"I know this is scary. Trust me when I say that this is the last thing I want to be doing." My voice breaks on the last sentence and I wipe my eyes quickly. "Coach Savard, if you see this, I'm not scared anymore. I'm angry. And I refuse to let another girl go through what I went through because I was too afraid to say your name."
Indie looks at me and I nod. She reaches for the phone.
"Thank you for listening," I say to the camera. "Thank you for sharing. Please be kind to each other in the comments."
Indie ends the live. The red icon disappears, the screen goes dark, and the room is suddenly very, very quiet.
My hands are still shaking. I press them flat against my thighs and stare at the phone on the coffee table. Gordie puts his massive head in my lap and I bury my fingers in his fur. He smells terrible, like he always does, and the familiarity of it makes my eyes sting.
Alex crosses the living room in three steps and sits down beside me. He doesn't say anything. He puts his arm around my shoulders and I lean into him. His chest is warm and solid and his heartbeat is steady against my cheek.
"Forty-seven thousand peak viewers," Indie says, from her end of the couch. Her voice is soft and a little awed. "It's already being clipped and reposted."
All I can do is nod. I’m oddly numb, when I thought I’d feel relieved. "What if nobody believes me?"
"Fuck ‘em." Alex runs his thumb across my knuckles. "The ones who matter will."
"What about the team? Juliet is going to lose it."
"No. Juliet is going to support you. And if management has a problem with it, they can talk to me."
"You can't fight everybody, Alex."
"Watch me."
I laugh, watery and raw, and tuck my face into his neck. I let him comfort me, pull me into his embrace.
What a good place to be at this moment.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Thorne
This morning was a lot for anybody to handle. But especially my girlfriend, the sunny redhead with the gorgeous smile that I’m pretty certain I’m falling in love with. She’s handling it like a champ.
And I haven’t done what I wanted to do, which is break everything in sight and probably terrify Mollie and Indie. So really, we’re all doing better than expected.
Now it's the afternoon, and we're at the practice rink because Mollie needs to move. She needs the ice. Her phone is back at the houseboat, deliberately left behind. What she doesn't need is to read the comments section of people reacting to her story.
Right now, she's running through an old routine near center ice while I half-ass some stick drills near the boards. The rink is empty, and the lights in the stands are off. It feels like we have the whole world to ourselves. She catches me watching and sticks her tongue out at me.
"Eyes on your own work, Thorne."
"Mine is boring. You're not."
She blushes and turns back to her routine. I slam a puck into the net without looking, just to show off. It misses by two feet.Very cool. She doesn't notice, which is the only reason my dignity survives.
It’s nice having this incredibly attractive redhead doing her own thing on one end of the ice while I fuck around on the other. It feels balanced.
The doors open at the far end of the rink. Voices burst into the calm oasis; young women, as far as I can tell. A man in a dark tracksuit walks in with four girls trailing behind him. He's calling instructions in a voice that carries. His French-Canadian accent smooths the consonants. The girls fan out along the boards, lacing up skates and chattering.
I don't think much of it at first. Juliet mentioned, months ago, that the rink is available for auxiliary coaching during off-hours. Youth programs, private sessions, that sort of thing. As long as they don’t show any interest in me personally, I can just go back to my drills.
But I see Mollie stop skating, suddenly, like someone yanked the plug out of her. Her arms drop to her sides and every ounce of color drains from her face. I've seen Mollie scared. I've seen her angry, sad, frustrated, drunk, and delirious with laughter. I've never seen her look like this.
I skate over to her, fast. "What's wrong?"
Her lips barely move. "That's him."
