“Neither,” he recovers quickly, swigging his own drink. He’s tall—six-two, six-three, easy. I bet he plays some kind of sport for the university. “But weren’t you going to the Olympics or something? Monroe Abrams, right?”
And there it is, theor something.The question that never fails to ruin my night.
My grip tightens harder on the cup, but my smile doesn’t falter. I’ve been here before.
“Ah,” I drawl, tilting my head, counting off my list ofdealson my fingers for him. “Shattered my ankle, ditched by my skating partner, developed a drinking problem. A drug problem? A lot of problems, honestly. That’ll kick you right off the Olympic track.”
Justin-Jacob blinks. “Uh—” He stumbles over his words.
I interrupt him, putting him out of his misery. “All in all, lots of character-building happening over here.”
Before he can fumble his way through an apology, I pat his chest twice and walk away. I wasn’t planning on kissing anyone at midnight anyways. That’s enough for tonight. Enough small talk and dirty looks. Enough forced laughter at men who aren’t funny. Not enough drinks, though, if I haven’t blacked out yet. I find the jungle juice concoction sitting in a tub on the floor, and I fill another cup for the road.
My dad’s house is a few blocks away and I didn’t drive. I’m stupid, but not stupid enough to get behind the wheel wasted. The walk in the cold will probably sober me up, which sucks.
God. Dad is going to be so proud of me when I stumble into the house tonight. The lecture inevitably waiting for me when I wake from this night will be hell. He’s been getting increasingly frustrated with my lack of motivation to do anything in my life. I dropped out of school my last semester after the accident. I don’t have a job, probably couldn’t hold one if I wanted to. I don’t blame him, but I can’t bring myself to care about it.
Despite the alcohol in my hand, the cold does, unfortunately, help to sober me up. The clearer I start thinking, the worse my mood gets. My entire life was ripped out from underneath me, and I am still sofuckingangry. I numb the emotion with drinks and drugs and men, and it still doesn’t dull it enough.
How many more parties, blackouts, and hookups will it take before I forget my unfortunate fall from grace?
I stop in front of my dad’s house. It’s sprawling, huge. Which makes sense, of course. Carter Abrams has been the head coach of the Connecticut Wolverines, one of the best NHL teams in the entire country, for the last twelve years, more than half of my entire life. He put me in skates the second I could stand.
My mom insisted on figure skating. Dad would have preferred women’s ice hockey. In the end, Mom won out. That was the start of many arguments over me, especially when it came to my career. When they stopped talking because of their bitter divorce, it was actually preferable to their constant bickering. Despite my mom managing my figure skating career, I ended up much closer to my dad. She was always more manager than mother.
I’m not even sure where she is at the moment. I’m guessing some spa in Arizona. Guess she has to do something to take the edge off the loss of her big moneymaker—me.
Are mommy problems preferable to daddy problems? Maybe Ishouldcall that therapist back.
The door is locked when I wiggle the handle. I’m still a little bit drunk, so finding my house key is hard. I plunge my hand into my pocket and dig around, shoving the sharp key at the lock once I find it. I finally get the key into the grooves when the door swings open before I turn it.
Dad.
“Hi, Daddy,” I slur slightly. “Mind if I crash on your couch?”
I’m still holding a half-empty cup of jungle juice, and I’m sure I reek of alcohol. This isn’t new for us. The last year really did a number on me—on both of us.
I wasn’t always like this. Once, I had discipline, structure, a future mapped out in gold medals andworld championships. I wasn’t a great student, but I did well enough to keep my scholarship. That’s what was important to me. Cs get degrees and all that. And I wasalwaysgoing to be successful at skating.
There were magazine articles written about me. I had shiny sports brand endorsements. Nobody could touch my quad axel. I was an Olympic shoo-in. I was on track to make the team and win gold from the time I was a teenager. I was figure skating U.S. National Team’s sweetheart, Monroe Abrams.
Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
“Get in the house, Mo.” His voice is gruff with sleep. I peek a look at the time on the clock in the foyer. Two-thirty-six a.m. He looks tired—older than I sometimes remember he is. The disappointment is etched in every single line of his face. “Sleep it off. We’ll talk tomorrow. Don’t throw up on my carpet.”
He shuts the door behind me, locking it back up, and I stumble to the couch in his living room. I have a room upstairs, but I know I’m not going to make it all the way up there. The cushions of the couch fold around me, and I wiggle into the soft fabric. It smells like my dad, and for a brief second I’m eight years old again and nothing is wrong.
Guilt tugs at me. This man wrangles twenty-three cocky, insufferable NHL players every single season—and now he has to deal with me, too.
Sleep drags me under fast, but not before I feel the weight of a soft blanket settling over my shoulders. A soft kiss pressed to my temple. A heavy sigh and a mumbled, “Love you, Mo.”
I don’t deserve him. Even in my alcohol-induced haze, I know that much.
* * **
I’m not so lucky when morning comes and the blanket is ripped off of me. The air is cold against my back and the sunlight streaming in from the large living room windows feels like it’s assaulting me, golden rays piercing the backs of my eyelids and digging directly into my brain. The memory of last night sits in the forefront of my mind, albeit hazy. So many drinks. The U.S. Nationals team. Stumbling to my dad’s house.Fuuuuck.
“Get up, Monroe.” My dad is standing in the living room, arms crossed. Guilt rears its head again as he levels a glare in my direction. My head is pounding thanks to my spectacular hangover, though, so that takes precedence.