Page 151 of Secrets on Ice

“Then what’s the problem?”

“The problem is her.” His voice goes gentle in a way that’s almost worse. “She just had her whole life blown apart thanks to that fucking asshole, and just when she was finally over that hurdle …” His face falls. “She got drugged in a club and nearly taken. She’s barely holding it together,” he says sadly. “And here you are in love with her up to your eyeballs.” He shakes his head. “She is nowhere near ready for what you’re carrying. If you go at her with all of that right now, you’ll lose her. You know that, don’t you?”

And there it is, the thing I’ve been refusing to look at. “Yeah,” I say quietly. “I know.”

“She has to come back to herself first, on her own. Before any of this.” He holds my eye. “Can you wait?”

I think about the girl who was mine before she was anyone else’s. I think about twenty years of waiting. I think about her in my arms most nights. “I’ve waited my whole life,” I say. “I can wait a little longer.”

Emmett nods slowly, and then he reaches across the table and grips my shoulder, hard, once. “Then get your head on straight and play some hockey,” he says. “Because you’re no good to her benched and miserable. And Sully …” his grip tightens, “… you hurt her, and I take that punch back, with interest.”

“Understood, Cap.”

For the first time since Vegas, something in my chest loosens. He knows my darkest secret, and he didn’t hit me. It’s the first good thing to happen in a week.

We finish the week with a win. The plane ride home feels longer than usual. I keep checking my phone even though I know she hasn’t answered any of my messages. By the time we land, my chest is tight with worry.

Fish, Emmett, and I get an Uber home from the arena. They are chatting about something while I sit and stare out the window, watching the city go by while trying to hold it together.

I say bye to the guys when they get out of the elevator on their floor and head up the next level to my apartment. Nerves wreck my body as I step out of the elevator and make my way to the door with my bag over my shoulder. I suck in a deep breath and calm myself as I walk through the door.

Ember is on the couch with Cassidy, wrapped in a blanket. They are watching some stupid reality TV show. Her hair is pulled back in a slick ponytail, I notice her face is pale. She looks up when the door closes, and a small smile falls across her lips. The relief that hits me is so sharp it nearly takes my knees out from under me. I drop the bag and just stand there, trying to remember how to act normally when all I want to do is cross the room and pull her against me and not let go.

“Hey,” I say, and it comes out rough.

“You’re home!” Cassidy exclaims a little louder than I think she meant to. She jumps up and crosses the room quickly before wrapping her arms around me. “She’s fragile and quiet. Just, you know, don’t expect much.” She warns before launching into an animated conversation about the week and about mine, calling me a dumbass for missing shots during my games.

Ember doesn’t say much, but she smiles at Cassidy’s dramatics and shakes her head at me when Cassidy calls me a dumbass. If I didn’t know better, if I hadn’t seen her in that hospital bed, I’d almost believe everything was normal. She’s just quieter, like someone turned her volume down. Then she pulls out her phone, and my eyes flare. It’s on. She turned it back on. She scrolls through something, thumbs moving, and my stomach drops because if her phone’s on, she’s seen my messages. Every single one of them, the dozen I fired off across the week like an idiot, checking in, hoping, are you okay, thinking about you, text me when you can. And she hasn’t answered one.

I tell myself it doesn’t mean anything. She’s not answering anyone, Cassidy said. Don’t take it personally. But it lands in my chest like a stone anyway, that she can look at my name on her screen and just scroll past it.

“I’m gonna grab a shower,” I say because I need thirty seconds where nobody can see my face.

“Sure.” Cassidy’s already reaching for her own phone. “I’ll order from downstairs, you must be starving. Em, you want the usual?”

Ember nods without looking up.

I take my bag to my room, and I stand under the water longer than I need to, hands braced on the tiles, giving myself exactly the length of that shower to feel sorry for myself, and then I shut it off. Then Emmett’s words hit me. ‘She has to come back to herself first.’

Right, so that’s what I do. I’ll be normal, her longtime friend, her roommate, nothing more unless she wants me to be.

I come out from my shower and the food’s arrived. Cassidy’s got it spread across the coffee table, containers open, they are arguing over spring rolls. Ember is still curled under the same blanket. I drop onto the other end of the couch, careful not to sit too close, giving her space. Cassidy hands me a container and chopsticks and then fills the silence as she gives me the rundown of the show they are watching, while I make the right noises and laugh when I’m supposed to. I keep my eyes on the food instead of on Ember’s face every time she doesn’t react.

She picks at her dinner, I notice she barely eats. She doesn’t say much either, just the odd remark to Cass. I want to reach over and take her hand and give her some of my strength. I want to ask if she is sleeping better, as Cass told me about the nightmares. I want to say a hundred things, but I know I would only make it worse. So, I don’t. I just sit there and do a decent job of pretending this is a normal night at home after a road trip. And the whole time the worry sits in my chest like a stone I can’t shift.

I can’t stop looking at her. I don’t mean to. I catch myself doing it and stop, and then I’m doing it again a minute later. The curve of her cheek, the dark circles under her eyes, and the way she nibbles her bottom lip. Every time I look away, I get pulled back.

My phone buzzes in my pocket.

Cassidy: Stop being a creep and staring at her.

I glance up, Cassidy’s looking dead ahead at the TV, totally innocent, a spring roll halfway to her mouth.

Sully: I’m worried.

Cassidy: No shit, so am I, but staring at her is only going to make her retreat more.

Sully: I’m sorry. I just haven’t seen her since that night.