as I lift my hair into the air.
I shut my eyes, feeling his breath heat against the back of my neck, reaching around my collarbone to wrap the gold around my skin, clasping it tight.
My chest aching when his weight leaves beside me.
Flicking my gaze down at the small piece of jewelry, I ask, “Why are you giving me this now?”
“I wanted to give it to you before,” he says, “but every time I tried, I just couldn’t. I couldn’t even tell you about the roses,” he blurts. “How could I tell you about the necklace? You despised me.”
“Roses?” My brows twist together in confusion. “What roses?”
Troy just stares at me like he wasn’t expecting to slip that piece of information out.
“Larsson, spill.”
“The ones after the finals you’d compete in.”
“Okay, more description please.”
“There were exactly 27 of them. At each final.”
27 Bulgarian roses.
“You,” my voice breaks into a stutter, “You sent those?”
He nods, shy.
“Ethan used to joke those were from his fans.”
Troy gives me a deep eye-roll at the mention of Kasoff.
“27 of them,” I repeat in disbelief.
“Your lucky number,” he points out. “I never knew why.”
“Yamamoto was 27 at her last Olympics,” I explain. “It was the first performance of hers that I saw. What got me into figure skating.” I lean in tight to hug him close. “You’re so…I can’t even explain it.”
I really can’t.
He’s that incredible.
When I pull back from the embrace, I slip a kiss to his cheek—completely without thought—my heart falling when his eyes land on my lips.
I turn away abruptly to stop the hurt.
It feels wrong to even sulk at the fact that I can’t kiss him the way I want.
I lost that privilege a long time ago.
And suddenly, my chest has started to tighten in sadness at the reality, so I quickly move on, “So that means you kept onto this since—”
“High school,” Troy says like he was waiting for this part.
“I kept it with me at every competition, before every Olympic routine, it was always there in my coat pocket. It was sort of like my good luck charm.” He pauses just to look at me and the warmth it gives me makes me melt.
“I almost gave it to you this one day. You were 15, and it was my 17th birthday and a few friends and I were skating here at the Lake, and you kept distracting me, Ana.”
“Is that what I was doing?” I scoff.
“You kept staring at us like you couldn’t wait until we all left, but then when I slipped against the ice, you kinda caught me but then scowled. So I scowled back, of course.”
“Of course.”
“And that’s when I secretly fell in love with you.”
My heart. It. Actually. Stops.
Wait, don’t say you’re falling in love with me.
Or that you’ve been secretly in love with me this entire time.
“That was a—you’re joking, right?” It’s the only thought that manages to sprout into my head right now.
He smiles.
And I know exactly what that means.
The clouds part, a few drops of rain falling over us. A zap of thunder makes me jolt, Troy and I quickly gathering up all the memorabilia he just gave me before we sprint back to his car.
_________
Troy and I got the strongest death stares from the lobby of his apartment complex, a whole bunch of rich people who couldn’t bear the sight of two idiots covered in rain and snow.
This one lady wouldn’t stop glaring at us.
Well, at Troy.
At the way his fitted sweater managed to wrap snug around each of his muscles, pushed especially tightly across his upper back, and I really related to that.
Kicking through his door, we both discard our soaked jackets, unable to stop laughing.
“You’re pretty wet,” Troy points out.
I gawk, swishing the water off my sweater.
“I’m wet?” I laugh out. “You’re drenched.”
Staring at each other’s stringy hair, how every inch of us is somehow covered in cold water, that makes us break into another round of laughter.
No, belting cackles.
I push off my hair that’s sticking to my neck, as the high from our belly laughs fizzles, the breathy haze of silence and two heated gazes making my smile slowly fade.
Troy’s eyes flick down to my chest.
When I realize he’s watching me, how he’s watching me. I feel my nipples poke right through the white lace of my bra, my button up cardigan doing a flimsy job at covering them.
I see the deep swallow in Troy’s throat when he catches sight of my breasts, at the look of memories that drown with the past and prick all over my skin hauntingly.
And it’s killing me not knowing what he’s thinking.
At what’s happening between us.
What is this.
“I’m sorry,” I blurt out.
“What?” Troy’s brows crease at my random apology.
“For hurting you.”
“Ana, we both already apologized. We’re good.”
No, we’re not.
“No,” I push because something still feels off.
“I need to say this. I’m sorry for making you feel like I used you.
I didn’t use you, please believe me. Maybe there was a part of me that was using sex to escape everything and maybe I was also trying to escape you, but it wasn’t because I didn’t care.
And I hate myself for making you feel like you were disposable.
Like you were just this thing that I was using and then discarded. ”
“It’s okay, I believe you. I know you weren’t doing any of that. Yeah, for a second I was hurt and thought that maybe you were. But I realized that you weren’t, so really, we’re good now.”
“My heart was broken,” I confide, needing him to know why I kept running away. “And I tried to push it back together. To make room for someone.”
For you.
“But I kept screwing up,” I add. “I still feel like it’s a little broken. And I really don’t know if it will ever be fixed.”
“It will,” Troy says.
I smile to myself at his confidence. The sureness on his face like there isn’t a scenario where he can think could be an exception.
There’s always an exception.
“And how can you be so sure?” I tease lightly.
He just shrugs. “You put mine back together without even knowing it.”
And he simply taps my shoulder with one of his warm hands, heading upstairs.