“What everyone has said is right,” Alan said in that low, sexy voice that did things to my entire body. “We will figure this out, whatever it looks like. I want you to put it out of your mind. You’ll let your lawyer and Mikko deal with whatever comes. All you have to do is post your resignation letter, then focus on curling. Yes?”
I nodded.
Focusing on curling was only part of why I had done it, and not even the biggest part. I knew, we all knew, I’d been neglecting Evan, letting Alan do all the heavy lifting with him lately and that wasn’t okay.
It wasn’t that I was jealous. At least, I didn’t think I was. But I missed him. I missed them both. I wanted more of them in my life, and if something else had to give for me to have that, it wasn’t going to be my other love.
I was a good architectural draftsman. I liked my job. Up until a few minutes ago, I’d liked my boss even.
I was an excellent curler. I loved the sport almost as much as I loved my boyfriend. And let’s face it, I more than liked my Skip.
But once, years ago, I had taken Evan’s hand and asked him to follow me out the door. And he had. He’d quit his partying ways, lost friends over that choice, lost the kind of ready, copious sex he loved to have. He’d kicked a brother and a best friend out so he could move me into his apartment. He’d learned to curl so he could spend more time with me. He’d dropped out of his college program because we hadn’t been able to afford it back when I’d still been a poorly-paid intern, and I’d promised him we would find a way to get him back there once I was gainfully employed.
Then he’d followed me on this podium dream instead.
He’d blown up his life, again and again, for me. And now I’d quit the one thing that had made all those sacrifices sustainable for us.
So while he, and everyone else, sat there and told me it would be fine, all I could think was that we could never kick those Timmins boys out of our apartment now because without my income, we wouldn’t be able to afford it.
I had, effectively, lost us our home.
I didn’t say any of that to him. He knew it was all there, in our history, and still, he let me do this. Encouraged me to do it. Helped me to do it. I didn’t deserve him.
I did do all the things he’d outlined earlier. I ate a good meal with our new friends, worked out until my limbs shook, then showered with him and Alan before we headed to the rink.
I drove every other thought out of my head to focus on that practice because not only did Evan deserve my best effort to keep the promise of the Games alive but the rest of the team was counting on me too.
When we got back, I went to my computer immediately and typed up my resignation, emailed it off, printed it, and arranged for the snail mail delivery to both my former employer and my lawyer. Just in case.
Then I stayed there, typing up another list. All of the things Evan had given up for me, which I also printed out.
I’d left it on the dresser in our empty room, intending to give it to him later, so he knew how grateful I was for all of it but when I came out of my second shower of the day, he was sitting on the bed reading it.
“Hey. Um…”
“Sit.” He patted the bed beside him. “We have to talk about this.”
“Ev, I just want you to know how grateful?—”
“Sit. Down.”
Was he mad? I sat next to him.
“I need a pen. Wait there. Do not move.”
I waited and when he came back, he took my hand and moved me to lean against the headboard next to him.
“So let’s go over this.” He put a little dot beside his brother’s name. “First, I did not kick Jacob out. He had a girlfriend down in London he couldn’t be with because with our parents gone, he knew I couldn’t afford the apartment and go to school even with a roommate. He put his life on hold to help me get mine set up. So when I met you, he realized I was set and he could go live his life, and he did. He asked Emileigh to marry him a week after he moved down there, and you know how that turned out, with their two gorgeous kids.”
“They are pretty cute.”
“Him moving out was a mutually beneficial decision for both of us to get on with our lives, so not a sacrifice. He doesn’t need to be on this list.”
He wrote Emileigh’s name down under Jacob’s and drew a heart around them, then put a dot beside his old friend Kevin’s name.
“Kevin, it turns out, was a raging homophobe.”
“You and he joked about your sexcapades all the time.”
