If anyone were to walk by right now, it would look like we’re together. But what am I supposed to do? Interrupt Coach Harris and ask Seth to kindly take his hand off me?
I suck in a deep breath, mustering all the patience I have to get through this conversation, and the second there’s a lull, I’m going to suggest to Seth that we go find Shane so he can get a picture.
“No kidding, eh?” Coach laughs at something Seth said. I’m completely tuned out, watching my six.
Rhett’s here.
I can feel it.
There’s a weight in the air and a dampness in my palms. My pulse is going a hundred miles per hour.
The sound of heavy footsteps from the hallway pull my attention in that direction. I hold my breath and brace myself, not fully expecting it to be him because it never is.
Only this time, it is him.
My body’s frozen, my eyes glued. He looks bigger, more ripped than before, his shoulders bursting out of his cotton shirt, and his expression is stone cold and laser focused. The second his eyes land on mine, I catch a glimpse of something. Shock? Surprise? Anger?
His harsh stare moves lower, assessing Seth’s hand on my back, and then he rips his attention away from us. The closer he gets, the harder my heart pounds. But when he keeps trudging forward without so much as an acknowledgement, that’s when my heart stops beating altogether.
Thirty-Five
Ayla
* * *
Rhett’s team won.
I’d watched highlight reels of Rhett on the ice dozens of times, but I’d never seen him like this before. It was almost as if he was fueled by a cocktail of rage and adrenaline. He was the fastest man out there, his shots more aggressive and more accurate than anyone else’s. At one point, he got in a fight with a Spartan and they were both placed in the penalty box for a bit.
But in true Spartans tradition, I’m told, we’re celebrating a game well-played at Shotsky’s.
Seth is in heaven, surrounded by most of the team, and we just finished off our second round of Jäger bombs ten minutes ago. Everyone’s amazed at Seth’s knowledge of the game because he comes off as more of a Proust scholar than a diehard hockey enthusiast, but that’s Seth.
A walking contradiction with a heart of gold.
“You doing okay?” Shane asks, taking the empty seat beside me.
“Why does everyone keep asking me that?” I ask, laughing.
He shrugs. “You just, like, disappeared after Bryce died. We had that meeting and you got the check and you were gone. I even went by Bryce’s place a couple weeks after that to check on you because you weren’t answering my texts, but the landlord said you’d left for good.”
“I’m sorry.” I take a sip of my old fashioned. “That was a really... weird time for me.”
“Rhett?” His question catches me off guard, and I almost spit out my drink. Our eyes convene, and immediately I know he knows.
“Why do you say that?”
“One of the guys saw you two slipping into a hotel one night,” he says. “After you left, Rhett kind of got … colder … if that makes sense. We put it all together.”
“Am I a bad person, Shane? Be honest.” My words slur slightly, but I need to know. I need an objective opinion from someone who knew them both.
“You’re not a bad person,” he says, and I release a sequestered breath. “But I get why Rhett reacted the way he did. He liked you. And you betrayed him. And so soon after Damiana.”
Shane winces, shakes his head, and then takes a swig of beer.
“He was never the same after that,” he says. “I don’t know how a man can recover from two of those, back to back.”
“Do you still keep in touch?” I ask, brows raised. “How’s he doing? Is he happy? Did he meet someone?”
Shane’s eyes shift around the room, and I can tell he wants to tell me something, but he doesn’t know how.
“We keep in touch,” he says, taking another drink.
“And?”
“You’ve got to let him go,” he delivers his words with care before slipping his hand on my shoulder and giving it a friendly squeeze. “It’s been well over a year. Don’t you think it’s time to move on?”
“Has he?”
“Does it matter?” Shane’s brows meet. “You can’t change what happened, but I don’t think it’s fair for you to expect him to want to give you a second chance. Do you?”
My eyes well up, and I blink away the tears before they have a chance to fall. In all my daydreamed delusions, I never once thought about what was fair because love, in its very essence, isn’t fair. It takes victims. It’s a two-sided coin that sometimes lands on joy and other times lands on pain, and you never know which way it’s going to fall.
Fairness and love have nothing to do with one another.
“I should probably tell you,” Shane says, leaning closer, “One of the guys invited him out for drinks tonight, for old times’ sake.”
My eyes widen.
“I don’t know if he’ll show. He might be with the Iron Kings. They might be doing their own thing, I don’t know. But I just thought you should know he was invited,” he says.
I glance around the room, searching like I always do, but I don’t see him. Taking a generous sip of my drink, I spot Seth in the corner with the guys having the time of his freaking life. He’s not going to want to bounce anytime soon.
Grabbing my phone, I text Bostyn. It’s late on a Saturday night, and I’m sure she’s a woman about town and two sheets to the wind by now. She came to my signing yesterday, working as my “assistant” and helping calm some overzealous fans who were fangirling so hard they could barely contain themselves, bless their hearts.
She doesn’t reply.
Shane excuses himself, heading back to the bar, and I find myself suddenly alone, which feels like a metaphor for my life right now.
Tracing the rim of my glass with my pointer finger, I zone out for a bit. The noisy bar fades into the background, and I’m lost in thought until a moment later, when a man stumbles into me, dousing the front of my blouse with a freshly poured pint of beer.
“Oh, shit, I’m sorry.” He’s drunk out of his fucking mind, and I know it was an accident, but I’m still annoyed. He laughs and carries on, disappearing into the bar crowd, and I climb off my seat, making my way to the ladies’ room in the back. If I’m lucky, there’ll be a dryer. If there’s not, I’m screwed.
There’s a line of three women waiting ahead of me, and judging by the looks of the bathroom every time the door swings open, it’s a single stall.
Who puts a single stall ladies’ room in a bar in a city of millions?!
I check my phone—still no response from Bostyn—and then I cross my arms along my chest, hating feel of the fabric as it clings to my damp skin.
“I fucking hate that you’re his sister.”
That voice.
I turn, finding myself face to face with him.
“Rhett,” I say, drinking him in. He’s maybe two feet from me, and the familiar spicy notes of his Viktor & Rolf cologne brings back a flood of memories that feel so good I could cry.