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Once upon a time, that dress would have had me hard as a rock, dragging her back to my apartment.
I squint at her. “Aren’t you cold?” I ask. “That looks uncomfortable.”
She glances at my puffer jacket. “Maybe you could lend me your coat.” Her eyes do this twinkling thing at me, and her mouth spreads into a wide smile as if she didn’t just cause a ridiculous scene yesterday evening.
“Maybe I could stand here while you slowly freeze into a corpsicle, but I don’t have that much time to waste,” I drawl, bored.
She wraps her coat around her, shivering, and gives me a hurt look. “You never used to be cruel. That Rowan woman has been a terrible influence on you. I miss the old Mason. We were such a power couple, weren’t we?”
“What do you know about Rowan? Seems strange that you’d bring her up as if you know anything about our relationship.”
Except there isn’t a relationship. She won’t even talk to me.
Rowan is the best thing that ever happened to me, and I blew it because I wouldn’t recognize a healthy relationship if it bit me in the ass. And even after I screwed her over, she came through for me. Seeing her last night and then having her walk away from me again was like having my heart ripped from my chest.
I glare at Lexi. “I hate the termpower couple, because anyone who wants to hang out with a power couple is a fake-ass social climber I wouldn’t be caught dead with.”
“Why are you making this so hard?” she pouts. “We were good together.”
I’m freezing my nuts off and not in the mood. “Lexi, I’m going to say this for the last time. Cut the crap and tell me what you’re up to, or I will not only take out a restraining order against you, I will make sure the press knows about it.”
Her eyes fly wide open in shock. “You wouldn’t do that to me,” she gasps. Her breath puffs in the frozen air.
“There were enough people who saw your pathetic display at the event last night that I can spin the story that you’re a crazed, desperate stalker who can’t let go. I hear through the grapevine that your bookings are drying up and you’re trying to get into acting. Do you think you’re going to get any gigs once that restraining order story comes out?” I grind on relentlessly.
Tears well up in her eyes. “You’ve turned into an absolute bastard.”
No, pretty sure I always had that in me.
“Even more reason to stay the hell away from me. Why are you acting like this? This is completely not you.” I shake my head at her. “Someone else is behind this. At first I thought maybe it was Dylan, but he’s obviously clueless. Tell me now, or I’m on my way to my lawyer’s office.”
She just glares at me, tears beading on her mascara-coated lashes, not saying a word, so I spin on my heel and stalk off. I don’t have all day for this bullshit.
“You son of a bitch,” she screams at my back. “You don’t even deserve a better team.”
I turn to look at her in confusion. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“We were doing it for you,” she shrieks. “Coach Hartley, me, your mother—we were all doing it for you. We were trying to set things up so the Rovers would dump you.” She sees the look on my face but doesn’t rush to explain herself.
She’s too busy crying her eyes out. If this is an act, she gets the part, because holy shit… she’s a mess. She forgot to wear waterproof makeup, so rivers of mascara are running down her face. We’re drawing curious glances from people walking by, but she keeps up the theatrics.
“It was for your own good,” she howls. “Your coach cares. He wants the best for you.”
I shake my head from side to side slowly. “Coach Hartley?” This doesn’t make sense. “You’re deranged. Coach has no reason to want me to screw up, because that reflects poorly on him.”
“Only if you screw up on the ice. If it’s your personal life, that’s no reflection on him.” She sniffles hard.
“You were trying to help me, by destroying my reputation and getting me kicked off the team, when you know hockey is my life?”
“It always was your life,” she says bitterly. “You always loved hockey more than me.”
“Yeah, obviously.” I stare at her in puzzlement. “I told you that from the very beginning. I told you that the game would always come first, and we could have fun together, but that’s all it would ever be.”
“Fuck you,” she spits at me, because I’m telling her the truth.
Again, Rowan’s face swims in front of me. Do I love hockey more than Rowan?
Holy shit. What am I even thinking?
