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Two days later, I finally had twenty-four hours off.
I pulled to the curb in front of Paula Dwyer’s rented house and turned the car off. Evie still lived with her mother, mostly because she was rarely home. She’d been training since she was eight years old. If she wasn’t at the rink, she was traveling to one of the dozens of competitions she competed in to keep her national rank and squeak out a living—a living that supported both her and her mother.
Paula answered the door and threw her arms around my neck. “The Olympic athlete has arrived!”
I could smell the liquor on her breath at ten in the morning. But it wasn’t my place to lecture a grown-ass woman.
“Hey, Paula. How you doing?”
“Just peachy.” She stumbled back. “The gimp is in the kitchen.”
Gimp. I was certain that word would offend anyone, particularly your daughter who’d cracked her ankle and lost her shot at competition in the Olympics forever. Paula’s sympathy drained in real time with the bottle. I walked past her without responding and headed for the kitchen.
Evie was slumped over the table, still wearing the red, white, and blue sweatshirt I’d helped put on her after her coach carried her off the ice two days ago. Her casted foot was propped up on the chair next to her.
I gently jostled her shoulder. “Hey. You okay?”
Her head lifted. She squinted, and a crooked smile spread wide across her face. “I thought you couldn’t come until Saturday.”
“It is Saturday.”
“Oh.” Her brows furrowed like she wasn’t sure I was telling the truth. “What happened to Friday then?”
I picked up the empty glass next to her and sniffed. It stunk like her mother. “I’m guessing you drank it away.”
She shrugged and her head fell back to the table. “Whatever.”
I sighed and looked around the kitchen. The sink was piled high with dishes. There were two open pizza boxes on the counter, with a few day-old slices inside. And the garbage can was overflowing. I moved a Wendy’s bag crumpled on top and looked deeper. Underneath was an empty handle of Tito’s and a broken Jack Daniel’s bottle. There were also a few juice and soda cans, which I guessed from the looks of things, had been the mixers.
Evie was already snoring, so I scooped her up from the table and carried her to her bedroom. That was no better. There were half-empty cups and plates strewn about, and laundry all over. The suitcase she’d had at the competition hadn’t been opened yet.
I settled her into bed and took out the dirty dishes. I wasn’t judging. Lord knows I’d had my share of benders after a tough loss. Hell, I knew some guys in the league who did it after everygame. I hated that she had pain to numb at all. Though I wasn’t sure what to do with myself while she slept it off. I straightened her room, did some laundry, and wound up cleaning the kitchen. The cabinets and refrigerator were nearly empty, so after a while I went to the supermarket. I could use the fresh air anyway.
When I returned, her mother was in the kitchen, but Evie was still knocked out. Paula sat at the table drinking while I put away the groceries I’d bought. When I was done, I took the seat across from her.
“She’s taking it hard, huh?”
Paula lit a cigarette and blew the smoke in my face. “Of course she is. She blew her future. What is she going to do now?”
I shook my head. “She’s twenty-five and healthy. Her ankle will heal. There’s plenty she can do.”
“Like what? Give ice skating lessons for minimum wage?”
“If that’s what she wants to do and it makes her happy.”
“How is she supposed to put food on our table doing that?”
Our.Evie had been this woman’s meal ticket for long enough.
I’d been kicking around asking Evie to move in with me. We’d only been seeing each other six months, but it wasn’t easy to find time to spend together when she lived in Chicago and I had forty-one road games a season. Plus, I thought it would do her good to be close to her father and his wife, rather than Paula.
“I’m going to ask Evie to come live in Laurel Lake with me.”
“That will only do her harm.”
“How so?”
“When you live life on a merry-go-round and it suddenly stops, you find a way to make it spin again.”
