Page 23 of Breaking Away

It’s Smith.

Don’t be like this,is his last message.

A sneer curls my lip. I hate Smith so much I want to beat him again.

Kavi catches me looking and snatches her phone away. She pockets it. “It would be fake,” she says, sticking her chin out. “If I even agree.”

“No, it’s real. And I’m in love with you, Princess.”

She huffs at my bland tone, and I’m kicked under the table. Before I can catch her foot, Kavi gets up. “At least I can count on you to be… you.”

That sentence… tears at me. I should be happy her expectations are low.

Following her outside, I see it’s getting dark. My car is parked right there. Opening the door, I tug the backpack off her shoulder and set it inside.

“Hey!” she says, reacting too slowly to stop me.

“I’ll drive you where you need to go.”

“Give me my stuff back!” She tries moving around me. Too bad I’m much bigger than her.

“No.”

It’s late. And right on time, thunderclouds crackle overhead. Rain drizzles down.

Not right on time, a fan recognizes me. “Are you… Dmitri Lokhov?”

There’s a gasp.

And this is why I wear a baseball cap whenever I come out in public.

Gritting my teeth, I agree to sign whatever he wants. It takes a precious minute for the man to find a pen.

By the time it’s done, I see Kavi has already stalked away from me. Glimpses of dark pink hair pop in and out as she weaves around people. Her backpack is slung on her shoulder. She snatched it back from my car and left.

Even though it’s late, she’s a grown woman on a main street in a relatively safe Canadian city.

That’s what I should tell myself.

She’s obviously rejected my offer about coming to the next game and it’s not my problem to follow-up. Better yet, this is a fucking blessing. Now I can focus on the only things that matter. Renewing my contract, not damaging my knee, and carrying on my dad’s hockey legacy for him.

I’m moving.

Going after her.

Because there’s a car heading towards Kavi, ignoring all speed laws.

I sprint.

10

KAVI

As I’m storming awayunder stormy clouds, and suffering from very stormy thoughts—a loud honk pierces the air. There’s a second where my head jerks and the scene arrives like the snap of a rubber band. I’m in the middle of an intersection where the walking sign stopped a few heartbeats ago, and the wild-haired driver of a two-seater bug of a car has spotted me early enough to slam his brakes on, but late enough that the front bumper is at risk of bopping the front of my knees.

With terrible survival skills, my limbs freeze.

My whole life is supposed to flash before my eyes, but it’s the last half hour that does. Hardened Dmitri Lokhov, with the roughest calluses on his hands, wiping a tear off my cheek. My pulse skittering at even the slightest touch. The other impulse to tuck my head against his hand like it could hold me there for a while. That moment when he called me Princess, clearly asarcasticinsult—which, tell my body that, because the way my thighs squirmed…

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