Page 43 of Dreams on the Ice

“Two months,” I murmur. “In two months, if I still want to sell my share, will you guys buy me out?”

The women all swap glances, and Karlie clears her throat. She is the one who speaks first. When she does, I can tell she’s upset at my actions, upset that I ran. It makes me think about Forrest and how he tried to tell me not to run.

Yet I did just that.

“You won’t want to sell in two months,” Karlie states.

And that is that.

They are convinced that I won’t be selling in two months, but I know better. Kiki isn’t going to stop. She isn’t going to stop because she’s getting more attention than she probably ever has in her life. People are kissing her ass—feeling sorry for her.

She’s loving every second of ruining my life.

Every.

Single.

Second.

Chapter

Twenty-One

BROOKLYNN

My parents,thankfully, don’t demand that Idoanything. They actually stay out of my way and allow me to wallow in my pitiful life. I’m sure they won’t let me do that for long, but it’s nice right now, nonetheless.

I need the peace. The quiet. And the loneliness. I need to be lost inside my own head.

Lying on my bed, I stare at the ceiling, wondering what I’m going to do with the rest of my life. I’ve never been in limbo before. I’ve always had a plan. Even when I was terrified of what was to come, I always had a plan.

Rolling onto my side, I stare at the blank wall across from me and try to find the will to stand up and do something. But I can’t think of anything to do. I’m heartbroken for so many reasons. For all his talk, Forrest hasn’t tried to contact me. He hasn’t called, texted, or anything, and that makes my heart shatter and grind down to finer dust with each passing moment.

I streamed his last two games because I couldn’t bring myself to attend in person.

They won.

He was as beautiful as ever.

The sight of him effortlessly gliding on the ice was almost too much for me to bear. But because I couldn’t help myself, I watched him anyway.

And cried.

Pushing myself up to sitting, I swing my legs to the side of the bed as I try to force myself to move when my phone buzzes beside me, not once, not twice, but four times. It seems a bit excessive, so I wonder if it’s some sort of friend-mergency.

Reaching for my device, I expect to see that someone is calling me with the way the vibrations are going off, but that’s not what it is. It’s text messages. At least five of them, all from my friends. It has to be an emergency.

Even Lorelai has sent me one, and she doesn’t work at the salon, so it can’t be salon stuff.

What the hell?

Sliding my thumb across the screen, I bite the corner of my lip as I read the first one, which is from Ayden. She’s always the first on anything, aside from me. We’re kind of the same in that way.

AYDEN: GIRRRRLLLL!!!! Watch this!

Her second text is a link to a video on a social media app. The first thing that appears is Kiki’s stupid face. I almost swipe out of it but then decide to give it a listen because it’s not what it seems.

It’s Kiki, but she’s not recording the video herself. Someone else is. She probably doesn’t even know that someone is recording her. And she is being an absolute bitch talking shit about someone. I don’t know who it is, but I’m obsessed with this whole thing because then, as the recording continues, she confesses that she’s sleeping with a married man.

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