Page 93 of One Last Shot

“What do you want me to say?” she asks, her voice thin and sad.

“What happened?” In my mind, I’m calculating how long it’ll take me to track him down, and how I can kill him with the least chance of getting caught.

“He didn’t hurt me physically.” Her sigh is enormous, and the part of me that wants to tell her she doesn’t have to tell me anything she doesn’t want to is eclipsed by the part of me that needs to know what happened to her. In the end, I stay silent and she continues. “Except that it was my first time, and I really wasn’t ready, but he was incredibly persistent and persuasive. And in the end, he wasn’t exactly gentle—with my body or my feelings.”

“Bastard,” I spit out. “Wait, you had feelings for him?”

“No. But I had feelings about him being the first person I had sex with. And it didn’t mean anything to him. He’d pull me into the potting shed for a quick fuck, then push me out the door and tell me I had to stop distracting him from work. That kind of thing.”

I can tell by the way she studies me that she doesn’t like the reaction she sees on my face. Then she tilts her head down, focusing on my hand and the vicelike grip I have on her. I exhale, trying to let the tension out and loosen my grip. I slide my thumb along her skin, caressing the red mark I left behind. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. But this is why I didn’t want to tell you.”

“He wasn’t good enough for you,” I growl.

“Even nowyou’re jealous?” she teases. She has no idea how I watched him watching her that summer. How I saw that predatory look in his eyes. I almost insisted Petra’s father fire him, I even went to him to make the demand, but I lost my nerve. How would I have explained it?I don’t like how he looks at your daughter the same way I do?

“Even nowI feel responsible.”

“Don’t.” She sits up, her back ramrod straight as she crosses her legs under her. She looks like she’s doing yoga, if pissed-off yoga was a thing.

“I can’t help it. I should have been there to protect you.”

“No, you should have been there so it could have been you.”

Her words slay me. She’s right, it should have been me. But also, how much could she really have cared if she turned to someone else, gave herself to him just because I wasn’t around?

“You shouldn’t have gone running to him when I left, Petra. If I really meant something to you back then—”

“You shouldn’t have broken my heart,” she spits out.

I don’t think I look down quickly enough for the brim of my hat to cover the way I wince at that statement. I can’t go back and make it right. There’s only now.

“I shouldn’t have, you’re right.” I look up at her. “Can you forgive me?”

“Sasha,” she says, her voice so low it’s practically a whisper. “You haven’t even told me why you cut me out of your life like that. This isn’t about forgiving you. It’s about figuring out how I could ever trust you again.”

This is your chance. Tell her the truth.I watch the way the warm breeze blows a few strands of her ponytail against her neck and shoulder. I want to reach out and brush them away. I want to curl my hand around her neck, brush my lips across hers. I want to hold her and be with her, and I don’t want to do anything to jeopardize the possibility of a future between us.She’s not ready for the truth.

I don’t stop to ask myself when she could ever be ready, I just plow ahead with a flimsy, minuscule piece of the truth. “I had to. I can’t explain it, except that there was so much pressure. I needed a clean break from everything and everyone in Austria, so I could fully commit myself to hockey in Russia. I couldn’t be thinking about you all the time. I swear I spent more time that first year trying to find you that book you wanted than I spent practicing hockey. I would have done anything to make you happy, and it was jeopardizing my hockey career. I needed distance and clarity. I needed to focus. I would never have gotten where I am now if I hadn’t left like that.”

Do I believe my own words? I don’t know. There’s a kernel of truth in there. I’ve thought many times over the years that breaking things off like that with her allowed me to make hockey my obsession instead of her, and so in a way, it led me to the NHL.

“You thought about me all the time, huh?” Her lips curve into a small smile.

“Every. Single. Minute.”

“I wish I’d known that then.”

“You were my best friend’s baby sister. You were too young. And most importantly, you were just about to launch your skiing career. I couldn’t get in the way of that.”

She gives me a small nod of understanding. Both of us, at the beginning of promising athletic careers, headed to different countries. It’s a plausible reason to have pulled the brake, even if it wasn’t myonlyreason.

“I didn’t want to hurt you,” I tell her. “In fact, I was trying to make sure you didn’t get hurt.”

An acerbic laugh slips out. “Trying to make sure I didn’t get hurt by hurting me?” Her eyeroll is legendary. “Men are always trying to make decisions about me, for me. No thanks. If this”—she gestures between us—“is going to be something, you have to know that about me. I make my own decisions, and I always do what’s best forme. I spent too many years getting hurt, taken advantage of, and left. I don’t even do relationships, Sasha.”

“Why not?”

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