8. Hana
Iinhaled a long, deep breath of the ice-tinted air as I looked around the arena. Fans were headed toward the exits while the shiny Zamboni made its first lazy circuit across the ice.
“This was very different than his high school games,” I whispered.
“It gets easier,” said Ida Jane, a petite woman with honey-colored hair and a bright smile, likely noting my growing discomfort. She’d introduced herself to me at the beginning of the game, putting me at ease as she told me stories about her husband, Maxim, and Naese, between cheering on the Wildcatters. She was fun and easy to talk to, and I was glad she’d said something because I’d been slipping into my head.
She stretched as we continued up the aisle to the concourse. “Come on. We’ll head down to the locker room. Silas—the guys call him Coach because he’s the head coach—usually lets us into his office. He travels with some high-quality cocoa. His daughter, Trixie, loves the stuff.”
“So we’re just going to take over his office while the guys get cleaned up and sip the coach’s hot chocolate?”
“Pretty much. Once the guys finish showering and interviews, they’ll come find us there.”
“But…” No, I didn’t have more to add to that statement.
After a beat, Ida Jane offered a shrug. “It’s a bit boring, but that’s the truth of being a professional athlete spouse.” She led me up the stairs and then down an internal flight. She flashed a badge at a security guard, who stood in front of some double doors.
“Do you have your pass?” Ida Jane asked.
“Oh!” I fumbled in my pocket, pulling out the paper Cruz had given me earlier. The security guard read it and opened the door, speaking into his walkie talkie. We headed down a noisier corridor, filled with reporters and players. The players were sweat soaked, some still holding their gear.
I gawked at the scene as Ida Jane led me toward a door at the end of the hall. She knocked, and Coach Whittaker told us to enter.
“Ah, good! You’re here,” he said. “There’s the hot water and some mugs. I need to run into the presser in a couple of minutes.” He offered me a broad smile. “I know Paxton’s going to be glad to see you.”
Silas Whittaker was big, like the players, and I assumed he’d played before he began coaching. He towered over Ida Jane and me, just as Paxton did. There was something…warming about his size.
“He had a good game tonight,” Coach Whittaker added. “Clearly you being here brought out the fire that’s been missing all season.”
“Thanks,” I said, dazed. Had I entered an alternate reality? I felt off-kilter, as if these people knew much more of my story than I did theirs.
I guessed that was because, as Ida Jane had said, Paxton had talked about me. I wasn’t sure how to feel about that. He’d never reached out, hadn’t shown any interest in years. Now, suddenly, he wanted me in his life again. I’d had whiplash from the accident, and this sensation was similar—just as disconcerting.
Ida Jane got to work preparing cocoa as Coach Whittaker peered at me kindly. I felt like a deer caught in headlights. I wanted to say something. Licking my lips, I opened my mouth.
“They’re ready for you, Coach,” a young woman in a Wildcatters polo announced.
He nodded, then began patting his pockets. He reminded me of my dad, looking for his glasses. A pang of loss hit hard and fast. My father had been my world, but he’d died when I was young—right before we moved from Brooklyn to the small community in Connecticut where I’d met Paxton.
I wondered if we would have moved had my father survived his aneurism. I also wondered if staying in Brooklyn would have saved me a world of pain.
But we hadn’t; my mother had been determined to move even before my father’s death, and we’d been ensconced in a new house two short months after his funeral.
I still missed my dad. My mother…not so much.
“Your glasses are atop your head,” I offered.
“Ah! Thanks. Yes, well, I better go deal with the press. Let’s chat again soon, Hana.”
He smiled again before he strolled out. I turned my attention to Ida Jane. “You realize it’s like I walked into Wonderland, right?”
“Because we know more about you than you do us? Or because we’re all rooting for Naese and you to find a happy ending?” She sipped from a mug, smacked her lips, and practically purred. “It’s delicious!”
She picked up the other mug and handed it to me. “I…I guess.” I stared down into the dark liquid as I gathered my courage and met Ida Jane’s clear blue eyes. “Paxton and I haven’t seen each other in years. He broke my heart.” I shook my head. “He never came to see me in the hospital.” My voice broke, but I blinked back the threatening tears.
Ida Jane raised an eyebrow. “I can tell you with absolute certainty that he didn’t know,” she said softly. She took another sip of her drink and met my gaze over the top. “I can also tell you there’s something strange about how Naese’s parents kept your hospitalization from him.”
I stared back down into the cocoa, frozen for a moment. Yes, I believed so, too.
“Naese told Cruz, who told Cormac, Maxim, and Stolly, that he’d cut his parents out of his life. For good.”
I sipped the sweet, rich brew. “I know how important Naese’s family is to him?—”
“And he’d put you before them now that he knows what they did, what they hid,” Ida Jane said. She shook her head and raised her free hand. “I’m sorry. I’m totally overstepping my place. I just want to see Naese happy. He deserves it.” She smiled. “And now that I’ve met you, I want you two to be together and as crazy-happy as Maxim and I are.” Her smile softened. “I can feel how right you are for each other, and I know he loves you so very much.”
”He loves you so very much.” The words echoed in my head. Hadn’t I told myself that when we went to different universities? When I saw him less and less thanks to his hockey schedule? Even when he told me we should break up because his schedule would be too hard on me…
But I’d been wrong about Paxton then, and Ida Jane as wrong now. Abandonment wasn’t love. Not after the accident, but before. Paxton had thrown me away without regard for my feelings and without the respect our relationship deserved, and I couldn’t pretend otherwise.
I set the half-filled mug down on the edge of the desk. The constant anger I’d barely learned to leash now swirled upward, choking me. I didn’t know Ida Jane, and I couldn’t be sure I knew Paxton, could I? He was not the person I’d thought he’d been before he left me, and I had only just met the person he was today. “You know what? I can’t do this.”
Ida Jane kept her expression neutral, almost as if she’d expected my response. “What exactly can’t you do?”
“Pretend that I’m fine with the way he broke up with me. With the hookups afterward, with his sudden reappearance. The reporters. This world. All of it.”
She nodded, her eyes never leaving mine. “Well, at least you know.”
I bit my lip to keep from snapping a response. Ida Jane had been kind to me. I wouldn’t repay her with surliness; I wouldn’t react like my mother. “Thank you,” I said. I headed toward the door, my leg aching with each step, reminding me why I shouldn’t even consider the fairy tale I’d never get with Paxton.
I was better off in the quiet of the lab. Unassuming and unknown. I didn’t want this life.
“For the record, he was happier tonight, more focused, than I’ve ever seen him,” Ida Jane called.
My lips twisted. “Don’t presume to understand my history,” I said stiffly, my hand on the doorknob, my back to her. “He broke a lot of promises.”
“If you come to another game, I’ll tell you how I learned about Maxim’s hookup history,” Ida Jane said casually, as if we’d remain friendly.
I shook my head. There wouldn’t be a next time. “Bye.”
* * *
Getting backto my apartment took much longer than I’d expected, and I was exhausted by the time I reached my door. I gasped when I flipped on the lights to my studio and found Jeremy lounging on my bed in the far corner. He’d mussed the red silk duvet that I’d inherited from my father’s mother, his shoes leaving dirty streaks on the fragile material.
He glared at me, and I glared back.
“What are you doing in here?” I asked.
“Waiting for you,” he said.
“How…”
“Your neighbor thinks I’m charming,” he said, flashing a dimpled smile.
Celeste had let Jeremy into my place? Oh, we were having words. She had a key for emergencies—like a catastrophic bathroom flood. Not to let in annoying would-be suitors with an ego problem.
I narrowed my eyes and straightened my spine. “You need to leave. Now.”
He rose, his expression set, inflexible. “No, you need to listen.” He stalked closer until he towered over me. “The simulation today didn’t pan out. I’m going to have to re-run it. You’re off the project.”
That was a blow. A big one. A terrible one for my career and my finances. I couldn’t really afford more than a month, maybe six weeks if I was very, very careful.
I clenched my jaw and glared back. “If that’s the case, then you definitely need to get out of my space and my life.”
Jeremy stared down at me, waiting. I stared back, my jaw set.
“You’re supposed to ask—” He cut himself off. With effort, he wiped his expression and sneered. “Good luck working in aeronautics.”
“Don’t ever—and I mean ever—come to my home again.”
Jeremy stormed off, and I collapsed into the chair, staring sightlessly out the window.
Many bridges had burned tonight. In fact, my entire life was in smoldering ruins. But even as I stared outside, a lightness filled my chest, at odds with the whirring of my mind as I struggled to fix my issues.
I’d always thought I wanted the chance to set my own course. But now that the opportunity was here, the idea of finding a job I enjoyed, spending time with Paxton again, and moving to a new city was terrifying. The changes had happened with dizzying speed, and I worried I wouldn’t be able to keep up. Yet, at the same time, anticipation sizzled through me. I might work for NASA. NASA!
And Paxton wanted to help me. We’d just…ended before, so I needed whatever this would turn out to be—whether that was closure or something more. I wanted the more, but that frightened me, too. I’d never had much of a support structure, even when my mother was alive. So I had to be realistic: my leg might well buckle when I took this leap of faith.