Page 116 of Ours to Lose
“It won’t be weird for you if I tell him?” I asked. He’d known about Gabe and me hooking up, but if he was right about how Gabe felt, this would be different.
“You know back in high school when you were obsessed with him even though you pretended you weren’t?” he asked.
“I was not obsessed.”
He smirked. “Your subtle way of asking about him the mornings after you knew I had a video chat with him wasn’t so subtle.”
I threw my crumpled straw wrapper at his forehead.
“My point,” he said all smug, “was that I also secretly hoped you and Gabe would get together for real one day. In a fairy tale, never going to happen, but it’d be cool if it did kind of way.”
“Really?” I figured my crush had bored him more than anything.
He nudged his shoulder into mine. “It’d be nice to get to call you my sister. You know, for real.”
It was a small thing to want. Only a word. One that changed nothing about who we were to each other and added no real value to our friendship. Yet its meaning melted the worst edges of my fear and filled me with the same affection his voice carried as he said it. An overflow of gratitude and love that worked its way into my throat. “It would.”
“Does this mean you’re going to tell him?”
I traced my thumb through the condensation on my water glass and took a steadying breath. “It means I’m going to try.”
“Don’t wait too long,” Evan warned. “He meets with that Olympic coach again tomorrow.”
My stomach clenched as I forced in another breath.
Gabe could still choose Colorado. And if he did, I wouldn’t hold it against him.
Iwouldhold it against myself if I didn’t ask for what I wanted one last time. Especially from the person who’d helped me feel brave enough to ask in the first place.
Anything you want,I heard Gabe say.
It was time I found out if he wanted it too.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Gabe
Dad’s hospitalroom was cramped. His bed filled most of the space, the head currently raised so he could sit and eat comfortably from the tray the nurse had situated over his lap.
The same nurse had brought in an extra chair so Evan and I both had a place to sit, which we’d squeezed along the wall in front of the narrow window to make sure the staff still had room to do what they needed to do. Right now, it was just Dad and me, which meant I could stretch my legs in front of me as I sat.
Dad seemed okay, considering. His skin had more color than yesterday, his appetite was strong, and he was on a first-name basis with every nurse on the floor. He’d said he felt a little sore but otherwise fine. So far, the doctor liked what he saw from his post-op tests and felt good about releasing him tomorrow.
A tomorrow that sped at me like a bull.
I still hadn’t decided about the job.
Usually, one gut check and my decisions were made, but at some point in the past few days, my gut had been turned into a speed bag, and it was too busy jerking all over the place to be of any use.
My nerves were equally out of control, and not like my prefight jitters that were more anticipation and adrenaline—a steady build that hyped my mind and body for the match. This was me ready to jump out of my skin.
Not thinking about it hadn’t worked either. Not when Dad told every hospital staff member who walked into his room that I was going to be an Olympic coach.
It felt like his way of telling me I should go. The same way Aubrey had told me to go. And Evan.
The decision seemed straightforward to everyone else, so why couldn’t I make it?
“I think the food got better here in the past few years,” Dad said, scraping the last traces of his mashed potatoes onto his fork. “Your mother could hardly eat it, it was so bland. But that was delicious.”
