Page 64 of Thrown for a Loop
“Yourallegedrelationship.” She winks. “Which I know nothing about.”
“That’s the one.”
I go to take the note back from her, but she holds it out of my reach. “Not so fast. Even if you’re not going to report it, at least we’re going to document it.” She spreads the note out on the expensive hotel duvet and takes a photo with her phone.
“Please don’t share that?” I beg. “Unless it’s with the police after they find my dead body. And if my jugular was severed by a skate blade, make sure they check the blade radius. Could be a clue.”
“Fine,” she mutters. “I’ll only share with the police. And whichever splashy true crime podcast wants an interview.” She puts herphone away. “This is some bullshit. They can’t scare you away. We still haven’t gotten pedicures.”
“I don’t scare that easy.”
Or do I?When I finally climb into bed, I feel a little shaky. Someone in this hotel hates me enough to unzip my luggage.
Darcy shuts off the light. But she’s thinking about it, too. “Any theories? Who hates you this much?”
“The list of suspects could be long,” I point out. “There are still ten players who haven’t made appointments with me. Steve Sailor isn’t my biggest fan. The GM isn’t a fan, either, but he doesn’t need tricks. He could just fire me.”
“True,” she whispers.
I stare at the ceiling, trying not to consider one player in particular. “Hey, Darcy?”
“Hmm?”
“What if it was Chase? He’s still mad at me, even if he won’t admit it.”
“No!” she yelps. “He didn’t do this. He bought you dinner! That’s the opposite of this.”
“Yeah. But maybe Bess told him to.”
“No. Nope! I can’t believe I’m defending Chase Merritt right now, because he’s hotter than is really fair, he’s kind of smug, and he never turns in his per diem forms on time. But he’snotpetty. He’s not sneaky, either. If he doesn’t like something, he just tells you to your face.”
“Hmm. True.” Plus, it’s so hard to imagine the Chase I used to know leaving nasty notes for anyone. Pettiness was beneath him.
“Besides,” she says slowly. “He doesn’t hate you at all. You should have heard him earlier, telling the guys that you made him go to the chiropractor. The look on his face…”
My heart does a spin. “How did he look? Amused?”
“No, he lookedproud. Like he wanted to brag about you.”
“I doubt it.”
“I don’t,” Darcy insists. “He still thinks you’re cool, Zoe. And he doesn’t have time for games. He could have gotten you fired already. He had the chance.”
I mull this over, torn between hope and disbelief. As sleep starts to claim me, I push thoughts of Chase aside.
Or I try to, anyway. But somewhere in this hotel, Chase is lying in an identical bed, on these same silky sheets. All these years, he made no effort to contact me. But I can’t help wondering if he thought of me anyway sometimes. At night, in bed, when his eyes grew heavy—did he ever think back to the one night we spent together?
I’ve thought about it a lot. Far more often than is healthy.
You’re not supposed to live your life looking in the rearview mirror. That’s something my mother always said when she was trying to motivate me to work harder on the next jump or the next competition. There’s no point in crying over the past.
Or is there? When I was eighteen, I had no idea how fleeting those perfect moments with Chase would be. Loving him had felt like unlocking the door to a new and wonderful existence. I thought it was the start to something beautiful.
But it was over before it began, and I don’t think anyone has ever loved me quite so well since.
Chapter 23
Nine and a Half Years Ago
