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“He’s making me consider love again, Quinn,” I whisper. My voice is soft and terrified in equal measure. “He excites me. He makes me feel wanted and sexy and smart. He challenges me. But sometimes… sometimes, I don’t know. Because he flies off the handle when fatherhood gets hard. And that—that’s the thing that’d break all of this into little, tiny pieces.”
Quinn is silent. I know that the gears in her head are going about a mile a minute with this information. Finally, she says, “Does he feel the same about you? Have you talked about it?”
That’s the question that kicks me in the gut. “I have no idea how he feels about me,” I confess. “We haven’t talked in two weeks. He came back from his last game and he was so distant. I thought it was because the game didn’t go well, but it’s a different kind of distance, you know? I can’t get a read on him. Part of me… part of me worries he got bored and just decided to stop trying.”
Quinn snorts derisively. “Well, any man that just up and drops you isn’t worth your time, Livvy.” There’s a crackle as she switches the phone to the other ear. “Listen, how about this: let’s put a pin in this man business, you and me both. I come home in a week. We can get together, go out and hit the town, do some dirty dancing with some pretty boys. And then when it’s time, you put your cards on the table for Mr. Reese Dalton. And if he can’t meet you head-on, screw him!”
I laugh. “Literally or figuratively?”
“Figuratively, of course. Unless you’re into hate fucking?—”
“Oh, God, shut up.” I smile. “You’re the best, Q. You know that, right?”
“Well, duh! What would you even do without me?”
48
OLIVIA
I know that it’s a bad idea the moment that it gets in my head.
But I do it anyway.
Reese gave me a few extra days off through the week for the rest of the month, just in case I needed to be available for my mother. He has a sitter for those days, and after checking in on Mom on one of them, there’s an itch I want to scratch.
I just want to see Reese.
It’s a practice day. I’ve never been to one of those before. But I do know where the practice rink is, and I know that they allow open practices, which means if I go, it won’t be weird and I won’t get kicked out.
Is it unhinged behavior? Maybe. But as long as I don’t behave like some rabid fan, I should be fine…
I hope.
So I make my way to the rink. The territory is completely unfamiliar and entirely masculine. If the ringing clank of blades on the ice and the grunts are any indication, practice is well under way. I find a seat high up so that I won’t be noticed. Last thing I want is the embarrassment of someone catching on that I’m here. Or worse—Reese himself noticing.
But the swarm of men on the ice don’t pay me any mind. It’s a lot different than it was watching Reese’s game. I can’t hear them well, but they set up and reset multiple times. I catch the muffled hints of what sounds like disputes communicated mostly in surly grunts. Occasionally, the guys knock against each other with frightening violence. It’s hard to tell whether it’s them playing around or actually trying to fight.
Whichever the case, Reese tends to be at the center of the skirmishes.
My eyes zero in on his number. He’s a force to be reckoned with on the ice, for sure. A bull on skates. TV doesn’t do him justice. In real life, he’s so much rawer, just exuding these waves of furious emotion like he’s radioactive. The aggression, the frustration, the drive.
I find myself squirming around where I sit. I don’t like admitting it, not even to myself, but I can’t help it:
This shit turns me on.
I didn’t expect that reaction when I initially came here. I just wanted to scope out Reese, have a private moment of considering what he should mean to me, what he does mean to me, what I can’t let him start to mean to me.
Instead of finding clarity and calm and nirvana or whatever-the-hell, I’m sitting here wishing that that powerhouse of a man on the ice would do wicked things to my body.
Houston, we may have a problem.
When practice finally comes to a close, I know it’s now or never to slip away without someone catching wind of the fact that I’m there. The team will never know about my little field trip—just like Quinn and Reese will never know, either, because they’ll suss out in two seconds flat what kind of effect it had on me. I’m a terrible liar, especially when it comes to people I care about.
I retrace my steps so I can leave the stadium undetected. But when I take a right turn down a hall I think is supposed to lead me out front, I realize that it’s not taking me where I need to be at all. I hit a dead end with bathrooms.
Okay, Olivia. Think.
I recall some of the signage that I’d passed on my way in. All I have to do is find it. It was a goofy advertisement for some soda with a life-size chicken mascot.
