Page 20 of Goal Line
“Yeah. He’s mypartner, Luke. This affects him as much as it affects me.”
“You wouldn’t beinthis situation if it weren’t forhim.”
Am I mad about that? Or just mad that he’s basically replaced me as the person she’s closest to? It’s been torture, watching them grow closer over the years—the way their skating became so in sync and intimate, that it was like watching two people with one soul.
That’s probably why half the internet thought they were in a relationship for the past few years. The video compilations that constantly show up on social media—the two of them staring into each other’s eyes as they glide across the ice, their bodies wrapped together as they do some death-defying spin, him picking her up and kissing her forehead every time they finish their routine. It all makes it seem like they’re in a serious relationship.
Which they are, but it’s a professional one. Something Eva started to forget, leading her straight into this mess.
“Luke.” She says my name as a warning to not pit myself against him.
I grit my teeth together. “He should have been looking out for you.”
“Hewaslooking out for me. That’s whyhe didn’t let anything happen between us.” She sighs and looks down at her lap. “It’s not his fault that I let all those crazy fans who were shipping us convince me that there was something more.”
I notice her full pink lips turn down at the corners whileher eyebrows dip together with an adorable crease between them, and it takes all my willpower to avoid wrapping her in my arms and telling her it’s all going to be okay.
“I know you got caught up in everything,” I say, still angry at how Christopher Fucking Steele played into the fan’s narrative: kissing and hugging her to give the fans something to talk about, basking in the limelight as people speculated that something was developing between them. And he was so damn convincing, she fell for it. “But he’s guilty too.”
“The only thing he’s guilty of is insisting we keep things professional.”
“Nooo, he’s guilty of convincing everyone—you included—that he had feelings he didn’t really have.”
“So much of pairs skating is about the chemistry between the two skaters,” she reminds me. “All he did was fulfill that part of the performance particularly well.”
My free hand flexes against my thigh as I try to keep myself from responding about how he led her on foryears. How could a man spend that much time with her, touch nearly every part of her body, and convince everyone he was falling for her...but not actually fall?
Meanwhile, all she has to do is smile at me and I can hardly breathe.
“And that night in Italy?” I ask, hoping she’ll finally tell me everything.
“What about it?”
“When you told him how you felt? What actually happened?”
“I already told you. I decided to lick my wounds with alcohol and get over him with some guy I met at the bar, then ended up figuring out I was pregnant months later.”
There are so many questions I still have about that night. Was it her first one-night stand? Why didn’t she get the guy’s name? How could she have failed to protect herself against the possibility of pregnancy? Or worse, an STI?
“Did it help you get over Christopher, at least?” I ask instead.
Her full, glossy lips turn up at the corner. “Actually, yeah. I think I felt...I don’t know. Embarrassed, for sure, that he didn’t return those feelings. But also, maybe a little...relieved?”
Well, this is new information. “Relieved? Why?”
“Once I knew that it was all just a performance for him, I was able to look at my own feelings a bit more critically as well. It made me realize that everyone calling us the ‘Perfect Pair’”—she makes air quotes as she references the moniker fans gave them after they took home their first gold at US Nationals—“made me think that things actuallywouldbe perfect if we were together. ThatIwould be perfect.”
You already are perfect, just the way you are.I desperately want to convince her of this, but that goes way beyond best friend territory.
“And you got all that from having sex with a stranger?” I tease. Maybe it’s something I should try? Maybe having sex would help me get over Eva? It’s not like I haven’t considered the possibility before.
She reaches up and bonks my forehead with the heel of her hand. “No, dumbass,” she says with a laugh as I grab her hand and bring it down to the pillow, keeping my own hand wrapped around hers. “It wasn’t having sex with someone else that made me realize my own feelings weren’t thatstrong, it was knowing that he didn’t have those feelings for me at all.”
Well shit, that’s no help.I’ve known since our senior year of high school that Eva was never going to see me as more than a friend. Eight years later, my own feelings haven’t changed. Unfortunately, neither have hers.
Chapter Ten
LUKE
