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Nolan slows his pace for a heartbeat, then starts walking again without responding to my question.
Getting along with him is frustratingly easy, even when he’s actually trying to push me away.
The problem is we’re both too determined to chase after what matters to us. I’m not going to leave Taste and I’m not going to leave Frosty Harbor to follow him around the country for several months a year. I don’t just want to be the obedient girlfriend or wife waiting at home for my husband. I don’t want to introduce myself as “Nolan’s girlfriend”. I don’t want to be known as “that NHL guy’s wife.” I want to be Mia Calloway, that badass chef.
None of that is Nolan’s fault, but just like magnets, our similarities in purpose seem to make us repel each other whenever we get too close.
Maybe the only way we can ever come together is if we figure out where that point of repulsion is. Maybe it’s the place just beyond casual sex and friendship–the place where real feelings start and the carefree fun ends. We’ll have to keep dancing right up to the edge where everything gets ruined. Or maybe we’ll keep bashing right into that danger zone again and again, forever pushing each other away in an endless, pointless cycle.
I’m deep in thought by the time he kicks open the door to my cabin. “Doing okay?” he asks.
“Mhm,” I say, even though my mood has soured during the walk. Because there it is again. That invisible force trying to push us back apart.
27
NOLAN
I’ve got Mia set up on the bed with a pillow under her ankle to elevate it. I’m digging through her freezer for something to ice the foot. I find a cold compress buried under some peas and an impressive assortment of meal prepped tupperwares full of delicious looking combinations of food.
I grin. I remember when we dated briefly, Mia talked about how she always meal-prepped during her figure skating days. She said it was the only way she could make sure she ate enough. Otherwise, her coach was constantly scolding her for losing weight. Back then, she talked about boring bland chicken and rice. The containers in her fridge now are a huge step up in quality from those days for her.
I return to the bedroom and find her laying there above the covers with her hands threaded over her stomach. She’s watching me quietly with an unreadable expression.
“Doing okay?” I ask. I wrap a self-adhering bandage around her ankle I found in her medicine cabinet with just a little pressure. “Is that too tight?”
“It’s okay,” she says.
I get the ice on her ankle and sit back, studying her face. “Fifteen minutes,” I say.
She’s stunning. Her bright red hair spills out behind her on the pillow. Her long eyelashes are almost blonde. She looks up at me, and laughs through her nose, cheeks going red. “What?” she asks.
“Nothing,” I say. I pause. “I just…” I frown at the comforter, annoyed that the right words won’t seem to come. “I don’t get how it feels so easy with you, but so hard, too. It doesn’t make any fucking sense.”
Her lips twitch at the corners. “I’m not sure that makes sense to me, either.”
There’s a complex web of emotions in my chest. I don’t even know how to start explaining it all, so I settle for letting out a sigh and lifting my palms in a shrug.
She puts a hand on my thigh, squeezing slightly. She’s not saying it, but part of me thinks maybe I’m not alone. Maybe Mia feels just as confused as I do.
I stare at the bracelet on her wrist and lift my free hand to rub my thumb over the silver chain. “Do you know how hard it is not to say stupid shit around you?” I ask.
She laughs. “What? What kind of ‘stupid shit’? Like the earth is flat? Or that raccoons would make good pets? Or maybe we should use that black waterproof tape from infomercials to seal up bullet wounds?”
I stare, a slow smile creeping across my lips. “Believe it or not, none of those were what I was thinking of.”
Mia returns my smile, shrugging adorably. “You have to admit the tape one makes you think though, doesn’t it?”
“It makes me think you’ve watched too many infomercials, yeah.”
Mia gives me a playful whack on the leg.
She smiles. “Then what were you getting at? What’s all this stupid shit you want to say?”
The words in my head aren’t stupid, though. They’re dangerous. Like how I’m wondering if it would be worth sacrificing everything to have her. Even if it meant leaving hockey behind and letting my teammates down. I shake my head. “The kind of things better left unsaid. Things neither of us need to hear out loud.”
For a moment, I think she’s about to press me to say it anyway. I might, too. If she asks me right now, I might just blurt it all out, consequences be damned.
But her forehead crinkles, she nods, and then she looks down at the ice on her ankle. Just like that, the moment is gone.
