Page 117 of Goal Line
After the driver pulls up in front of the restaurant, I walk across the wide sidewalk to the doors, determined to get home even more quickly than I’d originally planned.
An hour and a half later, I’m ready to poke my eyeballs out. I’ve been caught up in non-stop small talk since walking in the door, answering the same questions over and over.
I feel like an entitled jerk for being so frustrated by people who are genuinely interested in me and my career, but my feet are throbbing in my strappy wedges, and my lower back is aching. I don’t know why I thought I should wear anything with a heel while pregnant, and now all I want is for Luke to give me a massage. His sports medicine degree has really paid off during my pregnancy, as he’s been exceptionally good when I’ve needed my back or feet rubbed.
At this point, I’m about ready to turn mid-conversation and run out of here, especially because Luke texted me twenty minutes ago saying they were about to land.
“I’m so sorry,” I say to the older gentleman I’m talking to. “I need to run to the restroom.”
“Of course, dear,” he says. “I’m looking forward to your return to competition later this year. Take care of yourself.”
You’re being so self-absorbed,the voice in my head says. It’s the same one I heard from my mom when I was growing up—the one that makes me feel selfish if I put what I want before what others want from me.
I turn toward the bathrooms, hoping I can duck in for a moment and then make a beeline for the front door. But then I catch sight of an extremely familiar head of perfectly tousled light brown hair and a pair of broad, muscular shoulders. Excitement and relief flow through me as I realize thatLuke must have come here to rescue me instead of going straight home when his plane landed.
I move toward him, not caring that I just told someone I was going to the bathroom. He’s talking to a woman I saw earlier from across the room. She’s striking, standing nearly as tall as him in killer stilettos, with black hair and bright blue eyes. She’s got full lips and a huge smile as she throws her head back with a throaty laugh. The old me would have been jealous as hell that Luke had made someone else laugh like that, especially someone so gorgeous, but the new me is secure in his feelings and our relationship.
She reaches out and squeezes his forearm, saying, “I’ll be right back.” And after she turns away, I tap him on the shoulder. He spins on his heel, and as soon as I see his face, I feel like someone punched me in the gut.
“Wh—what are you doing here?” I stumble over the words as I stare into the face of a man who would be a perfect stranger if we hadn’t spent one drunken night together in his hotel room in Italy eight months earlier.
His chin tilts as he looks at me, and I can tell he’s trying to place me. It’s then that I notice he really does look like Luke, and not just from the back. His face is incredibly similar. His hair is the same. He’s just as tall.
And that’s when I realize that, in my moment of drunken despair, I tried to find solace with someone who looked like the one and only person I’d ever loved.
I don’t know if that makes it more understandable, or makes me an asshole. Maybe both.
He furrows his eyebrows as his gaze travels from my face to my belly and back up again. And that’s when I see the recognition gradually dawning, before he says, “Italy?”
I press my lips between my teeth and give him a quick nod of confirmation.
And then my brain, which has been lagging since the moment he turned around, finally kicks into gear, and I realize I should have fled before he could figure out who I was.
Goddamn it.I just missed the perfect opportunity to say, “How embarrassing...I’m so sorry, I thought you were someone else,” before turning and walking away.
Nowheknows. His gaze flicks down to my belly again, and I wish I wasn’t wearing the form-fitting maternity dress that I bought the other day. I can no longer hide the bump beneath empire waists—they just make me look like a pear. But when I sent Luke a picture of me wearing this dress in the fitting room, he video called me in response, insisting that I buy it, and whatever else I wanted, on his card.
“Here you are, darling,” says the gorgeous woman he’d been talking to previously as she reaches out to hand him a drink. She looks over at me expectantly, before reaching her hand out to say, “Hi, I’m Adele Becker. Hans’s wife.” Her German accent is faint, but present.
Hans. His name doesn’t even ring a bell, and I wonder if I ever knew it, or if I was too busy wishing he was Luke to even care.
“Hi,” I say, taking her hand. “I’m Eva Hartmann.”
“So nice to meet you,” she says. “I’m sure Hans mentioned we’re sponsors for this organization. What about you?”
Sponsors. So he must have been in Italy that night for the same reason I was—the international skating competition.
I wonder for a moment if she would’ve recognized me asa skater if I’d said I was Eva Wilcott? Probably not. I doubt sponsors for the large international organization that hosts these skating events really get to know the hundreds of skaters, from dozens of countries, who compete.
“Uhh...” I trail off, trying to figure out whether there’s some lie that can get me out of this situation. If I wasn’t still competing, that might be possible, but if I attend the qualifier or compete in the Olympics, they’ll likely see me again. Plus, they could pick upSocietymagazine at the airport on the way home, and I’d be right there on the front of it, next to Luke. “I’m a pairs skater for the US, actually.”
“Oh, that’s delightful. I love pairs skating,” she says, her smile broad as she loops her hand in the crook of her husband’s elbow.
Husband. I’ve been so stunned by all of this, it’s just now sinking in that this guy—Hans—is married. Trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, I ask, “So how long have you two been married?”
Maybe, like me, it’s a more recent development and he wasn’t actually cheating on her.
“Oh,” Adele says with a smile as she looks over at Hans, apparently not noticing that my question has come out of left field. “What’s it been, about seven years now?”
