A small smile tugged at the corners of my lips in support. “It certainly wouldn’t hurt.”
Reece gently lifted my chin before leaning in and placing a soft kiss on my lips. “God, I wouldn’t know what I’d do without you.”
9
REECE
Brooke stood in front of her closet, wearing nothing but her underwear while she decided what to wear to bed. Every now and then, she’d sigh heavily and look back at me.
I knew she was waiting for me to give her my shirt, but I was curious to see how long she could continue to wait until she caved and demanded it.
Besides, the view of her half-naked ass or the glimpses of her chest I got every time she turned around for a second weren’t ones I was eager to get rid of.
Brooke had plenty of my shirts in her closet, mostly because I spent a lot of nights here but also because she stole a ton of them. She could’ve just taken one of them, but she always slept in the shirt I was currently wearing because it smelled the most like me. Never mind the fact that she was going to sleep in my arms, so it really didn’t matter.
After speaking to Brooke earlier, I decided that I was going to call Anthony just to hear his thoughts, and only then I’d decide what to do next. Perhaps firing Pike was the best thing I could do. Perhaps it was going to be the worst idea. Surely Anthony could tell me, and he wouldn’t lie… Ihoped.
But either way, Pike wasn’t going to destroy my relationship, and neither were Juilliard or Erik.
“I was thinking,” I said, not getting a reaction from my girlfriend because she knew I wasn’t going to offer her my shirt. “We shouldn’t pretend that we broke up.”
“So you’re firing Pike?” She finally turned around, but covered herself up by crossing her arms in front of her chest. “What if Erik quits on me?”
“Not yet. As I told you earlier, I want to speak to Anthony Gillis first,” I replied. “As for Erik… he can’t quit on you during the season, can he? Wouldn’t he get disqualified or something?”
“I’m not sure, actually. I mean, we’re listed as a pair, and if one of us got injured, we could get another partner to carry on with the season, but dropping out is different,” she said, turning back around to stare at her closet. “Then again, if there is like ahugeconflict between the skaters, I suppose terminating the contract mid-season is better than ending the season with a dead body.”
Not sure where that came from, but I guess she was right?
“On the off chance that I could walk up to my coach tomorrow, tell him that I refuse to skate with Erik, and it would be fine, what do I do then? I’d be partnerless and can’t compete this season.”
“Then you’re going to have to stand your ground,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. “Because I never hid you from anyone before, and I’m sure as fuck not going to start doing it now.”
For Brooke, I could handle Pike even if I didn’t fire him. And even if Colin would turn out to be wrong and I wasn’t going to get drafted, I would be okay. If I didn’t have hockey in my life, I’d be okay. But I wouldn’t be okay if I lost Brooke, and I was ashamed that it took Colin telling me Ishouldn’t be with Brooke if she wasn’t my priority to even realize it.
We’d get through whatever rough patch we were facing. I knew that. If Brooke wasn’t going to deal with Erik, I’d find a way to deal with him. And the daily fights would stop eventually. I was sure of that. We just had to find our rhythm again.
Guess getting separated for college threw both of us off, and now we had to find a way to deal with it.
We could spend as much time together as we wanted, laugh, kiss, and fuck, but that didn’t mean our relationship was strong enough to sustain any more hits. So, from that day forward, I was more determined than ever to find out where the real problems in our relationship lay.
“I don’t think we would’ve been any good at pretending to be exes anyway,” Brooke spoke quietly, making me chuckle. “Honestly, we might’ve made it two hours as fake exes, and then we’d be found kissing in the locker room.”
She wasn’t wrong.
“Do you remember the first time we ‘broke up’?” I asked because what she just said sounded almost exactly like it.
“You mean when we had our first real fight as a couple, and neither of us knew what to do, so it was the most logical consequence?”
“Yup.” My head shook at the ridiculousness of that entire day, yet I couldn’t stop smiling. “Our idea of a broken-up couple was best friends holding hands and kissing occasionally.”
Brooke laughed. “Holding hands inangerand kissing occasionally to make up for the fact that we were both angry at each other,” she corrected. “Very important details to mention.”
“Right.” My eyes wandered down her exposed back, and for whatever reason, my dick decided my girlfriend’s back was pretty good-looking. “The most important part of the story, however, is that we broke up just to be together anyway. Until two hours later, you realized that perhaps we should just kiss like a couple again, not like exes.”
There wasn’t a difference in the kisses, obviously, but back then, I was convinced our kisses as a couple were a million times better.
“See, we wouldn’t make it two hours pretending to be broken up,” Brooke said, still refusing to look at me. “I’m really glad about that.”