Page 71 of Slapshot
“And did you hear him out?” My body tingles all over with frustration. Not just at Lex, but at myself. This is everything I hate about being Declan Dalager’s daughter.
“Yeah.” Lex nods slowly. “I called him this morning.”
“You’rewhy he came back?” I drop his hand and cross my arms over my chest.
“No. He came here to see you.”
I laugh, dry and bitter, sucking the cold air into my lungs.
“Let’s go to dinner and talk to him. I think if you hear him out—”
“I cannot believe this. After everything I told you. You know how I’ve been used in the past and still you take the first opportunity he thrusts in your lap. How quickly you jumped to taking his side. I don’t want to hear him out. Things were perfectly fine before I started pretending that we had anything in common outside of hockey. We’ll never see eye to eye and I just need to accept that. If you want to take the job, take the job, but I’m not going to stand here and listen to you try to play it off like you’re doing me a favor by getting in the middle of it.”
He strokes my cheek. “No, that’s not what this is. I want things to be better between you two, yes, but I called him and asked him to come back because—”
“God, you really had me fooled. All of your talk of hard work and doing it on your own.” I pull away from him. “You invited him here, you go to dinner with him.”
“Kait,” Lex calls after me. “Kaitlyn.”
* * *
“What do you mean, you quit?” Vivian sits on the edge of my bed and looks at me like I’m a crazy person. I feel like one.
“I called Coach as soon as I got back to my room. I don’t want any part of the team or hockey…” Or Lex. My heart is broken. Even through my anger, I can feel those jagged pieces of my heart wishing things were different.
“Are you sure he did it maliciously? Lex doesn’t strike me as someone who would use you to get ahead.”
“Malicious or not, he knows that taking a job with my dad would hurt me. He knows and he’s going to do it anyway.”
“Maybe he—”
“Can you just be on my side on this one?” I ask. “Please. I really need someone in my corner.”
She smiles sadly. “Of course. Always. Do you want to order food? We could stay in and watch ugly cry movies.”
“Let’s go out tonight,” I suggest. I need a distraction. “Girls’ night. Just me and you like the old days.”
“Okay.” She seems surprised by the request.
“God, I can’t believe this. Why couldn’t I have fallen for a nice boy that hates sports? I’m an idiot.”
“Listen closely because I’m only going to say this once. You know how I hate to get all mushy. You are amazing. You’re all tough on the outside, but inside you’re a big old softie. Like real deep down.” She grins.
I fall back onto my bed. God, I’m pathetic.
Vivian is quiet and I stare up at the ceiling, thinking of Lex and all those times we spent together, him adamantly denying he wanted anything to do with my dad. Was it all a lie?
“Put this on.” A dress lands on my stomach.
I sit up with the black, silky material in my hands. “I don’t feel like dressing up.”
“Exactly,” she says and brings a pair of shoes to me too. “When you feel like crap, you should look like you don’t. Fake it `til you make it.”
What I feel like doing is curling up into a ball and crying. That or drowning my sorrows in several shots of Kahlua… while wearing sweats.
“Chop-chop. We leave in fifteen minutes.”
* * *
