Page 127 of Frozen Hearts
I shrug. “I assume the cops told him.”
She shakes her head. “They wouldn’t have. My statement was confidential. They’d have told him about the allegation but not who made it. The only way Bertram could have known for certain that it was me is if it couldn’t have been anyonebutme.”
Well, fuck. I don’t know what other proof she thinks she has, but that sounds pretty fucking damning to me.
We talk for a bit longer before I move to leave.
“Are you going to tell him?” she asks, sounding small and unsure.
“I don’t know,” I admit, feeling wrung out. Ninety minutes on the ice is less draining than this conversation has been. “I need to think.”
She nods. “But you believe me?”
I meet her wide, green eyes, holding them before saying, “Yeah, Riley. I believe you.”
* * *
With wings. Without wings.
Long. Normal.
Oh, look. That one has super wings—whatever the hell that means.
“Can I help you, Sir?”
I lift my head from the box I’m holding in each hand to gape at the saleswoman. “Erm, I don’t know what to buy.”
She takes one glance at the boxes of sanitary pads before giving me an empathetic smile. “Well, for starters, is she a pad or tampon girl?”
“Umm. I’m not sure.”
Nodding, she claps her hands together. “Okay, then I think we should be safe and get some of each. I’m guessing you don’t know anything about her flow?”
“No.”Jesus Mother Mary, what did I do in a past life that resulted in me ever having to have this conversation?I just wanted to do something nice for Riley. I didn’t realize there were twenty different types of sanitary pads. Or that a woman could bea pad or tampon girl. I should have known it wouldn’t be so simple.
Nothingwith women ever is.
Nodding again, she grabs several boxes off the shelf before moving down the aisle to the tampons. Furthermore, there are a hundred different types. Different strengths, applicator vs. non-applicator, large ones, mini ones… I swear to fuck, women make life ten times more complicated than it needs to be.
The saleswoman lifts another couple of boxes and adds them to the basket I’d lifted. “Do you need anything else?”
“Erm.” I look into the basket, confidently admitting that I am officially out of my depth. “Maybe you should tell me?”
“Well, does she get bad cramps?”
“I don’t know,” I admit, realizing I know nothing about Riley James. The woman currently living in my house. Occupying every single one of my thoughts.
“A heating pad and some painkillers never go amiss, so I think we should add that and some chocolate. Every girl likes chocolate when the Devil is banging on her uterus.”
I nod in agreement, and she fills my basket with the final few items before taking me to the register.
“It’s sweet, what you’re doing,” she says as she scans the items and fills a paper bag. “I’ve never had a boyfriend do this for me.”
Boyfriend.
Is that how I’m behaving?
I’ve never done this for a girl I’ve dated before.
