by Aven Ellis
“Collins,” Aunt Suzanne says after taking a sip of her latte and placing the cup down, “you’ve been picking at your pancakes for a half hour. What was it you wanted to talk about?”
“Aunt Suzanne,” I say with a sigh, “you know the equestrian party I did last week? The one out in the suburbs?”
“Yes, the one you were so excited about, of course.”
“Kristine—that’s the owner’s name—loved the work I did. So much so that she offered me a job as assistant manager, but more than that, she’s offered to train me to become a future riding instructor so I can teach people to ride and love horses as much as I do.”
Aunt Suzanne falls quiet as she digests my words. “So, in exchange for your planning and organization skills, she will teach you to be a riding instructor,” she says. “And you want to do this.”
She blurs as my eyes fill with tears. “I love working for you. You know that. But this is an opportunity that unexpectedly fell into my lap, and I feel I need to take it.”
“No, it didn’t fall into your lap,” Aunt Suzanne corrects. “It came to you because it’s right. I know how much you love horses. You have since you were able to speak. As much as I hate to lose you, and believe me, I do, I know this is what you are meant to do.”
Tears fall from my eyes, and I quickly move to wipe them away. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”
Her face softens. “Honey, you aren’t hurting me. Of course I’ll miss you, and I’m sad about that, but I love you. Knowing you are going to be happy is all that matters.”
She reaches for my hand across the table. “Collins, I know you’ve been taught to always smile. Fake happiness. Avoid conflict. But the experience of life is all these things. To know true joy, you have to know sadness. If you are going to live it, you can’t always hide.”
I’m about to lose it. Aunt Suzanne connects with me in a way my mother can’t. She allows me to be me, flawed and imperfect. To have real feelings and the freedom to express them.
Just like Luca does.
“I love you,” I say.
Aunt Suzanne’s eyes grow teary. “And I love you.”
With the elephant out of the room, she takes her hand off mine and smiles at me.
“I do expect you’ll have dinner with me once a month,” she says, taking a bite of her fruit and yogurt parfait.
“I can’t cook, so you know I’m there.”
She laughs. “You’ll text me Luca updates?”
“So much so you’ll block me,” I promise.
“How is your goalie, anyway?”
“He’s great,” I say after taking a bite of my pancakes. “He has practice this morning and flies out for St. Louis this afternoon. They come back after the game tomorrow night, so he’s only gone for a day.”
“Do you have an app to keep track of him?” she teases. “Because his life is crazy.”
The rest of breakfast is relaxed and normal. At the end of the meal, Aunt Suzanne says she will tell the staff about my departure after I have confirmed with Kristine later this week and then she tells me again how much she loves me.
As we leave the café and head back toward the office, I feel full of hope for my future. I’m about to embark on a career that is my dream. I have fallen in love. I’m learning to express my emotions and be real with people.
My life is really coming together now.
And now that it’s on course, nothing will derail where I’m headed.
~ ~ ~
By lunchtime, I’m starving. I call down to a tiny Thai shop down the street that has awesome lunch specials and place an order of tom kha soup and nam sod, one of my favorite chicken salads. I tug on my gloves and knit hat and make the walk through the light snow that is cascading down on the neighborhood.
I love the snow. It’s peaceful, even when it’s falling on a busy Chicago street. Thanksgiving is coming soon, and I wonder if Luca and I will celebrate together. We haven’t discussed it yet, but I know we will. Maybe we’ll split time between our parents’ houses or spend time together on our own late at night. Knowing it will be our first makes it special.
I tug open the restaurant door and bells clang, loudly signaling my entrance. It’s absolute chaos inside with people waiting for tables, placing to-go orders, and picking up food. Gah. The Black Friday sales at the mall are more organized than this. Apparently, everyone wants hot Thai on this freezing cold day.
“Order for Brady, please,” I say, after waiting my turn.
The woman turns and scans the brown paper bags behind her, stapled with yellow receipts with names scribbled on them. She moves down the row and comes back to me empty handed.
“No Brady. What was your order?”
I repeat my order, and she searches through the stack of tickets put on a spike next to the phone.
“I don’t see it. We’ll make it now. Fifteen minutes.”
I nod. I tug off my gloves, drop them into my tote, and reach for my phone. Luca should be home about now, probably eating his eight-thousand-calorie lunch.
I see I have new Connectivity notifications, and I pass the time by scrolling through them. Beckett’s page has updates, which make me laugh because I know Aubrey handles his public account. Livy posted some new jewelry designs for the holidays. Then I see this:
Photo Connect with Luca Ballerini.
Ooh! Fans on Connectivity can tag Luca on his public profile and I assume it’s another selfie he has taken with them. The fans always seem so happy when he spares a moment to spend time with them after games and practice.
But the picture is not what I expect.
It’s a photo of Luca all right, but he’s at a bar with a bottle of Stella Artois in front of him. The caption reads:
Caught the goalie for the Chicago Buffaloes out in Bucktown last night.
Blood rushes to my head as I try to make sense of what I’m seeing. This can’t be right. Luca wouldn’t have gone out last night. He wouldn’t let me stay because he had to prepare for a game. There’s no way he’d tell me that and then go out for beers. No. The picture has to be old.
But when I skim the comments and see the timestamp of the posting, there is no doubt about it.
Luca did go out last night, and apparently, not long after he had asked me to leave so he could prepare.
Prepare.
Was that a lie?
The question slams into my stomach. All the times Luca couldn’t spend with me, all the times he asked me to leave . . . was that so he could go out drinking with friends? After he told me he rarely drank due to his strict diet and health plan?
The room begins to spin as a sick feeling crashes over me.
Does he not want to spend as much time with me as he claims he does? If Luca managed to spend some full evenings with me, I wouldn’t care if he went out with friends. I still go out with mine; that’s normal.
But it’s not normal to always throw me out, tell me no, and continuously make excuses about how hockey takes his time. He says I’m his priority, but that’s obviously not the case.
When Luca knew how upset I was that I couldn’t spend more time with him, he turned around and lied about it?
Oh, God. I’m going to throw up if I don’t get air. I drop my phone into my purse. I run out of the restaurant, leaving my order behind. I stop on the sidewalk and gasp the frozen air, but I still can’t feel anything except pain.
Do I even know this man at all?
I’m reeling. Part of me wants to put my head in the sand. Pretend I didn’t see that picture and convince myself that everything is fine. I want to trust my heart and believe that Luca’s words are true and there’s some logical reason he was at a bar last night.
But my head fights back.
He went to a bar. Not long after tell
ing me I had to leave. I’m a distraction, but being in a freaking bar isn’t?
Anger surges past the sickness. Raw anger, that I normally shove down and stuff away, screams at me to come out.
I hurry to the curb and throw up my hand to hail a cab. No. The old Collins would have buried this then meekly approached Luca, but I refuse to live like that anymore.
As soon as I get in the cab, I text Aunt Suzanne to tell her something came up and I’ll be back after a long lunch.
I won’t wait for Luca to come back from St. Louis tomorrow night to discuss this. He isn’t in goal tonight. It’s a travel day.
And he’s about to find out just how hurt I am.
Chapter 33
Be direct . . .
After I get out of the cab, I text Luca. I don’t trust myself to talk to him without yelling, even on intercom.
I tell him I’m on the sidewalk and ask if he can he let me in.
Then I go to the doorstep and wait for him to reply.
Are you OK? Letting you in now.
No, I’m not okay. I’m terrified I’m about to lose everything.
The door clicks open. Nausea rises within me. My heart pounds. I reach the landing and find Luca waiting for me in the doorway, dressed for a flight in a white dress shirt and suit pants, a worried expression on his handsome face.
“What’s wrong?” he asks. “Collins, tell me what happened.”
I stop walking. I can’t believe this man would lie to me. My heart screams that it can’t be true.
But I saw the picture. He went to a bar instead of studying a game.
Luca did lie.
Luca closes the gap between us, putting his hands on my arms. “Collins, something is wrong. I can see it.”
“Don’t touch me,” I snap, shoving him back. “You lied to me!”
“What?” Luca cries, shock resonating in his voice. “What are you talking about? I’ve never lied to you!”
“You were at a bar last night,” I spit out, my voice laced with hot anger. “You kicked me out, claiming you had to watch a game, but you actually went out to a bar.”
Understanding flashes in his eyes.
“I can explain that. I’ve never lied to you,” Luca says, moving back toward me.
I brush past him and into his apartment, and I begin pacing. All of the emotions I’m not used to dealing with are about to explode and moving is the only way I can hope to contain them.
“You chose a bar over time with me,” I cry, hot tears stinging my eyes. “I’ve been such an idiot. I believed you this whole time, and you’ve been throwing me out after sex to go party!”
Luca slams the door shut, and now I see he’s furious.
“Do you even know me?” he accuses. “Because if you did, you would know there is no way in hell I’d treat you that way.”
“Apparently, I don’t,” I say bitterly. “Did you think I’d shove this aside, too? Not fight about it? That probably made it really easy for you, didn’t it? If you got caught, you figured I wouldn’t argue with you. I have sat back and said nothing and—”
“Wait a minute,” Luca interrupts, his voice low and laced with anger. “You’ve been upset this whole time, and you never said a word?”
“After what happened in Tampa, how could I?” I ask, my voice breaking. “I wasn’t going to ruin you by telling the truth.”
“Ruin me? I told you that was a puck bounce. How many times do I have to say that?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I say, shoving his explanation aside. “You were going out to bars behind my back, Luca!”
“I was not,” he roars. “Christ, you must think I’m a complete asshole if you believe that, but you’ve never been honest with me, have you?”
“I did it to protect you!”
“Bullshit. You did it to protect yourself,” Luca says, his eyes flashing. “You were afraid of how I’d respond. You didn’t want to deal with ugliness, just like your mom. Instead of giving me a chance and letting me work through your concerns, you buried your feelings. I might not know a lot about relationships, but I sure as hell know this isn’t how one works.”
His words cut through me.
Because I know he’s right.
But I’ll be damned if I give in to him now.
“You know how else they don’t work?” I fight back. “They don’t work when one person is consumed with their career. You have given me bits of you, but not as much as you can.”
“That’s not true.”
“Oh, it is true,” I declare, tears streaming down my face. “There are other goalies in this league who are as good as you are, if not better, and they have wives and kids and dogs. They have a life off the ice. They somehow manage to watch a game while their girlfriend sits next to them on the sofa, Luca. What you’re doing . . . you’re going to burn yourself out. You will. You’re so terrified of losing what you have you can’t see that you are one of the best goalies in the league. Your preparation is part of it, but not all of it. Until you find balance, your fear will control your life. And you’ll have nothing but that net in it.”
“You,” Luca says, his voice shaking, “don’t know what you’re talking about or what I have to do to stay where I am. Now this conversation is pissing me off.”
“I know exactly what I’m talking about. And funny, you want me to tell the truth, and when I do, you say I don’t know what I’m talking about. You only want a truth you can agree with.”
“I’m done,” Luca snaps, throwing up his hands. “I’m done with this conversation. I’m done with everything.”
His words send a chill straight down my spine.
I know he’s done with me, too.
I run straight past him, throwing open the door.
“Collins!” Luca yells, running after me.
I don’t acknowledge him. I can hear him closing fast on me down the stairs, but I’m still ahead. I race to the curb, and oh, thank God, I see a cab. I throw up my hand.
“You’re not leaving!” Luca yells, putting my arm down. “Not like this!”
I shove his hand away and stick mine back up.
“You have a flight to catch,” I say, my voice thick with tears.
“I don’t care!” he screams at me. “I don’t!”
The cab pulls to a stop in front of me. I jerk open the door and get inside, but Luca grabs a hold of it so I can’t close it.
“Just so you know,” Luca says, his voice full of hurt, “Justin texted me after you left and asked if I wanted to meet him at the bar to watch the game. It was a sports bar, Collins. That’s why we were up front. So we could watch TV. I had one beer. One. We did it so we could pick each other’s brains on St. Louis. That’s the truth. You won’t believe me, but it is. One more truth? I love you. But apparently that isn’t enough, is it?”
Then he slams the door shut and heads back to his building.
I gasp in shock as his words roll over and over in my head.
“Where to?” the cab driver asks.
I rattle off my address and the city rolls by in a blur.
Luca didn’t lie to me.
He loves me.
And I just lost him.
I know where I need to go now. I need to go to the one place where I feel safe. Where I can cry and scream and speak my truth and still be accepted.
I need to ride.
~ ~ ~
As soon as I enter Major’s stall, he comes over and greets me. I do the one thing I thought I was safe to do with Luca, but really wasn’t.
I share my truth with Major.
I bury my face in his neck and sob like I have never sobbed in my life. My heart is broken. Just like I never knew love like this could exist until I met Luca, I never underst
ood how a breakup could cause so much pain and grief.
How do I go forward from here? How? I can’t imagine a life without Luca in it. He is my everything. He brings me joy. He makes me brave. With him, I dared to believe a dream could be more than just that, that it could be a reality if I didn’t give up.
During the drive out to the stables, I forced myself to face the fight. Luca was right about not giving him a real chance. Oh, what I wouldn’t do to turn back the clock and undo this. I wish I acted like a mature adult and faced our difficult conversations head on instead of imploding on him all at once.
I called him a liar.
I sob harder as Luca’s hurt face flashes in my head. He might love me, but he’ll never forgive that.
I jerk my head up. I need to ride. If I ride, I won’t think.
I’m too emotional to jump, but it’s the only thing I have left that matters.
I get Major ready to go, retrieve my gear from the tack room, and put my helmet and gloves on. I lead Major out of the barn and to the indoor ring. I mount him and attempt to warm up, but Major refuses to move on my command.
I know why.
He senses I’m not right.
Finally, I get him to obey and take a few laps with him around the ring.
But try as I might, I can’t get Luca out of my head. I’ve always been able to shut out my problems by riding Major. Why isn’t it working now?
I shake my head. No. The ride will take over. It will.
It has to.
After he’s warm, I decide we’re ready for the course.
I lead him to the start and take a deep breath.
I still feel nothing but anguish.
Jump, I will myself.
I take off and lead Major forward, preparing him for the first jump. Too late, I realize my counting is off.
