Page 54 of The Love Comeback
Oh no.
No, he wouldn’t have…
“The Glaciers have sponsored the team, covering all costs.”
And suddenly, all I feel is anger.
Chapter Twenty
Kade
She’s angry. I can tell by the way she’s been quiet since the announcement. I can tell by the way that she’s got that terse smile on her face. Just as I feared, the Glaciers paying for the travel team has upset her.
I have to make this right.
“Can we all go get pizza?” Colton’s voice cuts through the tension as we head out into the parking lot.
“We—”
“Not tonight,” Ella cuts me off, not even giving me a chance to answer. “We need to get home so you can rest.”
“But I’m hungry…” Colton whines, and I wince at the way Ella’s jaw tenses.
“Not tonight. There’s food at home. I don’t want to be out late. And you need to ice your eye.”
I cock a brow at her, but I don’t argue. It’s clear she doesn’t want to be around me right now, and I know that—but she needs to understand that paying for hockey is one of the few things that Icando when it comes to the two of them.
Well, unless she lets me kiss her again…
Then I could do a lot of things for her.
My heart jumps to my throat at the thought of a second chance with her. I know it’s a long shot, but maybe it’s not impossible. Shedidreturn my kiss, and she made it the kind that you never forget.
“Come on,” Ella urges Colton as we make it to their SUV. She opens the back hatch for him to toss his bag in, and then she closes it, leaving me to follow behind like a scorned puppy.
“Maybe we should talk,” I say in a hushed voice as Colton climbs into the car. “I know you’re frustrated, and I don’t want to leave it like this.”
“Nothing to be frustrated about,” Ella chimes, her voice overly sweet and nice. It makes me wince. She only talks like this when she’s mad—reallymad.
“A lot happened tonight,” I press, refusing to let her leave things the way they are. “We need to talk about it.”
She opens the driver’s side door and glances back to Colton, who’s now busy icing his eye with one hand and scrolling his tablet with the other. She turns back to me, slamming thedriver’s side door closed again. “Okay. You want to talk? Let’s talk.”
Uh oh…
“For starters, Itoldyou I didn’t want your charity. Wetalkedabout it. I don’t know why you had to go find some sort of loophole to do exactly what I asked younotto do. Colton already sees you as a hero, Kade. You don’t have to keep driving the point home over and over.”
My mouth drops, and I feel the heat of my irritation creeping up my neck. “It’s not like that, Ella. I’m not trying to be a hero.”
She places her hand on her hip, completely unamused by me. “Right, so then, what is it about? Hmm? How did this evenhappen?”
“Look. I promise I had no intention of crossing your boundaries.” I sigh, raking my fingers through my hair. “I was just talking to my teammates the other night about how expensive youth hockey is, how I wished I could help somehow—and they came up with the sponsorship idea. They thought it’d be a good idea to help the entire team. I had planned to talk to you about it, to get your input, but …”
“But youdidn’t,” she huffs.
“You’re right, and I’m sorry. It all just happened so fast, I didn’t get the chance. I knew it was a risk, but I went along with it because I wanted to help you. I wanted to help Colton. I want to be there for him, and make sure that he gets everything thathe—”
“I can handle making sure he gets what he needs!” Her voice strains, and I see the hurt written all over her face. “I’m doing the very best I can, and I’ve done a good job the last five years. I can’t help it that I don’t have the same kind of financial resources that you do, but I was willing to do whatever it took to keep his place on the team.” The exasperation in her voice sends a shockwave of hurt through my chest, but not for myself…
