Page 78

I still don't know whether Rez will call. I don't know what will happen when we return to our separate lives, when the six days become a memory instead of something I can touch.

But I know this much: I won't regret choosing him for a beautiful escape, any more than I will regret not fighting for something that was meant to be mine.

CHAPTER 14

VS. DC

Rez

“Aw, you do care."

I open my beer and take a long swallow. The cold helps nothing.

Gabe follows me into the living room and drops onto the couch like he owns the place. He's been here enough times that I stopped pretending to mind. He stretches his legs out, takes a drink, and watches me pace from the window to the kitchen and back.

Finally, he sets his beer down.

"All right. What the fuck is going on with you?"

"Nothing."

"That's bullshit."

"Then stop asking questions you already have an answer to."

He gives me a long look. "Anna."

There it is. Her name, and suddenly the room feels smaller. I stop pacing. "Don't."

"No, we're doing this." He leans forward, bracing his forearms on his knees. "Because I just watched you spend sixty minutes playing like your brain was in Germany, and I have a pretty good idea why."

I take another drink.

"She's not going to be back on her native land flicking the bean to a loser on the ice, Rez."

I stare at him.

He lifts both hands. "What? You want me to lie?"

"Could've found a less disgusting way to say it."

"Could've played a better fucking game and maybe I’d have considered it."

I set the beer down harder than necessary.

Gabe doesn't flinch. That's one of the reasons he's still my best friend. Most people take my temper personally. Gabe knows when it's aimed at him and when it's just the only thing I have left to throw at a problem I can't solve.

"She watched you play," he says. "She knows what you can do. You think she's sitting over there wondering whether you can score a goal, or do you think she's wondering whether the guy who’d fucked her into oblivion is going to fucking call?"

I look toward the dark windows.

The lake is black beyond the glass, the shoreline barely visible. I've spent years coming here to get away from everything. The noise, the cameras, the expectations. It's always worked before.

Now all I can think about is Anna waking up in Germany, probably exhausted, probably dealing with her mother, and wondering whether she made a mistake trusting me.

"I told her I'd call."

"Then call her."