“I’m deeply hurt over this, just saying.” She sighed very heavily, very dramatically. “I guess only ever fucking one person has its perks. Though, if you ever?—”
“Rina!” Laughing, I reached for a decorative pillow next to me and threw it at her.
22
REECE
“It looks good,” Ilya said, though there was a certain tension in his voice that told me there was a but coming. “But… I just think you could tell a way better story.”
Hockey practice had already exhausted me more than anticipated, and Brooke and I had been on the ice together to go through the program for the past three hours. My feet were numb by now, literally couldn’t feel them anymore. Every muscle in my body was sore, my head throbbing, and I had zero strength left. Of course Ilya thought we could do a better job.
“A better story?” Brooke brushed off some of the ice on her legs.
I noticed that her bun was hanging lower than before, so I carefully pulled her hair tie out of her hair. Brooke didn’t even question me.
She straightened her curly hair earlier, which made it a lot easier for me to gather every single blonde strand and force them all into a ponytail. I had yet to learn how to make buns look good, so I was on the safer side with a ponytail.
“You two skating together had always looked magical,” Ilya said, then averted his gaze on my fiancée. “Erik and youwere good, but there was something missing. You could never tell a gut-wrenching story. Your routines have been soft and friendly. But soft and friendly doesn’t do it foryou.” He gestured between Brooke and me. “Your chemistry is so strong, you could make anyone who watches you feel something. This routine worked for you and Erik, but it’s not working for you and Reece.”
“So what’s that supposed to mean?” Brooke crossed her arms over her chest.
“It means that you can either compete with this routine on Saturday and pray you’ll make it through championships, or you start working on a new routine with a more heartfelt song, telling a story so emotional, it’ll make everyone who’s watching feel like they’ve been stabbed right through their chest. Because you, Brooke and Reece, have the ability to make that happen. With your current routine, even if you’re lucky and make it to the Grand Prix, you’re not going to win.”
“How are you so sure of that?” I asked. I wasn’t convinced we could come up with a whole new routine in two days and make it look perfect.
Ilya looked at me, then at Brooke, and back at me. “Because you two share a love that’s so strong, you make people want to throw up. Your connection is visible when you’re just standing in the same room; it becomes even more apparent when your hands touch. If you turn that love, that connection, into something painful, it’s going tohurt. Separating the two of you, even if it’s pretend on ice, will make everyone feel that in their guts.”
“We can do this, right? You learned this routine in an hour, we’ve just been working on fixing your jumps. So if we create something new, we could do this,” Brooke said as she reached for my hand, interlocking our fingers.
I nodded softly, regretting it immediately. It was better for Brooke, but I already knew I was putting my body through hell with this. “So are you thinking more of a right-person-wrong-time thing or something that started strong, weakened, and found back together?”
—
Suddenly, I was glad I convinced Brooke to shower at the arena. She’d already been tired before we got in the car, and I knew that if she fell asleep in the car and I woke her up, my head would no longer be attached to my neck. Especially when it was just about taking a stupid shower.
However, I also knew that if I didn’t wake her up to take a shower before bed, she’d hate us both in the morning.
Now, we stood in an unmoving car in front of our apartment. I kept the engine running because I feared that if I turned it off, she’d wake up.
A deep breath filled my lungs as I looked at her, wondering how on earth I ever deserved her.
Never in my life had I been more grateful to my brother and Lily for taking me in when Colin and my parents left the country. I never told them how grateful I’d been for that, but just watching as Brooke’s chest rose and fell with every breath, her eyes closed and lips parted ever so slightly made me want to call them and thank them. God knew if Brooke and my relationship would even exist if I’d been forced to move to Spain six years ago.
A strand of her hair fell into her face when she moved, so I carefully tucked it behind her ear before I eventually killed the engine of my car, unfastened Brooke’s seatbelt, and got out.
The October breeze brushed over my skin but I ignored it.Brooke used my jacket as a blanket, and I certainly wasn’t going to take it away from her just to walk into our apartment building in about two minutes.
I jogged around the car and slowly opened the door to minimize sounds. I took Brooke’s purse from the dashboard, then hooked one arm underneath her knees and forced the other between her back and the seat. Without hitting a single body part of hers against my car, I managed to get her out, closed the door, and carried Brooke toward the building.
I locked my car before I could forget about it, and then blindly tried to find the apartment key and unlock the door. It took me a while, but five minutes after leaving the car, we were in our warm apartment, my sneakers off my feet, and I was walking through the dark living room to get Brooke to bed.
I turned on the bedside lamp before laying her down. While I was taking off her shoes, Brooke moved slightly, making the cutest little sounds I’d ever heard before propping herself up on her elbows to look at me.
Setting her shoes down in front of the bed for now, I walked up to her and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Go back to sleep,miprincesa.”
Brooke closed her eyes and plopped back down, yet still shook her head no. “Shirt.” Her arms flew up, waiting for me to pull her up to sit.
“You’re already wearing a shirt of mine.”