Chapter 1
Isla
Thescorchingraysofthe sun beat down on me the moment I step outside, leaving the arctic-level air conditioning from the airport behind.
Sweat immediately coats my forehead.Fucking North Carolina weather. Spending the past year in New England took some adjustment at first, but I grew to love the change in seasons. It made it easier to keep my vow not to return to my hometown. Unfortunately, I had to chuck that plan out the window to revive my figure skating career.
An obnoxiously loud car horn jerks me out of my thoughts. Shielding my eyes from the sun, I search for the source of the noise.
From the front seat of a burnt orange convertible sports car, my older brother, Brooks, lets his polarized sunglasses slide down the bridge of his nose. He flashes me a grin.
“Sorry I’m late,” he calls from the front seat of his car. “You been waiting long?”
“Ages,” I deadpan.
I told him my flight was scheduled to arrive half an hour before it did. After thirty years together, I know that fibbing is the way toget my brother to arrive on time. That lesson was cemented when Brooks almost missed watching me walk across the stage at my high school graduation.
He jogs around his car and scoops me into his arms, sending my sunglasses tumbling to the concrete. “Welcome back, sis. I’ve missed you.”
He drops me to my feet as quickly as he lifted me. I squat down to pick up my sunglasses, which mercifully aren’t damaged from the whirlwind that is Brooks Covington.
“Did you shrink, I?” He makes a show of looking down at me, scrunching his brow in thought.
I immediately shoot to my feet, long tired of the jokes about our height difference. I backhand his shoulder. “Maybe it’s your ego that’s inflating your height, Brooksy.”
“Ho, ho, hoooo,” he huffs. “Someone’s coming out swinging.”
“I’m in enemy territory,” I say as I hoist my forty-nine-point-two-pound suitcase into the empty backseat. “I’ve got to be on my game.”
I broke my parent’s hearts after separating from my ex-husband and hightailing it out of state. I haven’t seen them since. Their constant pressure to take Chip back drove a wedge into our already precarious relationships. In our occasional conversations, my mother still can’t stop making little comments about Chip’s success and how great we’d been as a couple. Meanwhile, my father continues to groom my ex to take over his empire. Initially, they thought we’d get back together, but it’s been months since the ink dried on the divorce papers, and they still haven’t changed their behavior.
“You know this car makes you look like a rich douche, right?” I give him a saccharine smile from the passenger seat as he starts the engine.
Brooks barks out a laugh, running a hand through his floppy chestnut-blond hair. The hair I heard about endlessly from my friends as a kid. “Says the woman with four-hundred-dollar sunglasses.”
He knows about my financial struggles, but I’ve worked hard to conceal the worst of it from him, especially over the last year. He’s had enough on his plate without adding my problems. I don’t tell him that I’ve reluctantly kept these sunglasses from my ex, who loved to give me extravagant gifts, instead of what I needed, because I can’t afford to waste even one dollar. Investing in my skating career over everything else is an easy choice to make.
“What can I say?” he adds with that classic charm. “I guess ‘rich douche’ looks good on me.”
He pulls onto the highway that leads to his condo located in one of the nicest areas of downtown Palmer City. I stare at my older brother’s profile, marveling at how far he’s come in rebuilding his life. During the height of his cocaine addiction about a decade ago, this reality—us, together—seemed like a distant, improbable possibility. I’m grateful for the scandal that caused him to lose his NBA contract because it forced him to get help for his depression.
I still remember the out-of-character hesitation in his voice as he admitted his struggles and told me he was checking himself into rehab. It broke my heart to hear my confident, kind-hearted brother’s voice falter.
I shake off that emotion, like I do with all others, and blow out an exaggerated breath. “Please never call yourself a rich douche again. I beg you.”
Brooks’s response is lost in the roaring wind as he merges onto the highway.
I hold my long, wavy strawberry blond hair the entire drive to stop it from blowing into hundreds of small knots I’d have to painstakingly untangle later. I usually have scrunchies on hand, but this last-minute decision to uproot my life threw my carefully curated schedule into chaos. I missed a hair appointment, left my wallet in a store, and used a detangling hair product as a facial moisturizer—none of which are remotely close to normal for me.
My life is usually scheduled down to the minute, between offering private ice-skating lessons, delivering food, and busting my ass on the ice and in the gym. A series of alarms on my phone holds me together, barely.
The thought of setting up my new alarm structure centers me.Everything will be fine.This will work out. It has to. Otherwise, retirement from the sport I’ve loved my entire life is on the horizon, and I’ll need to shift to coaching an elite figure skater to stay connected to this world I love. I’m not willing to concede that time is now. Not without a fight.
Brooks parks in front of his building and heads to the trunk of his douchemobile. “This is all you brought? Are you hedging your bets about the new skating partner thing?”
I exit the car, then slump into my favorite position—arms crossed, hip popped. “The rest will get here tomorrow. Shipping costs lessthan checked bags. I’m not surprised his highness, the Euro basketball star, never had to learn that lesson.”
After finishing rehab, Brooks revived his basketball career in the EuroLeague. To everyone’s surprise, he retired last year and moved back home.
