Page 33 of The One Night Dash
Noelle answers after the third ring, hair clipped up haphazardly, cardigan slipping off one shoulder.
She squints at me. “Why are you calling me?”
I lean back against the headboard, trying to look casual when my chest is tight as hell. “I wanted a front-row seat.”
Her brows pinch. “To what?”
And then the bells jingle in the background of her screen, and Elena steps in, a garment bag draped over her arm and a smile on her face.
“The Noelle Pembroke show,” I say, feeling that tightening ease, knowing she’s going to be all right.
Noelle turns, startled. “Uh … hi?”
“Hello, sweetheart,” Elena says smoothly. “This might sound strange, but we had a dress left behind at the cleaners over a year ago. The policy states it belongs to us now. The second I saw it, I thought of you.”
“Hey, Elena, you might want to give her the reason behind the dress switch.” I chuckle.
Elena hooks the hanger on a shelf, and the other bag, the one with the green dress, comes into view—it was under the new one.
“My husband, Sal, and I got every bit of coffee out of this.” She hangs the bag and unzips it, and Noelle sets the phone down.
“Hello, I’m still here,” I call to … no one.
Someone picks up the phone and holds it so I can see.
Elena pulls the dress out, and Noelle holds her hand to her heart. “It’s perfect.”
“Well …” Elena turns it around, showing her the back.
Noelle gasps. “Oh, oh my?—”
“Protein stains that have set in that long don’t come out,” Elena whispers like it’s a secret.
“I have no idea how I missed this,” Noelle says, the sadness in her voice fucking wrecking me.
“Noelle.”
She turns, and only when she sees me does she remember I was even sorta/kinda there.Ouch.
“It’s all good. You’re going to look stunning in red.”
Elena takes the dress down. “And we’re going to make sure it fits like it was made for you.”
Helmet strapped,stick in hand, I wait at the boards, legs bouncing with that restless rhythm the first shift brings. The crowd’s a wall of sound behind me, but my head isn’t here. It’s back at Pembrooke Books.
Her.
Noelle in that dress. Red, liquid silk, clinging and flowing all at once. She looked like every spotlight in the world was chasing her, and she didn’t even know it. And then she looked into the phone—looked at me—and instead of saying “win” like anyone else would’ve …
She smiled, wide and real, and said,“Make it count.”
It wasn’t just words. It was the change I swore I saw in her. Hope has always been there in those big brown eyes, but right then, I saw grit and that quiet fire she doesn’t even realize she could tap into, but that dress brought it out in her.
And now it’s stuck in my head.Make it count. Make it count.
The whistle blows. Coach D barks. Our line vaults over the boards, blades biting the ice.
I should be locked in, eyes on the puck, ready for contact. But all I can see is the way that dress hugged her curves, the way her lips curved around those three words.
