Page 35 of Say It Isn't Snow
“You swear you’ll catch me?”
Her grip on my hand tightens. I squeeze back.
“Always.”
She trusts me and allows herself to relax enough to find her rhythm. I match my pace to hers. We fall into sync together as we circle the pond.
“Better?” I ask.
“Yeah. Now I’m getting the hang of it again.”
“Should I leave hockey behind so we can register as pairs skaters?” I tease.
She scoffs out a laugh. “What? No. Be serious. I’m born to bake, and there’s not a soul in the world who would believe you weren’t born to do anything but play hockey.” She bumps her hip against mine. “You can see it all over your face when you’re on the ice, you know. How much you obviously love it.”
“Yeah?” The swell in my chest makes me feel like I could soar hearing her say that.
“Although you looked like you were having more fun just messing around on the pond than the last few times I’ve caught recaps of your games,” she muses.
I jerk to a stop. “You’ve seen them?”
A caught out expression crosses her face and her cheeks flush. I try to tamp down on the flood of emotion strong enough to knock me over, shock and elation fighting to win out.
“Um, yes,” she replies with a rueful chuckle. “I’ve…sort of been following you as a player the whole time. Oh, god, this is embarrassing to confess, but what the hell. I have an alert on my phone for hockey news just so I could keep up with you.”
My world shatters and rearranges.
This whole time—the nights I’ve spent in hotel rooms, on team flights, in my own empty bed rereading the old texts we’ve sent each other wishing I could reach out to her—she’s been watching me.
Does it mean?—?
Has she been in the same boat as me the entire time, longing for us to reunite?
My thoughts collide, coming too quickly to separate. I breathe harder, then sputter when one glaring possibility crosses my mind.
“So, you’ve seen the news about me then?” I venture, voice flat and empty.
She scrunches her nose in confusion. “What news? I’ve been up to my elbows in cookie dough and sugar to meet the holiday rush.”
Relief spills through me. She doesn’t have the lies those articles have spread about me being a loose canon tainting her view of me. I get to be the one to tell her the truth.
I start skating again and tug her with me. “Well, you remember how I said I was on leave?”
“Yes.”
I sigh. “It’s not entirely true. My contract was terminated last week.”
Her head whips around. “What? Can they do that?”
“Unfortunately, it does happen. And in my case, it was my word against another player’s with more value in the eyes of the team’s ownership.”
Holly pulls a disgusted face. “That’s unbelievable. Can’t you fight back?”
“If it were a private incident, yeah. But there’s been a PR storm since the story broke.”
I ruffle the hair on my nape with a sigh, explaining the whole story of how I found Chet and the girl he was harassing, how it led to the fight and the subsequent paparazzi stories setting the situation on fire before I was forced off the team.
“Oh my god,” she whispers.
