The bitter wind cut through me like a knife, even with the thick, wool jacket I wore. Winter set in hard and wasn’t going to be letting up any time soon.
I didn’t answer him until we were inside the car and out of the biting night air. “Nothing happened. She was embarrassed. I took her home. That’s it.”
“So she has a boyfriend then?” Charlie asked, making his own assumption.
The car rumbled to life as I stewed over what happened with Violet the night before. It wasn’t like she’d be upset if I told Charlie. I mean, she’d told me without worry of what I thought. But then again, she’d also thought I was gay.
“She doesn’t have a boyfriend because she isn’t into men. Are ye happy now?” I blurted.
“Well, that’s a good reason for not sleeping with her, I suppose.” Charlie slapped the steering wheel as he laughed.
“Glad I can be a source of entertainment to ye, arsehole.” I never should have said anything and left him to think what he’d like.
Violet, after I’d set her straight about my own sexual preferences, had turned out to be a really cool person. She also decided, as I pulled up to the curb of her flat, that we should be friends. I couldn’t argue with that since I was in short supply of friends. Added to the fact she kept my mind off the heaviness by keeping things light. Kind of fun considering how we’d started off on the wrong foot from the word go.
And I would never have to worry about Violet getting hurt for wanting something from me I wasn’t able to give. Maybe that was why she took to me so fast.
Whatever it was, I was glad for it.
“WE MISSED YOU AT THE party last night,” Charlotte said as we sat in a circle inside the locker room, stretching before our bout that was only an hour away.
“Yeah, that’s the second boutmas Eve you’ve missed out on. Something’s gotta give,” Harley, one of our blockers, pitched in. She had an obsession with glitter and, by obsession, I mean she looked like she got into a fight at the local craft store in the glitter aisle.
She was a walking disco ball with stellar skills on the track.
Charlotte nudged my foot with her skate. “Johnny asked about you,” she said with a small, schoolgirl gossipy sort of smile. “He’s kept to himself ever since you caught him with that girl.”
Gag me. Please.
“Yeah, Hannah. That was like months ago, and he’s still strung out. What did you do to him?” Sarabeth asked as she painted streaks of eyeliner under her eyes to resemble a rainbow.
I stiffened my voice. “Nothing.”
“Right,” Myra added from somewhere behind me. “And by nothing, you mean you used your sweet, sweet charm and lured him in like the black widow you are. “
“No,” I said through my teeth, becoming increasingly annoyed by the second. “I told him upfront I didn’t do relationships, just like I tell every other guy. He must not have listened.” I leaned forward, stretching my hamstrings by touching my toes. “Besides, he was the one who moved on, and rightfully so, because I never gave him an inkling otherwise things would be any different.”
I pulled my arm across my chest, stretching the tendons as my stomach went sour at the thought of Johnny. At the thought of men in general.
Especially at the thought of a certain someone who haunted one too many of my dreams and didn’t bother to ask for my number as we went our separate ways from Rum Cay.
Not that I would have given it to him, because I totally wouldn’t have. Most definitely not. I was a hundred percent sure had he asked, I would have said no. Besides, international call rates were too expensive for my wallet.
I snorted at my boldfaced lie.
I knew we made it clear to one another nothing would come from our time inside the tent… even though we knew we were two like-minded people who could talk for hours until we fell asleep. Who could laugh at each other’s jokes and keep up with the dry sense of humor. Who could play around without fear. Who had amazing chemistry between the sheets.
Wtf, Hannah. You’re drifting again. He’s just a dude. Just a guy. Nothing more.
So why was it so hard to come to terms with?
“But there were so many other opportunities,” Charlotte said with an extended wink, “to move on from Johnny, or better… make him jealous.”
“Okay—A. I don’t do the whole let’s-make-him-jealous kindergarten thing, and B—I just wasn’t in the mood to be on the prowl.” I switched arms as I nudged the sinking feeling away that followed me around from the moment I boarded the plane. “And Johnny is just being dramatic. We went on a date and made out a bunch. Big whoop.”
Charlotte and Cherry both gave me a sideways glance.
“What?”
“Not in the mood? Big whoop?” Cherry repeated disbelievingly.
A few of the girls on the team giggled, stirring the angry pot in my stomach.
“Hanibelle Lecter… the man-eating, ass-kicking jammer? I am on the same planet, right?” Charlotte asked, re-tying the knots on her skates. “Since when are you not looking for the next victim?”
No matter how hard I stretched, the knots in my neck and shoulders wouldn’t give. “I have a lot on my plate.” I sounded a little more defensive than I intended.
Cherry didn’t buy it. “Right. No one told you that you had to be on the track every night practicing. You’ve practically lived, ate, and breathed the derby life since you came back from Rum Cay… which you still haven’t dished about, I might add.”
“Yeah, we want to know all the dirty, lusty, island details,” Sarabeth said, wiggling her eyebrows. A few of the other girls egged them on by agreeing.
I didn’t like how my stomach did a flip-flop at the mention of Rum Cay. As Ed’s face, hands, and lips sent tingles to every part of my body, followed by an increasingly alarming heart plummet.
“I told you. I went, saw my best friend marry the love of her life, got delayed because of the hurricane, and then came home. Nothing exciting happened, unless you count the witch pedaling by the window on her bicycle cackling, and the large amounts of alcohol I consumed a fun time. Then, yeah, it was a blast.”
I passed Harley’s jar of goopey hair product to Cherry, who made a gag face and handed it back to Harley.
“But didn’t you say the best man was stuck there too?” Charlotte’s high-lilting voice asked as she laid into a straddle stretch. She poked her head up to look at me. “Wasn’t he like English or something?”
I wanted to bury my head in the sand. “Yeah, he was stuck too, but nothing happened. We survived and went our separate ways.”
My stomach tightened as I did my best to ignore the uncomfortable, sad feeling nestled deep in my gut. It just wouldn’t go away. No matter how hard I pushed at practice and during the tournaments. He always managed to find a way to pop into my head at some point, throwing my game completely off.
Cherry’s face screwed up in bewilderment. “Nothing happened? You mean to tell me you were stuck with an English dude and large amounts of alcohol, and nothing happened? I call bull.”
I looked away, biting back the insults that brewed on the tip of my tongue. “Look, this isn’t dissect-Hannah’s-life day, okay? I told you, not that it’s any of your business I might add, nothing happened. Leave it be. Got it?”
Cherry knowingly looked over at Charlotte. “Oh no.”
“Oh no what?” Her tone felt like hot irons were pressed against my cheeks.
Charlotte looked at me with a bright smile. “I think I know why you’ve pushed yourself so hard.”
“And why’s that?”
“Avoidance,” she said.
I pushed to stand on my skates, my voice going dry. “No, Charlotte. I’ve pushed myself because I wanted to be at my prime for the World Cup tryouts last week. Everyone knows that.”
“You were named MVP at the bout last month, Hannah. You, me, and the rest of the league knows you’re golden when it comes to making the roster,” Cherry said, swiveling back and forth on her skates.
I grunted. “No one knows that for sure. This… this is my focus right now. This is what I have in my life… all I have… and I want to be at my best.” I tied the rainbow-colored laces of the skates Maggie gave me. “It’s a rare chance I want.”
“A rare chance held in England,” Cherry muttered under her breath. “Convenient the guy ‘nothing happened with’ came from somewhere over there, and here you are, pushing yourself so hard to get there.”
My tongue twisted in all kinds of irredeemable knots. “That’s… that has nothing to do with it,” I said, my voice high and cracking. “I never gave a second’s thought to the destination. Just the career that could come with making the USA team… in a sport that is being considered to join the 2020 Olympics, I might add. I am kind of in that in-between, don’t-know-what-I-want-to-do-with-my-life phase right now. This is a great chance at figuring out what I want to do.”
That felt like a plausible excuse. Totally believable. I threw in my most innocent look for added measure. Just in case.
Cherry saw right through it. “Right,” she said, her smirk growing, “and I swing for men only.”
“Ha!” Charlotte laughed. “Tell that to the girl I caught you lip-locked with in my closet last night.”
“Sorry. We weren’t ready to come out of the closet yet,” Cherry said with a devilish grin. “But back to the point.” She crossed her arms. “I think,” she said in a tone that told me she was about to lay it on me, “you’re just using derby as a way to hide from Mr. England and what didn’t happen during your time on the island.”
Ice coursed through my veins, freezing me on the spot, but she didn’t care.
“As your Derby Wife, I’m calling it like I see it. You know I’m right. You haven’t spoken about Rum Cay and, every time someone mentions it, you get this deer-in-headlights look and change the subject. Classic avoidance technique. You broke your own rules, didn’t you?”
I just stood there. Glared at her, angry that she’d pry. Pissed off that I’d been so obvious. Hurt that she’d push me this far in front of the rest of the team.
“Are you done?” I said, not willing to take any more of her shit. “We have a championship to win and worrying about something so insignificant isn’t going to do anyone any favors.”
“So it’s like that then? Still running away from anything that has to do with the big L word?”
I rolled my eyes, and then skated off before I said or did something I’d regret.
“GEEZ, HANNAH, YOU SMEARED THAT girl all over the track,” Charlotte leaned over to whisper in my ear as Rosie Cheeks announced our championship win for the season.
Sweat dripped into my eyes, covering my entire body. I let it sting rather than wiping it away. The lead jammer for the opposing team was good, but not good enough to stand against the anger Cherry had me feeling right before the match.
Okay… maybe it wasn’t entirely because of Cherry. Maybe I was really angry for letting myself go in the tent in Rum Cay. It screwed me up. Had me all twisted with wondering what he was doing. How he was doing. Why he hadn’t tried to get in touch with me through Maggie.
Because you made it clear relationships were a no-go.
And I still believed that. Still knew deep down I was better off this way, because even with Ed being a great guy, there had to be some flaw. Some misgiving that would show itself and then ruin whatever we could have had.
Either that, or maybe I was afraid that all my misgivings would have surfaced, and then he would have ran for the hills, leaving me just as alone as I was before he walked into my life.
We made our rounds around the track, high-fiving those who wanted it, and then I beelined for the locker room, not in the mood to socialize with the opposing team.
The games… the excitement… it just wasn’t the same since I returned from Rum Cay. It wasn’t just about fun anymore. I placed a tension on it by pushing myself to make it on the roster for the World Cup. I unintentionally sucked the fun right out of it.
What the hell was wrong with me?
You suck the love out of everything.
My father’s words always found a way to work themselves into every moment of my life.
By the time I was freshly showered, my team had made it back to the locker room.
“Good game.” Cherry took a seat on the bench in front of her locker. “You always perform better when you’re channeling rage.”
“I liked how you wiped the floor with two-thirds of their team,” Sarabeth said, shucking out of her skirt.
“They’ll be out there all night cleaning up,” Harley threw in with a rich, hearty laugh.
I don’t know why I wasn’t laughing with them. I felt… I felt… nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
“I’ll be sure to bring up Mr. England during the World Cup, because we all know you’re going to make the roster,” Cherry added, just not wanting to give up on it.
I opened my locker, ignoring her taunt. That was her way of communicating. Of getting things out of us.
But I wasn’t having it. Not about Ed.
I slid my jeans on under my towel, and then threw on a loose-fitting, plum-colored, V-neck shirt. After grabbing my bag, I closed my locker and left, the team’s jokes nipping at my feet.
TWO WEEKS WENT BY, CARRYING me into November’s biting autumn chill, and I still couldn’t shake the thought of Ed… something that had never happened to me before.
It wasn’t like I sat and pined away for him while eating pints of ice cream and watching reruns of The Notebook and Sleepless in Seattle. More like, he just popped in and out of my head at random moments when I was least prepared for it. Like when I was shopping the other day to stock up on my ever-growing pile of junk food, and reached for a box of Zebra Cakes.
Ed’s confused look appeared in my head, and then I had a fleeting thought to get his address through Maggie and send him a box.
Yeah… scary.
Or when I changed the sheets in my room and realized my spare set had a similar floral pattern like the one our tent was made of.
It was his hands on my body and the way he kissed me like he could never get enough that had me tripping over one of my teddy bears and stumbling into my dresser, leaving a God-awful bruise on my hip that hadn’t gone away.
I thought about calling Maggie, about asking her for advice, but with her business and her amazing daughter keeping her on the go, it felt almost wrong to bother her with something I didn’t even understand myself.
Needless to say, I needed to find a way to undo whatever Ed did to me, so I buried myself underneath working two jobs, which literally sucked the soul right out of me, with a side of strength and endurance training, and a sprinkle of trying to study for my upcoming finals.
Finals I was sure I’d flunk.
Classes proved hard to get through ever since my return because I spent the majority of my time fighting to keep it together. To keep my thoughts from straying to Ed.
My stomach twisted as I thought about the word document pulled up on my laptop back in my room that was still as blank as it was a week ago when we were given our assignment to be completed before winter break.
The more the days checked off on the calendar, the more I worried I might not be able to finish it. Stressed over having to drop the class… maybe even the rest of the year… to keep from hurting the GPA I worked so hard for.
“You’re running yourself into the ground,” Charlotte said as she followed me around on skates in the small diner I waited part time for.
“I’m fine,” I lied, wiping a table down for the next customer. Shuddering at the thought of the bathrooms I’d be scrubbing in four hours when my shift ended and I began the next at the skating rink.
“No, you’re not. You don’t party with us, you’re missing classes left and right, and you haven’t spoken to Cherry since the other night.” She was unwilling to budge. “And… and… look at your hair?”
I inhaled sharply.
/> “It looks like you haven’t washed it in days,” she shrieked.
I threw the towel in the bucket, scooped it up, and headed to the kitchen. “I’ve had a hard time concentrating lately. I’ll be better as soon as I know if I made the roster or not.”
“Bologna!”
I pushed through the swinging door, not waiting for her to follow as I let it go in her face.
She caught it with her palm, much too persistent for her own good, and then skated into the kitchen.
“Who are you?” Joe, the manager, asked as he looked up from his newspaper.
“A friend of Hannah’s,” Charlotte said sweetly, batting her lashes.
I dropped the bucket with a loud sigh. “Joe, I’m going to take fifteen, okay?”
“Sure,” he said with a shoulder shrug, his nose disappearing behind his paper.
Charlotte followed me out the back door.
“Did Cherry send you here?” I asked as soon as we were alone. The chilling November air struck my uncovered skin as I fought to get my arms through my jacket.
“No.”
Her response was a little too quick. I squinted at her.
“She’s worried. We all are,” Charlotte relented, her mouth tilting into a small frown. “In all the time I’ve known you, I’ve never seen you like this. You don’t smile anymore. You don’t go out. You just… work. Hard.”
“Yeah, well, money doesn’t grow on trees, Charlotte. I’m behind on my rent and my scholarship has run out. To be honest… I’m thinking about taking some time off. It’s just too hard to concentrate in class with all this stress.”
She looked down at her skates, biting at her lips. She wanted to say something… something more than what I probably wanted to hear. “You know we’re here for you, right? We’re a team. We stick together.” Her voice was quiet.
I sighed, leaning against the wall. “I know.” I felt like an asshole for being as closed off as I’d been. She meant well. They all did.
“I just… I’m used to dealing with things on my own. It’s easy to be there for everyone else, but when it comes to my shit… I just… I have my routine way of dealing with it.”
Runaway Heart (A Game of Hearts #2) Page 12
