Page 67 of Desperate Pucker
Chapter 23
Ryker
An ugly feeling drags through me, settling in the pit of my stomach.
I feel like the biggest jerk on the planet for writing Maddy off as a spoiled rich girl. Yeah, she grew up with a lot of money from her billionaire dad, but it sounds like he treated her like some dirty little secret, second to his older kids. That is so fucked up.
Just like it’s fucked up what her ex did to her. And how fucked up it was that her coach made her starve herself for the Winter Olympics.
So many people in her life treated her like crap. I did too.
I think of how I dismissed her when we first met—how I gave her shit and refused to work with her.
Urgency swoops through me, desperate and lasting.
“You’re incredible, Maddy. You’re one of the best figure skaters who’s ever walked the face of this earth.”
“I just wish I could have held it together a little longer. I was able to skate a clean short program, but the stress finally caught up to me during the free skate. I made too many mistakes. I couldn’t manage a clean landing on two of my jumps because of my injured ankle. And I had to switch one of my jumpcombinations at the last minute to one that had a lower degree of difficulty, which cost me points.” She’s quiet for a second. “I lost out on gold…to the woman my ex cheated on me with. Who he’s engaged to now.”
Sadness shines in her eyes.
“Jesus, are you serious?”
She nods. Rage simmers inside of me like lava. She’s endured so many awful and hurtful things.
“That’s why I broke down when I got my scores,” she says. “Yeah, I know how bad it looked. I looked like a brat who was throwing a temper tantrum because I didn’t win. But it was more than that. It was the culmination of everything. I felt like the biggest failure on the planet. It felt like I couldn’t do anything right. I wasn’t a good enough girlfriend. I wasn’t a good enough skater. I wasn’t a good enough daughter. Everything hit me in that moment, and I just lost it.”
I remember seeing sports news replay her breakdown and how people ridiculed her. I remember seeing tons of mean comments online about her, comparing her to a toddler having a meltdown.
When I saw clips of her meltdown, I rolled my eyes. I dismissed her as some spoiled-rotten figure skater who flipped out when she didn’t get her way, like my ex.
But I had no idea what she was going through in that moment. I had no idea how wrong I was.
The need to comfort her surges through my body. Cupping her face in my hands, I hold her gaze.
“I’m so, so sorry you went through all that, Maddy. You didn’t deserve it. But I need you to know something. I need you to know that you are good enough. More than good enough. You’re an incredible figure skater. One of the best on the planet. Even on your worst day, you still beat out billions of other people. That’s what a badass you are.”
Her eyes are bright as she looks at me.
“Guess how many Olympic medals ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the people on this planet have? None. You beat out the entire world. That’s how good you are.”
She starts to smile.
“And your ex is a piece of shit for treating you the way he did. If I ever see him, I’m going to punch him in the face.”
She chuckles. “You will not.”
“Fine. I’ll challenge him to an arm wrestling match and call him a loser when I beat him.”
She bursts out laughing.
“And I’m sorry I called you spoiled before I got to know you. I’m sorry that I made fun of you for being the daughter of a billionaire. If I had known your history with your dad, I wouldn’t have said those things. I was a jerk.”
She wraps her hands around my wrists. “I wasn’t very nice to you either when we met.”
“Yeah, but only because I was a dickhead to you first by refusing to train with you.”
I pull her face closer to mine and press a soft kiss to her lips. The buzzer in the laundry room goes off.
