Chapter 17 #2
He scrubs a hand over his face. For a second, his irritation slips into something like concern. “You’re good at your job, Annabelle. Which is why this pisses me off. You’re letting your personal life bleed all over the ice.”
“I am not!”
“Fix it,” he cuts in. “Clarify the story. Get ahead of it. And until this calms down, maybe don’t be seen hanging off Bryce at center ice. Or anywhere. I'll worry about his image from now on.”
That last part hurts more than it should.
My dad studies me for a beat, his expression shifting. It’s less executive fury now, more father alarm. “Annabelle… is there anything going on between you and Bryce?”
My pulse jumps. Of all days for this conversation.
I clear my throat and aim for casual, the kind of breezy confidence I do not currently possess. “Define anything. We talk. He exists. I also exist. Very normal workplace adjacency.”
Dad just stares.
I sigh. “Fine. He’s… a friend. A good one. A very tall, extremely athletic, unfairly handsome friend who sometimes brings me coffee and asks about my day and looks at me like I’m… something.”
He blinks. “Annabelle.”
“Oh my God, relax. It’s not like we made out in your office. We’re adults.”
His brows shoot up. “So you are…”
“Nope!” I cut in, voice way too loud. “No labels. No headlines. No father-daughter HR meetings. Just… stuff. Maybe. Potentially. Hypothetically. Unofficially.”
He pinches the bridge of his nose like he regrets his entire life. “Annabelle, for the love of God!”
I throw my hands up. “I can’t help it, Dad. Have you seen him? The man looks like he was handcrafted by the hockey gods specifically to ruin my self-control.”
He chuckles.
“You keep things boring right now,” he says. “For his sake. For yours. For the team. And please, for the sanity of everyone involved, no more public meetings with your ex.”
“That wasn’t public on purpose,” I say.
“The cameras don’t care about intent,” he says flatly.
“I know,” I say, shoulders sagging. “I know. Sorry, Dad. And I’ll keep things boring. For now. I promise.”
The door shuts behind him.
I stand there, breathing hard, fingers digging into my arms.
For a moment I don’t feel like an executive or an owner’s daughter or a woman who knows what she’s doing. I feel like a teenager who got caught sneaking out, except instead of climbing down a trellis, I had coffee with my ex-fiancé and admitted to my father that I'm hot for Bryce Blackhorn.
Could this day get any worse?
I sink onto the couch and drag a hand over my face.
My phone buzzes again.
I pick it up, because apparently I enjoy pain.
New post. Different account. Same photo. New headline.
ARE ANNABELLE HACKER AND MARK CUMMINGS WORKING ON THINGS?
I snort. “Working on my last nerve, maybe.”
Almost on cue, another notification pops up.
Mark has posted.
Of course he has.
I tap it.
It’s an artsy shot of a coffee mug. Same café. Same table. The caption reads: Some things are worth fighting for.
I want to throw my phone through the window.
“He is unbelievable,” I say to no one.
Comments are already flooding in.
We love a man who doesn’t give up.
Get her back, king.
Belle and Mark forever.
My skin feels too tight. I get up and pace my office, heart pounding. Every little ding from my phone is a reminder that my life is currently being narrated by strangers who think they know me.
I stop. Bryce.
I scroll to his name and hit call before I can overthink.
The phone rings.
And rings.
Voicemail.
I swallow. “Okay. He’s busy. Practice. He’s not glued to his phone like you, psycho.”
I hang up and text him instead.
Hey. Can we talk later? It’s important.
The text bubbles disappear almost instantly.
Read.
No reply.
My heart drops a couple of inches.
I stare at the screen, willing it to light up again.
Nothing.
Minutes crawl by. I try to answer emails. I try to look at scheduling. Every task floats in front of my eyes and refuses to stick. All I can see is that photo and Bryce’s name sitting in my messages without a new reply.
At some point I realize I have been refreshing the gossip feed like an idiot.
More photos now. More angles. One of them caught me mid-eye-roll at Mark, which at least is accurate, but the captions still tell the same story: star-crossed exes finding their way back.
And tucked in the comments, over and over:
So what about the hockey guy?
Poor rebound dude.
She'll go back to the ex. Yikes.
Rebound.
The word lodges like a splinter.
My phone buzzes again. For a breathless half-second, I think it’s Bryce.
It’s my dad.
My chest tightens. I stare at his name. I can’t. Not right now.
I let it go to voicemail.
I am officially out of emotional bandwidth.
I flop back on the couch and stare at the ceiling.
“This is a disaster,” I tell the fluorescent lights.
No one argues.
Time blurs. At some point, the sky outside my window starts to darken. The offices around me quiet down. People go home to families and takeout and shows that are not about their own lives.
My phone lights up.
Bryce.
Not a call.
A text.
I sit up so fast my vision swims.
Not a good time.
That’s it.
Three and a half words. No emoji. No explanation. No “I’ll call you later” or “busy, but I’m okay.”
Just a door quietly closing.
My eyes sting.
“Okay,” I whisper. “Okay. Right. You blew this up. What did you think was going to happen?”
I press the heels of my hands to my eyes until little stars burst behind my lids.
I should have told him I was meeting Mark. I should have looped him in before any of this. I should have shut Mark down for good the day he sent the flowers. I should have gone public the second the song dropped. I should have done a million things differently.
Now Bryce, who has been steady and solid and unfairly good to me, is on the other side of my mess, taking the hit.
He deserves better than this. Better than me.
I reach for my phone again because I don’t know what else to do with my hands, my brain, my heart.
I open our thread.
My thumbs hover over the keyboard.
I choose you. I’ve always…
I stare at the words. They blur. My throat tightens.
If he thinks I ran back to Mark, if he already decided I’m not worth the risk, this text is just going to sound like a lie. Like more drama from the already dramatic woman his team is probably warning him about right now.
I hit backspace.
The words vanish, one by one.
The text box is empty again, a blinking cursor waiting for me to figure out how to fix something I’m not sure I can fix.
I drop the phone on my stomach and stare at the ceiling.
“I don’t know if he wants me anymore,” I say out loud.
For the first time since this all started, I let myself cry. Everything's falling apart.
And if the universe is taking requests, I'd really love the next plot twist to be a good one, preferably one where he still wants me back.