Under it:
Adrian:I'll come to find you. Please don't walk too far.
I stared at the words.
Please don't walk too far.
It wasn't an apology or explanation. It wasn't any of the things I needed to hear, but it was something.
I shoved the phone back in my pocket and started walking.
Not far. Not fast. Far enough that he'd have to work for it. Slow enough that I'd hear him coming.
The cold burned my lungs. My game-day shirt was damp with old sweat, starting to freeze against my skin. Behind me, the arena grew smaller.
I reached the edge of the parking lot.
Stopped.
Turned around.
There was a pickup truck at the far end—someone's beater. It probably wouldn't start. I leaned against the tailgate and watched the loading dock door.
The night pressed down, and the wind cut through my jacket. Somewhere in that building, Adrian was deciding.
He was either coming after me with the truth, or he wasn't. Either going to trust me the way he'd been asking me to trust him, or stay behind his walls where he never had to risk being seen.
I didn't know which one I was hoping for.
I didn't know if I'd survive either one.
I pulled my jacket tighter.
Please don't walk too far.
I'd stopped walking. That was the best I could do.
The door stayed closed. The parking lot stayed half-empty, and my phone stayed silent.
I waited.
Chapter eighteen
Adrian
The loading dock door swung shut with a clang that echoed off concrete, and I stood there holding my phone.
Please don't walk too far.
Five words. Not an apology. Not an explanation. A request dressed up as a sentence, asking for something I hadn't earned.
I'd watched Pickle push through that door. Watched him disappear into the Thunder Bay cold with his shoulders hunched and his game-day shirt still damp. He'd walked away from me the way I'd seen him walk away from bad hits on the ice—controlled, deliberate, refusing to let anyone see how much it hurt.
Except he'd stopped.
I knew because I'd pressed my face to the narrow window beside the door. The parking lot stretched out under orange streetlights, half-empty, slick with black ice. And there, at the far edge near a beat-up pickup truck—there was Pickle.
Leaning against the tailgate. Arms crossed. Watching the door.
