Page 13 of Tight End
But I’m covering the Junior Championships after this and then the World, so I’ll be traveling to a lot of different places over the next month.
A month.
Holy fuck.
I was gonna lose my damn mind.
Running a hand down my beard, I tried not to let my expression show what was going on inside my chest.
Micah’s voice suddenly boomed across the table. “Raiden.”
My head snapped up to see him arching a brow.
Then I noticed everyone was standing. Shaking hands. The check was already signed.
Shit.
I stood quickly, apologized for being distracted, and offered a few polite goodbyes. Once they were gone, and we stepped outside into the cold Manhattan air, Micah turned and fixed me with a probing stare.
“Wanna tell me what that was?”
“Nothing.”
“Bullshit.” He tilted his head. “Because you’ve said maybe twelve words all night, most of them out of order.”
I didn’t answer. My hands were buried deep in my coat pockets, my fingers wrapped tight around the note I hadn’t stopped carrying since I woke up.
Micah gave me a sideways glance, followed by that shit-eating grin he wore when he was about to start some trouble. “It’s a woman, isn’t it?”
“Drop it.”
Micah chuckled. “Damn. It is.”
I just scowled.
He put on an offended expression. “You got hit that hard, and you’re not even gonna tell me?”
Still nothing.
He whistled. “Whoever she is, she must’ve rocked your world.”
She had. In every possible way. And now she was halfway across the globe, and I couldn’t stop thinking about her.
The next threeweeks were a slow descent into fucking madness.
Marissa and I tried to keep in touch, but it was never consistent. She was on the move nonstop, chasing figure skating stories across two continents—long days, tight schedules, and spotty Wi-Fi. I could feel her exhaustion through every text. And it made me even more anxious for her to return.
I buried myself in work, prepping for The Tight Line’s soft open. The final design approvals went through. We hired three more staffers and held tastings to fine-tune the menu. I workedout every day, trying to burn through the tension grinding through my bones like grit in the gears. Yet every spare second I had, I stared at my phone waiting for a ping.
Sometimes it was one message. Sometimes three or four. But never a full conversation. She was always either prepping for an event, covering it, or passing out from exhaustion in some hotel room half a world away.
Me
How was the arena?
Marissa
Cold. But one of the pairs teams pulled off a quad twist that made me tear up.
