Chapter 4
EMMIE
“I’m glad you stopped by. Reminds me of the time when you were ten and I would bring you to work with me,” my dad, said across from me at the tiny table we were at.
We were in the cafeteria the Buffalo Titans had in their training facility.
It wasn’t really a food court though since it only had two options.
One was a coffee and smoothie place that had an array of add-ons you could add to the smoothies to make them healthier—no doubt geared more toward the players.
Straight across the room from them was a place that made sandwiches, protein bowls, salads, etc. It looked like the perfect place to go after a hard workout. Pretty sure if I had shown up a few hours sooner, this room would have been packed with athletes.
Right now, it was just my father and I. A few people came and left since we sat down, but we’d pretty much had the place to ourselves.
My dad leaned back in his chair with a sigh. “Feels like a lifetime ago.”
“Yeah,” I said, bringing my coffee to my lips.
Things between my father and I were…awkward.
It had been almost six months since we last saw each other.
The two of us were typically too busy, with him coaching an entire football team, and me with my ice skating schedule.
It was hard to find a time that worked for both of us.
We did talk on the phone about once a month, but that was mostly surface-level conversation.
Our relationship was strained at best. When I was younger, I was a huge daddy’s girl. I adored my father and never wanted to leave his side, so he’d often take me to work with him. But that was back when he was just coaching college football.
When he got the head coaching position with the Buffalo Titans that things shifted.
He was rarely home, too focused on the team. He missed almost every single ice skating competition I had, and whenever I brought it up, he would say, “You know I’m busy trying to build the team, sweetie. I’ll see the next one.”
He never did.
I spent a lot of my teenage years feeling like I was second place to his job. I knew he loved me, but I also knew he loved this team more. I learned to accept it years ago, but it still hurt when I looked out in the stands at a competition, and he wasn’t there.
I used to look up football stats so I could at least have something to talk to him about. At one point, I knew practically every player on every team, along with their coaching staff and all their records. I would have done anything to connect with my dad.
“How has skating been going?” he asked.
I took another sip of my coffee before answering. “Good. Getting ready for regionals next month.”
“Bet Marcy has you on a tight schedule.”
I snorted. “She does.”
“Is it here in Buffalo?” The way my dad asked made me pause.
“Uh…yeah, it’s at Ackles Arena.”
My dad seemed to hesitate for a moment before he leaned forward, forearms braced on the table. “I’d like to be there, if that’s okay.”
I stared at him for a full minute, his words slowly processing.
He wanted to come to my ice skating competition?
A flare of hope bloomed in my chest, but I quickly tampered it down.
Getting my hopes up that he would show was something I learned long ago not to do.
When he didn’t show, at least I wouldn’t be completely crushed by hope.
Part of me wanted to say no. To lash out and ask why now. But the other part of me wanted him there. I wanted him to see me in my element. To show him that I was an amazing skater.
“Y-Yeah, you can come,” I said. Seeing the way his face lit up at my words had me biting my tongue, so I wouldn’t take them back.
It was an expression I hadn’t seen on my father’s face in a very long time.
Well, at least not directed at me. That stupid hope flared in my chest again. Maybe he’d show up this time.
“Want to take a tour of the place?” my dad asked, his voice tearing me out of my head.
“Sure.” I was more than happy to get back on solid ground. Something safe where my father was concerned.
I drank the last of my coffee as I stood. Tossing the cup in a garbage bin, I followed after my dad.
My Converse slapped against the stone floor. I wasn’t sure if it was granite or not, but it seemed to almost sparkle under the lights overhead. This might have been a practice facility, but they spared no expense for it.
As we walked, my father pointed out paintings of historic football players, explained what rooms were used for what, and shared the history of the Buffalo Titans. I tried to listen, I truly did, but as he talked, my mind went back to the encounter I had earlier in the hallway.
Mateo Boone.
I wasn’t sure what kind of luck I had running into that man twice in two days. Out of all the people in the world, it had to be him. The star quarterback of my father’s team.
My fingers tingled at my sides, as if remembering the feel of his when I grabbed my lipstick from him. It was just a simple touch, barely a graze of skin, but I swore it sent a shockwave up my arm.
The man was hot, there was no denying that. Even that cocky little smirk he had on his face made my stomach flip. But nothing was ever going to happen there.
I wasn’t dating an athlete, let alone one that was coached by my father. Athletes were nothing but trouble, and one look at Mateo screamed that very sentiment. Plus, men were not on my radar. I had skating to focus on, and the last thing I needed was some boy coming in and disrupting that.
So regardless of how hot Mateo Boone was, I had no plans of seeing him again. I shoved away all thoughts about the sandy-haired quarterback and continued the tour of the facility with my father.
“So, how did it go?” Erin asked from her perch on the couch as I shut our apartment door behind me. “Did you survive?” Her eyes were glued to her laptop as I snorted
“Nope. I came home as a ghost.” I placed my keys in the miniature dish we had by the door. Putting my bag on the floor to pick up later, I headed for the couch.
“Cool. Does that mean we can haunt our enemies now?”
I flopped onto the dark gray cushions next to her, my body sinking into the comfort. For a couch that only cost three hundred bucks, it sure felt like sitting on a cloud.
“Since when do we have enemies?” I tilted my head to the side to look at her. Her curly hair was piled into a messy bun on her head, a few curls refusing to be pulled back. Blue light glasses were perched on her nose, the light from her screen reflecting in them.
“Since always. Remember Diana from high school and how she spread the rumor we were lesbians together? Or Keira, the girl who tried to trip you on the ice while you were warming up for the Olympics? Enemies.”
“Maybe we should have become lesbians,” I mused. “I do agree with Keira as our enemy. Could be fun to haunt her ass.”
Erin pulled her eyes off her laptop and looked at me. “Hm, you still look the same for being a ghost.”
“Maybe that’s how they do it now.” I shrugged.
“Hmm,” Erin hummed. I could practically see the clogs turning in her head. Leaving her to her moment, I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. I knew better than to interrupt her when she got an idea in her head.
From the moment Erin turned fifteen, she knew she wanted to be a writer. When we met, she already had three notebooks filled with stories, constantly writing away in class or on the bleachers when she would come to the ice rink to hang out.
Even when we were out and about, if an idea sparked, she’d pull her phone out and write it in her notes.
Right after she graduated college, I convinced her to look into getting a book deal.
By convinced, I mean she chased me around our old apartment screaming while I submitted her manuscript to agents.
It was well worth the giant bruise on my leg I got when she tackled me. Erin technically owed me, because if it wasn’t for me, she wouldn’t have gotten a six-figure book deal for a five-book series.
“I think I need to add a ghost to this series,” Erin said after a moment.
“Would it be a hot ghost?”
She scoffed. “Obviously.”
“Good. Make me his love interest.”
“Will do.” Erin was quiet for a moment. “So, I take it meeting your dad went okay?”
I heaved a sigh. “It was fine. He took me on a tour of the facility and introduced me to some people. Even said he wants to come to my competition next month.”
“Oh, wow. Think he’ll actually show this time?”
My eyes were still closed as I shrugged. “Who knows. I’m not holding out hope that he will.”
“Maybe he’ll surprise you.”
“Maybe.” I hesitated, thinking if I should tell her who I ran into. From her reaction yesterday, she’d probably freak out. “Guess who I stumbled into while I was there.”
“Who?”
“Mateo Boone.” When I heard nothing, not even a peep from Erin, I cracked open an eye. She sat there frozen, eyes comically wide.
Smacking her lips, she finally spoke. “Mateo? The same Mateo you ran into yesterday?”
“Yep.” The way she seemed at a loss for words made my lips twitch. It wasn’t often that Erin didn’t have a remark of some sort.
“You know what this means, right?”
“No?”
“You’re meant for each other. It’s fate.” She said it so matter-of-factly that I snorted.
“Yeah, right. Not happening.” I sat up before scooting off the couch.
“What do you mean? This is Mateo Boone.” Erin scrambled off the furniture and followed after me to the adjoining kitchen.
“He’s just a guy.”
“A guy who’s hot, has a great career, family that seems amazing, and he goes to animal shelters in his spare time,” Erin all but swooned.
“Did you just read me his dating profile or something?” I scrunched my nose as I opened the fridge and pulled out a yogurt.
“There was an article about him a few months ago, and it was very informative.”
“Then why don’t you go after him?” I asked, ripping off the topping to the yogurt and taking a bite.
“We both know I’m going to be with a hot nerdy guy that games while I write, and who will recreate dirty sex scenes with me,” Erin said with a wide grin.
“Then why are you raving about how hot Mateo is?”
“Just because I’m not buying doesn’t mean I can’t look at the merchandise,” she shot back at me. “But seriously, the fact you’ve run into him twice in two days means something.”
“That the universe is playing a joke on me?”
“When was the last time you even went out on a date? Two years ago?”
That sounded about right. My dating history wasn’t the best but also not the worst. I’ve spent most of my time focusing on the Olympics, so dating was pushed to the back burner. There’s been a few men here and there, mostly hookups since I couldn’t offer more time and energy.
“Well, there was that snowboarder in the Olympic village…” I trailed off.
“That was just sex, that doesn’t count.” Erin leaned her hip against the counter.
“Yeah, well it's not happening with Mateo. I have zero plans on seeing him again.” Tossing my empty container in the trash, I moved to the sink to wash my spoon.
“The funny thing with fate is you don’t get a say in it.”
“Nope, but I can also not want anything to do with it. I really just want to focus on skating and ignore the rest.”
“Okay, fine, I get it. No hot football player.” Erin put her hands up in defeat. “But just know, if you see him again in a few days…”
“Blah, blah, blah.” I clamped my hands over my ears and cut her off. “Don’t even try to send that out into the universe.”
She sent me a cheeky grin. “Too late.”
“Go meddle in someone else’s dating life. Go make one of your book characters fall in love.”
“Can’t. They don’t fall in love for another thirty pages.”
“Sounds like you need to get on that,” I teased as I moved around the kitchen, grabbing my pre-workout.
“You can’t rush greatness.” Erin narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms. “The best love stories take time.”
“Uh huh,” I mumbled around a mouthful of the powder. Once it dissolved in my mouth, I spoke again. “I’m headed to the gym, you wanna come?”
“Emmie.” Erin shot me a flat look, like she was disappointed I asked.
“What? You enjoyed the Pilates class a few weeks ago.”
“No, I didn’t, it was like two hours long. I almost died and couldn’t walk for like three days afterward.” She put her hands on her hips.
“The class was only an hour,” I laughed, remembering the way Erin hobbled like a penguin for days after. She couldn’t sit down without wincing and groaning. The entire class, she couldn’t stop muttering under her breath about how much she hated it and would never go again.
“Yeah, laugh it up. Some of us aren’t athletes that workout for an ungodly amount of hours.”
“I don’t work out that much. Max is twice a day.”
“Twice too many.” Erin made a yuck face.
I slid past her out of the kitchen and paused for a second. “You sure you don’t want to come?”
“Em.”
“Okay, okay. I’ll be back in an hour, and then we can decide on dinner.”
“Don’t forget RuPaul is on tonight,” Erin shot over her shoulder as she made her way back to the couch.
“Sounds good.” Leaving her to her writing, I headed for my room to quickly change. I felt itchy and restless, partly due to being around my dad. It was like I had so many feelings bottled up I didn’t know what to do with them.
It took me less than ten minutes to wash my face, pull my hair into a ponytail, and throw on a cute light pink workout set. As I snatched up my headphones, Mateo’s face popped into my mind. He was also another reason I felt off-kilter.
Just one interaction with him was enough to throw me off, and I wasn’t sure why. He was just like any other guy. He was bound to disappoint. Most men did. Yet, his face stayed in my head as I slipped out and headed down the stairs to the gym in the apartment building.
The last thing I needed, or wanted, was a man to come into my life and flip it upside down. I had enough on my plate as it was, and my main focus was regionals next month. So despite what Erin was saying about Mateo, it was never going to happen.