Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 87368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 437(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 437(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
I can’t move.
Or even speak.
All I can do is stare and wonder how the hell I’m going to convince her to come home.
To her family.
To me.
CHAPTER TWO
Reading Audrina’s letter feels like accidentally grabbing the curling iron she left on and discarded on my sink. Unlike I usually do when I grab the hot iron, I can’t throw it to the floor and scream in agony. Instead, I have to stare at the thirteen words in her handwriting that have my gut churning. She left. Poof. Gone. Nothing more than three letters that don’t explain anything. I don’t understand. We fight all the time. Why was this time so different?
You know why.
I ignore my inner voice even though I can still taste her on my lips.
Feel her body beneath mine, see the desire swirling in her hazel depths. Her face when she came is seared in my brain. Her breathy moans, the way my name was on repeat from her sweet lips…all of it, on a constant playback in my mind. I have wanted her for so long, craved her, and then I went and ruined it.
Ruined us.
And above all, chased her off.
Around me is pure chaos, our parents yelling and crying, while Ingrid just stares at me with pure disdain in her greenish-blue gaze. She hasn’t signed a word to me—or to anyone, for that matter. She shifts from looking at the letter Audrina left for her to glaring at me.
Just like everyone else
I went from being the golden boy of the family to the family pariah in the time it took for everyone to read the letter Audrina wrote to her parents. No one has to say I’m at fault; Audrina made sure everyone knew that in a matter of words. It all just seems so drastic. I don’t know where her head is, but fuck, I wish she had spoken to me first before she just took off. She knows how I get when I’m upset. I run my mouth, and I get petty as fuck. I realize that we didn’t part with the kindest words, but we could have talked this through once both of us calmed down. She just ran, and it pisses me the fuck off.
“Thatcher, what the hell happened?” William demands. Audrina’s father towers over me, his eyes wild, his lips pressed tightly together as he glares down at me.
I look down at the letter, unsure what to say. What happened is private. What was said in anger was just that—anger. Along with a bit of pain. I was on my way to get pain meds when I found her, and I lost my goddamn mind.
I slowly shake my head, and while I don’t want to look up, I know it wouldn’t be fair to my father and sister if they weren’t able to read my lips. While they both wear hearing aids, it’s still hard for them to hear everything. If a person isn’t signing as they speak, then they read lips.
“It’s between us. But I didn’t expect this. We’ve fought before, so I really don’t understand what the hell is going through her mind.”
Dad appears before me, and my breath catches. I am his twin, both of us six-three, packed with muscles, and lean. He played in the Russian league for years before he was offered a spot to play in the US. He was the first hard of hearing player to play in the NHL. I am proud to carry on his legacy, but when he looks at me like that, I don’t feel anything but small. My dad is a force to be reckoned with, my hero. I look up at him in all aspects of life. His strength, his talent, his love for his family. He met my mother when they were young, and he married her right out of high school. When he was offered the opportunity to come to the States, I don’t think he expected to not only bring his new wife, but also her best friend, Anya.
Audrina’s mom.
Dad was a defenseman, and his line mate was William Hawkins. William came over for dinner one night, and the rest is history. My parents and hers became a unit, but I shattered that to pieces with my famous slap shot.
Dad’s eyes are wild as he signs, “It has to be more. You two fight like siblings, and she’s never taken off before. What happened?”
“It’s between us.”
“No! My daughter took off. You will tell us,” William demands as Anya sobs loudly. My mom watches me, tears in her hazel eyes as she holds her best friend to her chest. She pats Anya’s back as her eyes plead with mine for the truth. Her long, dark hair is straight along her shoulders, almost curtaining Anya as she sobs for her missing daughter. My mother and her best friend are still as gorgeous as they were as young girls. Time is not a villain in their lives.