Page 86 of The Hanukkah Hoax
After five times of being sent to voicemail, she finally gave up and let the tears flow.
Chapter 33
It was one in the morning by the time Marisa finally parked her car in the parking garage near her apartment. The only spots left had been the rooftop ones, as everyone else in the neighborhood had wisely left their cars at home on New Year’s Eve.
She’d never claimed to be wise. If she had been, perhaps she could have connected the dots of her dismay a bit sooner and spared her heart the misery.
Marisa’s limbs were achingly sluggish as she hit the walkway that led to her apartment. Her fingers and ear were numb from the constant tries at getting a hold of Alec, and she’d finally had to stop when her drained phone battery barked at her. Apparently, the thing didn’t like the cold either and gave up the ghost a minute after midnight.
The air was always a few degrees colder in West Meadow than where her parents lived, and tonight was no different, though her town’s higher elevation came with the lovely added benefit of more snow. Made for a miserable time trying to pull her keys out of her purse, but she managed, though not without dropping the things into a gray slush pile feet from her front door.
Happy frickin’ New Year to me.
She took a deep breath and squeezed her eyes shut. God, she couldn’t handle this. And she certainly wasn’t looking forward to walking into her tiny, empty apartment again, except this time with Alec’s letter. His words alone would take up all the remaining space she’d constructed for herself, space she’d carefully crafted to keep the bad parts out and the good parts protected.
And he’d gone and muddled all that up, throwing her nice, safe pillows on the floor and rattling her previously sturdy shelves until all her emotions fell free.
Emotions that had no place to land and were as churned up and restless as the snow drifting around her.
Cursing seemed like too much effort, so she picked up her keys in begrudging silence. When she got to her feet, however, a set of long legs stretched out on the sole strip of dry pavement beneath her awning.
Legs that were connected to a brawny body that sat slumped against her front door.
Her heart skipped several beats.
Alec lifted his head at her approach and quickly got to his feet, brushing off the bits of snow that hadn’t been kept away by the overhang. A duffel bag sat on her doormat. “You’re home.”
She couldn’t breathe. Had it only been a week since she’d seen him? His winter wear did nothing to hide the creases and exhaustion wrinkling every part of him. Even from where she stood, she could see the bags under his eyes and the every-other-day shave his face hadn’t seen in a week. Patches of his beard had already begun to fill in his hollow cheeks like mossy overgrowth finally given free rein.
He looked positively travel-rumpled and miserable.
“What are you doing here?”
“I just landed at Newark.”
“In this? It’s snowing, and it’s New Year’s Eve. Well, technically not anymore, I guess, but how are planes even flying now?”
“Not easily, but they’re managing. We touched down at eleven, and I came straight over.”
“You . . . what? You’ve just been waiting here? Until I got home?”
“My phone was shut off on the flight, and I wasn’t sure whether Cal gave you my letter . . . or if you were even interested in reading it.” A haunted graveness painted a new desperation on his features.
“He did, and I did,” she admitted, though she wasn’t sure what she was admitting. That she’d read his apology and it squeezed her heart with more questions and trepidation? Or that she still hurt every time she wondered whether she could trust him?
Because she wanted to. Desperately. But there was so much standing in the way of that decision, and sometimes, to keep oneself safe from the bad stuff, some of the good stuff had to be locked outside with it.
Alec nodded and threw his fists into his coat pockets, eyeing the sky as if he were expecting the snow to give him a cue for what to say next.
“You left,” she reminded him.
“I did. I had to. I needed to find a way to inject some of the worth you once saw in me back into the man I’d become.”
“And did you? Find a way to do that?”
He smiled sweetly at her, the corner of his mouth lifting that scar higher. “I bloody well hope so. I met with Brennan, and together, we called a last-minute meeting with the higher-ups on my team. We managed to successfully negotiate the termination of my contract with Great Britain. Provided Dr. Campbell clears me in a couple of weeks, the team agreed to let me resume play for the rest of the season, in addition to giving me a nice retirement sendoff as I round out the remaining months.”
“That’s good. That’s what you wanted. It’ll free you up to go to Argentina. I’m sure the fans will be happy they get to celebrate you properly. You deserve it.”
