Page 15 of On the Line
Mitch’s mouth hung comically open as he skated backward. Having missed the entire exchange, Kimber turned toward the ice right as Mitch turned his back on them, completely oblivious that Lexie’s heart was a brick beating against her ribs.
“Oh hey,” Kimber said. “I forgot Mitch Frambough played for the Knights now. Remember when we used to party at his loft? I wonder if he recognized us.”
“I don’t think so,” Lexie said, entire body wrapped in a cold embrace that had absolutely nothing to do with their proximity to the ice.
Kimber didn’t know about the…thingwith Mitch. Truth be told, when she moved away, they had all sort of lost touch with her. Berkley had taken the bar, passed, started her career, and gotten engaged. Amelia had landed a gig with a travel magazine, going from a small-time blogger to a big-time feature columnist.
Lexie had…well, she had her job, which she loved mostly because she was good at it and she made a lot of money doing it. And she had her friends, like Berkley and Amelia. In the wake of Mitch leaving the way he did, she had gotten closer with Brent and his teammates like Cole, Rat, and Grey out of necessity. They had bonded over their shared sadness of Mitch being gone.
Before, she’d had Mitch. That was an accomplishment to be proud of, simply because somehow, some way, a man like him had loved her.
Hadloved her. That was, of course, before she fucked it all up.
And then he left, and that was the end of that.
So Lexie sat in the front row of the arena, watching Mitch in pure agony as he skated around the ice, laughing with his teammates, sweating, checking opponents, and looking sexier than ever.
Honestly, in quiet moments after he’d left, when the utter shock had worn off and she’d taken a break from drowning her sorrows in sex and tequila, she realized she would’ve given long distance with him a shot. She had acted hastily in pushing him away after their last fight; she knew that now. That last fight had been a desperate attempt to save herself. She hadn’t yet been willing to put her heart on the line for him, not completely. Or rather, shehad. Shehadbeen willing, and it scared her so much she’d lashed out.
When she stopped to consider what she’d done, only then could she admit to herself that she would have been willing to put everything on the line for him.
Everything.
But the way he left had made his feelings on the matter perfectly clear: he wasn’t interested. He hadn’t been willing to fight for her, so why would she fight for him?
So she picked herself up, dusted herself off, and put herself back together. After those awful early days, once she’d gotten her shit together—with the help of her friends—she had worked so hard to mend her broken heart, doing everything she could think of to distract herself from the pain. She’d gone out on dates, a few even lasting longer than a night, drank less, and threw herself into her work. She had even started going to the gym with Amelia, Berkley, and Brent, using her frustration, anger, hurt, and sadness as motivation.
All she wanted was to become a better version of herself. Maybe that version had been shaped by her relationship with Mitch, by being loved romantically by someone for exactly who she was for the first time in her life, but she was also becoming a version of herself that Mitch wouldn’t recognize anymore.
And she was so proud of herself.
But sitting here tonight, with him mere feet away for the first time in months, she was instantly transported back to all those sleepless nights after he left. All those mornings she woke up next to someone whose name she didn’t remember, with only flashes of memory from the night before to guide her through the awkward dance of getting them to leave.
And then even further, to being that little girl whose parents were never around, who only cared about her when they needed something from her.
She was reminded how easy she was to leave, and that thought was a knife to the heart.
Breaking down in front of Kimber and an arena full of people at a professional hockey game was not an option, though, so Lexie buried her feelings deep inside her heart, shoving them back in that box she kept them in, locking them up, and throwing away the key. This was simply a bump in the road. From here on out, it would surely be smooth sailing.
The first cut is the deepest, right? And thiswasthe first cut. The first time she saw him. It had to be like ripping a bandage off; once she did it and got it out of the way, she’d feel so much better afterward.
Lexie was antsy as hell for the entire game, which Kimber chalked up to Lexie not being a hockey fan. Naturally, regulation ended in a 2-2 tie, and Lexie’s anxiety continued to climb. Being near him, even in this massive, crowded arena, made it hard to breathe.
Thankfully, the Knights scored shortly into overtime on a goal assisted by none other than Mitch.
The second the goal horn sounded, Lexie was out of her seat, hustling Kimber down the row and up the stairs to the concourse level.
“What the rush?” Kimber asked. “I wanted to celebrate!”
“We can go out for drinks to celebrate,” she said. “I want to beat the rush out of here. You know how I hate crowds.”
Kimber smiled indulgently and hurried after Lexie.
That night, Lexie got drunk. Drunker than she had been since the early days after the trade when numbing herself was preferable to the pain.
Apparently, old habits reallydiddie hard.
It certainly didn’t help that Kimber was all for it, ready to cut loose to celebrate the Knights’ win and Lexie’s last night in the city.
