But she refused to close the door on what could be her dream job just because she wasn’t sure about leaving California completely. She had her friends. Ben. No, this was what she’d always wanted. She was sure of that.
“That wouldn’t be a problem,” she said, forcing the conviction in her voice.
“Fantastic. Okay, if you don’t have any other questions, I think we have what we need on our end,” Charlotte said, and Amanda heard a smile in the woman’s voice. That had to be a good sign.
“No questions right now,” Amanda said.
“Great. So, we are running our initial interviews over the next two weeks, and then you should hear back from us after that. If you think of any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.”
They finished up with pleasantries, and Amanda ended the call, sat back, and stared at nothing. She’d never planned on staying in San Francisco for the rest of her life. Staying in one place never appealed to her before, but she’d started to like being home with her friends. With Ben.
If she even had anything with Ben at this point. She scanned through his text messages again. She’d wanted to respond so many times, but what was the point?
This was either the perfect plan, or it was going to blow up in his face. Hopefully she was still at the office. He’d mapped everything out on the plane ride home this morning, but figured barging in at her office during the day wouldn’t go over well, especially since she still hadn’t returned his texts.
Did she no longer care? Was walking away from what they had so easy that she wasn’t even going to fight?
Hell. This could be a colossal mistake. He walked through the lobby and headed toward the receptionist, flashing the woman a brilliant smile.
“Hello, could you direct me to Amanda Pearsall’s floor? She said she was running late and to meet her upstairs,” he said, willing the nerves in his belly to calm the fuck down.
“Oh my God. You’re Captain Cheesy. The hockey player?” the woman gushed. This could work to his advantage.
“Yes. Yes. I am. Are you a hockey fan?”
“Totally. I try to go to a few games a year. The tickets are super pricey, but my younger brother wants to be a hockey player so I try to get us seats, even if they are up in the rafters,” she said, her cheeks flushed as she smiled at him.
“That’s great. How long has he been playing?”
“A few years now. He started late. He’s almost eleven.”
“Tell him to keep it up. I can sign something for him, if you want.”
“That would be awesome,” she said, shuffling around some paperwork and handing him a blank sheet of paper.
She told him her brother’s name, and he signed a quick note, before handing it back.
“Thank you so much. He’s going to love it. And Amanda’s on the fifth floor, end of the hall, but a lot of people have already left for the day, so I’m not sure if she’s still here.”
“Thanks. And tell Josh good luck. Maybe I’ll see him one day on the ice. I’ll be the old guy, and he’ll be showing us a few new tricks,” he said, with one last smile, before he headed to the elevators. That conversation had surprisingly calmed him, which was rare when random fans called out his name where he wasn’t expecting to hear it.
As the door slid shut, he focused on the numbers climbing, his nerves ramping up again as he got closer. He’d make a fool out of himself for her, but he’d rather avoid that. He was ready to take a leap, and she better be right next to him when he went over the edge.
When he finally reached her floor, he stepped off the elevator and scanned the office. People milled about, rushing around, paying him no attention. He headed in the direction the receptionist had mentioned.
As he got closer, a voice called out. “Amanda, join us for drinks?” a man said.
“No. I’m just finishing up. There’s a bottle of wine and some takeout with my name on it,” she said, and Ben caught something in her voice. Sadness.
He was a total ass.
He stopped in front of her cubicle. She hadn’t looked up when she’d replied to her co-worker.
“Can I join you for takeout?” he asked, the nerves in his belly at warp speed as he shifted to lean against the entrance to her desk.
Her head shot up and she gasped. “What are you doing here? Did you come straight from the airport? I thought you were getting in late.”
“Keeping tabs on me, are you?”
“Yes. For my next article,” she said, her voice steady, and he wanted to punch himself.
“I know that’s not true.” He held her gaze, trying to get her to understand.
“You sure about that? Why are you here? I didn’t respond to your we need to talk text.”
“Why not? We do need to talk. And I don’t think you’re going to write about me. I’m sorry for being an ass at the club. I have baggage that you don’t know about.”
“No shit,” she muttered.
“Have dinner with me. I’ll tell you everything, and then if you think this isn’t going to work, at least I’ve laid my cards out.”
She sucked in a breath, and he resisted the urge to cheer. She wasn’t as uninterested as she claimed.
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” she said.
He crouched down next to her desk, tired of standing over her like a looming beast, and took her hand, rubbing his thumb across her knuckles and taking in his first steady breath since he’d stepped off of that plane earlier today. She didn’t pull away. That was promising.
“Please, Amanda. I never should’ve lashed out at you like that. I have no excuse, but I’m hoping I can explain why I did it. I care about you. More than I have for anyone else in a very long time. I’m not ready to walk away from this. Are you?”
She hitched in a breath again, and he swore she leaned toward him, but he held steady. He wanted to kiss her more than take his next breath, but he wasn’t going to jump the gun and scare her off again.
“So, dinner? Whatever you want,” he said.
“I do have to eat,” she said, her smile still absent. He had a lot to make up for, but he was prepared to tell her everything. Even about Tara. He hadn’t shared that story with anyone in longer than he could remember. It’d been easier that way.
“Great. Are you almost done here? And what would you like?” he asked, still refusing to release her hand as she clicked through a few things on her computer.
“Lanzi’s. And extra tiramisu,” she said, and he took in his first calming breath since he’d stepped off of that elevator. Dessert meant she’d planned to stay awhile. She was giving him the chance he needed, and he better not fuck it up. He’d put good money on the fact that she wasn’t usually forgiving.
“I’ll call it in now, and we can pick it up on our way. This conversation is best done in private, so can we go to my place? I promise to drive you home as soon as you want to leave.”
“You aren’t ending things?”
“Ending things? Is that what you thought?”
“Seriously Cheese, you said we need to talk,” she said with air quotes.
“Well, we do. I wanted to apologize for being an ass.” What did she think he’d meant?
Her shoulders shook and it took him a minute to realize she was laughing.
“What’s so funny?”
“That is like the universal breakup sentence. Why couldn’t you have just texted I’m sorry. I want to explain?” she said, with air quotes again, as she shook her head.
“That’s ridiculous. We need to talk. That’s all that meant. And no, I’m definitely not done with this,” he said, waving his hand in a circle between them. Had she really thought he was ending things because of one sentence? It made no sense.
“Me either,” she said softly.
“Now, can we get out of here?”
“Call in our order. I’m just shutting down,” she said, pulling her hand from his. He resisted the urge to grab it back, but instead he stepped away from her desk and qu
ickly placed their order with Lanzi’s.
When she pushed back from her desk and stood, he immediately wrapped his arms around her and ducked his head to her ear. “I am sorry. And this isn’t a brush-off,” he said.
She stiffened, then relaxed slightly, but not enough to tell him he was off the hook, or forgiven.
“We need to talk first.”
“Now I’m nervous,” he said, shooting her a smile, his heart beating a bit faster when she returned it.
Progress.
He linked his hands with hers. “Ready?”
“I guess.” She let him tug her from the office. He didn’t let go of her hand until she slid into the passenger seat of his car. He quickly skirted the hood and climbed in, reaching for her hand again. Relief coursed through him when she took it.
***
In very little time, they had the takeout and were walking through his front door. The car ride had been awkwardly silent, like a ticking time bomb waiting to go off but neither was sure if it was going to be an explosion or a little fizzle.
“So, how should we…”
“So, should we…”
They both spoke at the same time, and followed it up with strained laughter.
“Okay, this is crazy. You want to explain. You aren’t ending things. And depending on what you say, I might not end things, so spill,” she said, and then wrenched open his fridge and pulled out a bottle of her favorite wine. “Riesling? You don’t drink this. In fact, you poke fun at me when I do.”
“It’s for you.”
“So you can lower my inhibitions with wine and seduce me into forgiving you?”
He choked out a laugh. “No, of course not. And I’m growing to like it, even if it’s as sweet as candy.”
She grinned at his shudder.
Progress.
Chapter 20
Happy Anniversary! Three years ago I set out to travel the world and it’s been a whirlwind. Solo traveling can be amazing, but it can also be lonely. If you’re out here for the long haul, make friends along the way. You never know when you’re going to run into someone you never expected to see. Tonight I’m celebrating with a few friends from Malta.
~ Adventurous Amanda, August 2014
She poured a glass for herself and grabbed a beer for him. She knew his one drink rule and as irritated as she was with him, she wouldn’t make his sole drink for the evening something he probably couldn’t stomach, no matter what he told her.
It also gave her a moment to take a breath. The car ride had been brutal, but she hadn’t wanted to start this conversation until she had a glass of wine in front of her. And Lanzi’s lasagna, the delicious food that could cure all heartache. Hopefully, he wasn’t going to break her heart. He was very apologetic, and whatever story he had to share didn’t sound like a good one. She just had to hope that it was something they could both get past.
“Okay, so let’s get this over with,” she said, handing him his beer as he placed her food in front of her.
“When I moved out here to play for the Strikers, I was eighteen and away from home for the first time. I met a girl at a party within a month of arriving. I’d become friends with a few of the local guys during development camp, and while I made it to the pros my first year, they went back to play for their college team at Stanford, and I went to a few parties with them.”
“Is this where you tell me that you drank like a fish at eighteen and that’s why you limit yourself to one drink a night, because of some shady decisions you made when you were underage?”
He barked out a laugh. “No, I maybe had one drink a night. That rule has been in place for me for a long time. So, at one of the parties I met a girl.”
“Of course you did.” She took the first bite of her lasagna, trying not to hate the girl that had clearly done him wrong. There was always a girl.
“So,” he drew out.
“Okay, okay. Keep going. You met a girl…”
“Yes, her name was Tara. She was a journalism major.”
Lightbulb.
“Yes, she is the reason I dislike the media, but it’s not just some bad breakup.”
“I’m not going to like this, am I?”
“We dated and everything was great. I thought she was the one. She poked fun at my superstitions, but I didn’t take it to heart. I thought she loved me.”
Amanda bit back the twitch. She wanted to punch this girl.
“During my second season with the Strikers, I’d just been named team captain. The youngest the team had ever had. One of the youngest in the league. I was beyond excited. This was my dream. I was playing hockey and I had the girl I loved. About a month into my second season, a veteran on the other team, who was known for shady hits, knocked me into the boards. I went in headfirst. I still don’t remember much about going into the boards.”
She fought back the wave of nausea that rolled through her. She’d seen the clips a few times since she started watching the games regularly. She knew about the hit, and she’d searched for interviews about him talking about it, but there were only a handful, and he’d never offered up too much information. The guy who had hit him had been suspended for ten games. It hadn’t been enough.
She reached out and took his hand, and he squeezed back, taking in a deep breath.
“I missed the rest of the season after that hit. I spent more time in the hospital and dark rooms than I’d like to remember, but at least I had Tara. She stood by me as I recovered. She had a full course load and worked for the school paper. She was also interning with a local publication.”
Fuck. She had a bad feeling about this. “What happened?”
“I’d told her time and again that I never wanted to be interviewed. Even when I made captain and she pushed harder, I said no. The media had already made a big deal about my age and questioned if I was too young to be the face of the team, to take on a leadership role. And then the hit happened, and the concussion was bad. Some said I’d never come back from it, but hockey is and always had been my life. After my mom died, my dad was a shell, except when he watched me play. I wasn’t going to take that away from him. From me.”
She bit back her tears, her heart aching for him. For the little boy who’d lost his mom. Who grew up thinking that hockey was the only thing he had to bring his dad back.
“Ben,” she whispered, abandoning her seat to sit next to him.
“There’s more,” he said, and she didn’t miss the hitch in his voice. She was going to find this Tara and punch her.
“Okay.”
“While I recovered, Tara was writing a tell-all article about me.”
“What the actual fuck?”
“Yep. And she embellished. She told the magazine that she was interning with that she had an inside scoop on my recovery. They told her that they were very interested in it and that a permanent position might be opening up in their sports department. She wrote an article, talking about all my superstitions, how I was nervous to get back out there while she nursed me back to health like a freaking Florence Nightingale. Nervous about getting hit again. That I would vomit before my first few games back, because I was afraid of another injury.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“It was all lies. Hits are part of the game. I know that. Every player knows that. Did I want to take a hit like that again? Absolutely not. But I was never afraid of stepping back onto the ice, and I never got fucking sick before a game. It was total bullshit. One night, I found the article up on her computer. I contacted the team management immediately. I had no idea if she’d submitted it yet, but we had to get in front of the lies. The team lawyers contacted the magazine and said the magazine would never get another exclusive from us if they published the lies, so they pulled the article. Tara had to sign a non-disclosure agreement or risk getting sued for slander if it came out. Then I kicked her out of my condo. I haven’t spoken to her since.”
“Holy shit,” she gasped, leaning back in her chair. “No wonder you hate the
media. Why did she do it?”
“She wanted to be an investigative journalist, and she wanted to show the magazine she would get any story she went after. I thought she cared about me, loved me, but in the end she just saw me as a story.” He dropped his head down, staring at their linked fingers.
“You know I would never do that to you.”
He gripped her hand and looked up, the pain in his gaze wrapped around her heart, and fury coursed through her.
“I do know that. And I’m so sorry for how I lashed out. That club is my second home. The place where I feel safe and can let my guard down, and I can’t do that anymore. It was too convenient—too easy—to blame you. You have to believe me.”
“I do,” she whispered, leaning in close and brushing her lips against his. “And if I ever find this Tara chick, I’m going to give her a piece of my mind and a taste of my fist.”
He just stared at her, his smile widening, that dimple she loved so much finally making an appearance. She still couldn’t believe he’d gone through that. And that he’d managed to keep the story under wraps. There hadn’t even been an inkling of it online.
“I’m glad they were able to keep it under wraps.”
“I know bits and pieces of it are out there. I’ve seen a few leaked snippets, but never the full article, or never enough to go after her.”
“I’m so sorry you went through that. And I get it now, but most of us aren’t her. I’m definitely not her.”
He tugged her close. “I know that. Can you forgive my lapse of judgment?”
She nodded.
“Can I kiss you now?” he asked.
“Yes please,” she said, just before he sealed his lips to hers. She sighed against his mouth. He’d finally opened up to her, and heat bloomed in her chest. This wasn’t just a hookup. There was something there, and she wanted to explore every part of it.
Skating the Line (San Francisco Strikers Book 2) Page 21
