Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 78877 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 394(@200wpm)___ 316(@250wpm)___ 263(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78877 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 394(@200wpm)___ 316(@250wpm)___ 263(@300wpm)
Was that honestly what she thought of me? That I was the kind of guy who would knock up my girlfriend—or any woman, and leave her twisting in the wind while I spent a month in Ryleigh’s bed? That I was the kind of man who would turn his back on his child and hide it away? If that’s what she thought of me, it was no wonder she’d run back to Chuck at the first opportunity.
Her gaze narrowed to slits. “You know what? You’re right. I don’t know you. I don’t even know why I thought coming here would fix anything, when clearly there’s nothing worth fixing. You are not the man I thought you were.” Her voice broke and she backed away slowly.
Right. Like I was the villain here.
A steel cage went up around my heart and I laughed, the sound ugly and empty. “Yeah. You’re right. You don’t know me at all. Go back to your perfect little life, Ry. Let all that talent die under the weight of a life you don’t even really want and a man you have to convince yourself to love.” Every step she took sucked a little more oxygen from the air, made it that much harder to breathe, to function, to hold my shit together.
She flinched but lifted her chin as she reached her car. “Like you’d know anything about love.” She fumbled with the driver’s side door handle for a second before swinging it open. “I meant what I said. I don’t owe you an explanation—not when you’re clearly living a double life, but just to be clear, I’m not with Chuck. I haven’t been with Chuck for months, and I’ll never be with Chuck.”
My lips parted as my brain tried to process that information through the layers of anger and hurt I’d wrapped around me like a shield. “Then I guess you’d better go find your next ladder.”
She inhaled sharply and drew back like my words had been a physical blow, but didn’t say another word as she climbed behind the wheel and drove away, disappearing around the curve as she left Reaper Village.
Numb, I turned and walked inside my massive, professionally decorated, utterly empty house. It was the perfect metaphor for my fucked-up life.
“Hey,” Langley said as she walked into the foyer, slipping her feet into her sandals. “Everything okay?”
“Not exactly.” I shoved my hands into my pockets.
“Axel just called and said they got the air conditioning working, so I was about to head back home, but I can stay if you need someone to talk to,” she said gently, her blue eyes heavy with worry.
“I’m okay.” Restless, angry energy crawled through my veins, seeking any outlet that might lessen the pain. “I think I might head to the rink.”
She nodded, then leaned up and kissed my cheek. “Okay. Be careful. Maybe take Maxim or Brogan with you? Just so you’re not alone.”
I gave her what I hoped was a reassuring smile. “You’re one of the good ones. You know that, right, Langley?”
She snorted. “Try telling my husband that the next time we get into an argument we’re both too stubborn to apologize for. Thanks for letting me soak up your air conditioning.”
“Anytime.”
The door shut with a click as she left, and I stared at the perfectly polished interior of my completely meaningless home. There were no scratched-up kitchen tables here. No dusty barns or puck-marked walls from hours of practice. No glass-tipped windmills that played in the light. No heart. No Ryleigh.
I called the only family I had here and headed to the rink.
***
Sweat dripped from my hair as I shot my mouth full of water, then sprayed my face down.
Next to me, Maxim did the same, his chest heaving under his pads. “If. I’d known. You were. Going to try. To kill me. I would have. Stayed home.” He struggled to catch his breath. “Seriously. It’s the third. Day. In a row.”
“Who’s worried about being out of shape, now?” I asked with a smirk.
“Not me,” Brogan answered from my other side, hydrating. The guy had barely broken a sweat. “I can skate circles around you.”
Maxim rolled his eyes. Brogan was faster than hell—he’d earned that Demon nickname, but we both knew that no one beat Max when it came to puck handling and shooting. The guy scored like his life depended on it, and knowing how he’d grown up, it probably had.
Thank God Silas never cared if we used the ice. We’d had to wait until the figure skating competition was over to get the ice time last night, but there wasn’t much demand on a Monday night, so the whole rink was ours.
Sterling walked out of the tunnel and into the box, fully dressed in his goalie gear. “A little bird may have told me you might need someone to shoot at.”