AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I don’t even know why we hate each other. It just happened.”
“You were shy but confident and everyone liked you. I think that bothered her. She wanted to be the star, and while she was a good skater, she wasn’t world class. And the two of you had intersecting lives. It was just too much.”
“And she perceived me as having a hold on you.”
“That might be part of it, but she was always a bit troubled. She had baggage, even back then.”
Reese sat next to Cam and pondered. “A part of me wanted to be friends with her at first. She was pretty and people gravitated to her. Her parents were always out to see her perform and she had so much support. It was all so alien to me. And then it was like she set her sights on me. Maybe she sensed my weakness. I don’t know. I wish I’d never met her.”
Cam put his arm around his friend and pulled her in close. “You’ll get through this. I’ve already got a few people who will come forward in your defense. And I let John know about it. Even if we don’t find the old emails or texts, it will be okay.”
“Thank you for coming here. It’s been very lonely this last day or so.”
“What about Jordy?”
“He’s busy.”
She could feel Cam tense up. He’d hated Jordy from the moment they’d met. She could see it in Cam’s sea-green eyes. He’d never said a bad word about him, but he’d never said anything nice either. Would today be the day he’d break his silence?
“Then it’s a good thing I’m here.”
Yes, he was exactly what she needed.
ChapterFour
The trip to Barrie took less than two hours, but Reese could feel the tension building. Thankfully, Cam was driving and spent most of the journey talking about happier times. For some reason, he was fixated on their gold-medal performance in Sochi, which had established them as one of the best skating pairs of all time. And everyone had assumed they were more than partners, a ruse that John insisted they keep up. He claimed it made their brand more valuable. Reese had hated lying to the fans, but John gave her little choice.
“Brian nearly killed me when he found me passed out drunk in my hotel room the next morning,” Cam said with a laugh.
“You made Brian’s life very difficult,” Reese said, gently punching him in the arm. “I don’t know how many times I had to beg him to keep coaching us.”
Cam rolled his eyes at that. “He was never going dump us. We were world champs.”
“Not in the beginning.”
“He saw our talent. And I did smarten up.”
He was selling himself short. He worked just as hard as she did, but he liked to have fun too. He was the wild one and she was the bookworm. If she ever saw him going off the rails, she was there to set him straight. And if he thought she needed a good time, he was the first to arrange it.
Thinking of their old coach made Reese think of Jennifer.
“Jennifer really liked you,” Reese said.
“And I really didn’t like her,” he said with a chuckle. “You know me, that I always try to get along with everyone. Well, I tried with her. She was so…prickly and yet flirty at the same time. It was strange.”
“Now imagine being on her hit list.”
Cam glanced over at Reese for a moment before setting his eyes on the road again. “I know. I ran a lot of interference. Maybe too much. When it was really bad, I talked to Brian about it. I wonder if he had something to do with having her removed from the skating program.”
This piqued Reese’s interest. “I thought she aged out.”
Cam took in a slow breath. “She definitely wasn’t talented enough to make it to Nationals again, but I’m pretty sure she was pushed out of the program. She’d rubbed a ton of people the wrong way, and the second she was gone, what happened to us?”
Reese’s jaw dropped but she quickly closed her mouth. “We won Nationals.”
Cam nodded. “I wonder if that’s another reason she’s mad. Maybe she thinks you’re behind her removal.”
“Even if she thought that, she wasn’t ever going to get anywhere. The best she did was, what, twelfth place at one Nationals? She barely qualified for any others. The writing was on the wall.”
