Page 54 of Breaking Point
Now that makes me pause. “Uh…okay I guess. He was slightly panicked when he thought I was quitting.”
“Jesus, Bella.”
“What?” I ask innocently, passing a small box to Layla and hefting a heavy one into my arms.
“He likes you, doesn’t he?”
“No!” I declare, my voice rising without my permission. Clearing my throat, I try again, moving toward the house. “No, of course not. I’m nothing more than an assistant.”
I’m glad my mom isn’t here to hear this conversation. Although it doesn’t feel right knowing she’s at an appointment with her doctor without me. But this was the only off day I had this week and everything needed to be moved.
“Besides, he’s been trying to fill the position.” The words tastelike acid on my tongue and I’m no fool, I know the burning in my lungs is not from exertion.
Layla pauses in my room, dropping the box in her arms on the floor. “Oh, he is?”
“Yes. Why does that surprise you?”
She shakes her head, her eyes never leaving mine. “Seems like it surprises you.”
“It’s for the best. I don’t need a media crazy life, not when my priority needs to be my mom.”
Layla hums as we walk back out to the moving van. “That’s true. The puck bunnies would eat you alive and you’d never find peace on social media again.”
That makes me pause. “How do you know what a puck bunny is?’ I ask. Layla doesn’t watch hockey, or any sport for that matter.
She stumbles over nothing before righting herself and turning to me with flushed cheeks. “Reading is very educational.”
A small bubble of laughter forms in my chest. “Layla, care to share what has you blushing so fiercely?”
“No,” she squeaks, rushing past me and down the driveway.
Once I catch up with her, she has a heavy box in her hands and I’m about to pry it out of them but then I stop myself. Layla knows her limits; she doesn’t need her best friend coddling her.
“Did he offer to pay you?”
I grimace as I grab another box. “Ugh, yes. Which just made me feel even dirtier.” There is nothing wrong with being charged money for services, nothing at all. But this is not how I envisioned my life.
I didn’t expect to be twenty-six, living with my mom, working an assistant job in a field I have no desire to be in after being fired by one of the largest tech organizations in America, and now being propositioned to fake date a famous hockey player.
It’s all surreal, but even with all those emotions, it’s not the real reason I said no.
I knew I needed to say no the moment excitement filled my chest instead of dread at the thought of having to touch him and be closer to him. My need to say no only solidified itself when hegrabbed my wrist in the driveway and goosebumps lined my arms.
The real reason I said no was because my heart was too eager to say yes, and there is nothing more dangerous in this world than a blue-eyed, charismatic, shy man staring at you like you are the answer to his prayers.
“Was it just the one time he asked?”
I shrug, slamming the door to the now empty moving van closed. “Not exactly.”
I’ve avoided him like the plague for the past week, purposely doing my tasks when he’s at practice or with his physiotherapist. He knows I’m dodging him; it’s why he’s resorted to leaving me notes on the whiteboard.
Notes that make my chest ache, and not in a painful way.
Yesterday’s one made my stomach flutter. He’s growing bolder by the day.
I’m beginning to think you enjoy torturing me.
First you deny me the pleasure of your company, and now there’s no more brownies in my fridge?
