She shuts her laptop, then leans over, trying to shove it into the saggy bag that doesn’t want to cooperate.
“I should go. More interviews to do.” With a huff at her failed attempts, she grabs both, clutches them to her chest, and launches off the stool so fast that it slams against the wall.
She freezes in place, staring at the damaged paint, eyes wide like a possum caught in headlights.
“Sorry. Really gotta go.” After giving me a horrified grimace, she rushes out the door, her cheeks flaming red.
This is more than my flustering her.
She’s acting more like the clumsy, unsure girl she used to be in middle school. But then she bloomed in high school, becoming this amazing, confident young woman who didn’t let anyone hold her back. That’s when I truly fell for her—and hard.
A simmering rage courses through me at the thought of something or someone making her doubt herself, which makes me more determined to find out what happened to her in Texas.
When she got snagged on the barbed wire, Bree trusted me to handle her with care. Somehow, I’ll convince her that she can do it again.
This time with her heart.
Chapter Ten
BREE
What is wrong with me? I can’t believe I rushed out of the room like a skittish schoolgirl who bumped into her crush, behaving like a blathering idiot.
Maybe Wade didn’t notice how weird I acted or the dent I left in the wall. I groan to myself as I beeline it to my office. Of course, he noticed. Wade’s the one person in my life who’s always seen me. All of me—the best and the worst.
Right now, I’m pretty much the least attractive version of myself. But I can’t shake the way those three words made me feel…
Good to know.
It wasn’t what he said so much ashowhe said it, his voice soft and steady, eyes fixed on me like it was a promise he intended to keep—with me. In all the years I’ve known him, Wade’s never expressed any romantic interest in me. Nor I in him. We’ve just always been close…best friends.
He probably didn’t mean anything by it. I’m the one making something out of nothing because, thanks to my dick of an ex, I’m wired tighter than a spring. My fight and flight reflexes are still amped up from what happened.
I close the door to my office, dump my laptop bag on my new desk, and sit in my comfy new desk chair. A few select pictures of my family sit on the matching bookshelf, a couple of which include Wade and his sisters, but I zero in on the one of just him and me.
Right after I graduated high school, I found out my parents had put up the ranch for sale. They’d divorced a year before, but reassured me nothing would change. What I didn’t realize, though, was that they’d waited to sell until after I graduated.
My world—my dreams—shattered for a second time.
Wade understood because he was the only one who knew about my idea of turning the ranch into a destination for events like weddings and family vacations. He’d encouraged me that day to show my parents the vision book I’d created, which I did.
But to no avail. My parents couldn’t afford to keep the ranch and pay for a small apartment in town for my dad. Plus, they had my tuition to cover. I argued I would skip college and implement my plan to turn things around, but they said the risk was too high since I didn’t know what I was doing.
That’s the ironic part. The whole reason I wanted to go to college was to gain the knowledge and skills I would need. But no ranch meant no dream.
I still got my marketing degree, but nothing felt the same after that until I landed the PR position with the Texas Stars. For the first time, I had a plan for my life that made sense. And my years of watching Wade play hockey and loving the sport turned into an invaluable skill for the job.
Maybe I’m just being overly sensitive, but I still feel like I’m in a constant state of dread, waiting for the next ‘Chase Files’ to drop. That’s what I’ve decided to call the emotional rollercoaster I’ve been on over the last year. I can only compare dating Chase to that analogy of a frog in a pot of water slowly heating to a boil.By the time I realized what a self-centered jerk he was, I was in too deep.
At first, I thought he was just…particular, which I found intriguing and sophisticated. For the first few months, he seemed like the perfect guy. Very attentive, always respectful, and super romantic. When he said he liked the secrecy of our relationship, I went along with it, even though I was pretty sure HR wouldn’t have a problem with us dating since neither of us held any authority over the other.
Soon after, he asked me to help pump up his image on social media. I figured he was in it for the fans, wanting to connect more. But then he’d make these comments about how hard it was to find time to post, so I offered to do some for him. Chase gushed so much over me for helping that I offered to take it over for him. No one knew we were dating, and it wasn’t like I didn’t assist the other guys with their social media presences.
But then he wanted me to do more to catch the attention of their parent team, the Dallas Stars. Even then, he posed it as if we were a team and this was our ‘end goal’ to secureourfuture. Together.
And me? I was stupid enough to believe him. Until I caught him cheating on me, and told him we were over. No more relationship, and I sure as hell wasn’t handling his social media anymore. He threatened to tell management that I pushed him to do all this stuff in order to build my own resume to go out on my own. And I believed him because he’s best friends with the team owner’s son. Apparently, they grew up together, so there’s no way they’d believe me over Chase.
Yep. Just call me frog because I’m the one who got boiled in the pot.
