Page 9 of On the Edge of Scandal

Now it’s time for me to make my way to the locker room and make sure the person on the ice who matters to me is handling this better than her erstwhile boyfriend.

Bronwyn

Coach mercifully keeps the locker room talk to the game as best he can, but there’s still an uncomfortable amount of chatter and whispering about the proposal, and far too many looks and finger-points in my direction. But god love Coach Levenson for the death glares he sends the gossips, and the small nods he gives me when they’ve been momentarily silenced.

Still, I can barely get through it, and I stare straight ahead as much as I can get away with while Coach goes over the game, trying not to think of what just happened. What I ought to be focused on is the fact that we won, we’re headed to the next round, and that game is slated to be difficult. From here on out, there won’t be any easy victories.

Finally the team meeting is over, and we all hit the showers and get on the bus, Lisa and Tara walking beside me like sentries as they had on the ice, trying not to let the cameras snap my picture too much. They do it anyhow, and I try not to care about what it’s going to look like in the papers tomorrow, what it’s going to look like on the internet tonight. Possibly TV.

Dammit, Brody.

Any illusions I had about him really loving me have dissolved like salt in hot water. We’re very public about our dating, but major moments—good or bad—I’ve never wanted to share. He had much less concern about it, picking fights in front of the library at BC, practically announcing to his team that he’d bought a box of condoms for our first time our junior year at prep school.

The ride back to the village seems to take forever and a blink, and Lisa and Tara guide me through the gate. Coach looks at me as I pass through, opens his mouth like he might say something but then decides against it. One part of me wants to stop and demand “What were you going to say?” I’d like to have control over something right now. But it’s not his fault, and whatever he could say wouldn’t make the grade. Because what do you say at a time like this?

Lisa walks with me to what’s supposed to be our suite even though she’s been staying mostly with her husband and kids at a hotel, and I sit on my bed.

“Hey.” I didn’t even notice Lisa has sat down beside me until she speaks and bumps me with her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

I give her anare-you-fucking-kidding-melook, and she smiles, a pathetic wan thing. “I mean, I know you’re not really okay, but are you okay enough to be left alone? I should get back to the hotel, but is there someone you want me to call so you don’t have to be by yourself?”

So I can have a witness of exactly how pathetic I am? Yeah, that sounds awesome. “No. Don’t worry about it. I’m not fine, but I’m more numb than anything else.”

My break-up with Brody seems excruciatingly real but also like a bad hallucination. Ghastly, but not quite a thing that actually happened. If only it hadn’t.

Lisa bumps me with her shoulder again and gives my hair a tousle, which I can’t even muster a protest for. Is it annoying? Yeah, but I’ve got bigger things to devote my energy to. Like getting up the willpower to not log onto my computer and search for footage. I don’t want to see it. But I kinda do? No, I don’t.

“Really, Lisa, it’s fine. You can go. I’m just going to sit here looking shell-shocked.”

“And you’re not going to do anything stupid, right?”

“At the moment, I’m finding it difficult to think about anything, never mind dream up some devious and ill-advised plan, so I think you’re safe.”

“Okay.” She looks me in the eyes, hers a far darker brown than mine, and her hair, too, black enough that it’s got blue undertones instead of red like mine. “You did the right thing. You know that, right?”

I nod, because deep down I know I would regret marrying Brody far more than I’m going to regret being embarrassed by this. But there’s a coal of anger sitting in the pit of my stomach, burning through me, reminding me of how furious I am at him for having forced me into this. “Yeah. He’s a dick.”

She laughs, and gives me a lung-emptying hug before grabbing my face with both hands and kissing me on the forehead. “You’re going to be okay, and we’re going to kill Switzerland in a few days. If you need anything, you’ve got my number. Don’t be afraid to use it, even if you think you’re being obnoxious. I guarantee you it would be my pleasure to deal with you instead of the monster children.”

That drags a shuddering sigh from me, and I try not to let the tears spill over as I see her out and close the door behind her. She’s heading to her hotel to be with her husband and her kids, something I hadn’t figured was all that far in my future, and all of a sudden, it seems very far away. Like some epic clock has restarted. That’s okay. Really. It was the wrong clock for me. Brody and I weren’t meant to be together for the long term, and if we were . . . Well, the universe messed up big time.

After twenty minutes of sitting on the edge of my bed feeling dazed, I can’t do it anymore. Maybe I’m supposed to be in tears, maybe I’m supposed to be calling Brody on the phone, apologizing to him, or showing up at his hotel room, begging on my knees for him to take me back because I just made the biggest mistake of my life. But none of those feel like the right thing to do. What does seem appealing is moving. I want to get out of here.

I put street clothes on and pretty myself up a bit, and then head out of my suite, out of my building, out of the village and into the busy streets of the neighborhood that’s sprung up around SIG central, intending to just go for a walk, to be somewhere I’m not hemmed in by the walls of my suite.

It’s strange to walk around knowing a bunch of these people must have seen my break-up on TV. Or onCelebrinewsor some other website. As much as I try to keep my head firmly on my shoulders and out of my ass, it’s hard to ignore that people have been paying a lot of attention to us in the past couple of months, and this kind of thing will attract even more.

Luckily for me, I play a sport that requires a helmet, so it’s not as though people get to see my face very often. Here’s hoping I look like just another girl wandering around the bars, restaurants, tourist shops, and upscale sporting goods stores that cater to people who all of a sudden think they’re going to take up ski jumping or speed skating. Good luck with that.

Then I see it. A club some of my teammates have had their eyes on since we got here, but they haven’t dared set foot in . . . yet. After we’ve finished all our games, though, they’ll either be there in champagne-spraying victory, orsitting-at-the-bar-doing-tequila-shotsdefeat.

It wouldn’t be smart. It really wouldn’t be. But maybe a single shot to sear my throat, give me something to distract myself from the fiery embarrassment and burning anger I suspect will be setting my insides aflame for quite some time. Even that smoldering coal of sadness that I hate. I really fucking hate.

Which is why I backtrack a few yards, square my shoulders, and push through the doors to Icing.

Chapter Seven

Ash

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