Page 73 of The Rebound Plan

“You really don’t.” She pauses. “You should tell her how you feel.”

“That’s never going to happen.”

“I think she needs to know there are other options.”

I laugh without any humour at all. “She knows. She has her reasons and I respect them.”

Once she drives away, I’m finally alone. I give my gorgeous new house the finger. “Really had different plans for you,” I say out loud.

The house doesn’t reply.

My phone vibrates. A text message from Foster asking if it’s just me this afternoon.

Sure is. I’m all the fuck alone.

I’ve got a week here to myself before I’ll head back to Hamilton, and I’m planning on doing nothing but skating and swimming and thinking about all of my life choices that have led me to this moment.

Two out of three of those choices are good for me. The last one can’t be helped.

CHAPTER 27

SHANNON

The days that follow our return from the cottage are filled with silence.

Max throws himself into work, his favourite thing. He makes an appearance at rookie camp first, and then…I don’t know what else. Captain things. He doesn’t include me in any of it, a clear punishment for refusing to sleep with Francois, threatening divorce, and then…doing what we did with Russ.

And I refuse to be sorry.

I wasn’t the one who invited his teammate to join us. It’s not my fault that in the end, I enjoyed it more than he liked.

But I do miss how he used to lean on me as the Queen WAG.

So when I get an email from someone at the team foundation, asking me to step in as the chair of the Highlander Ball committee, I leap at the chance to do something, anything. The winter gala event raises money for the children’s hospital and other local charities, and also celebrates the top community fundraisers, putting them in front of the big corporations who sponsor the team and the arena. I copy Max on my reply accepting the job.

And then I call my favourite spa and book myself in for some self-care because I want to look my best for the first committee meeting I’ll be joining.

The next day, we happen to leave the house at the same time. The silence is most profound as we politely jockey for access to the garage. He pulls out first, then I follow in my car. I catch up to him at the red light leaving our neighbourhood. He speeds away from me as soon as it turns green, and in the distance, I see him turn toward the highway. I head the other direction, into Ancaster Village.

The spa is at the end of the picturesque main street, across from a bakery and beside a sporting goods store that has a family law office above it—very small town vibes, even though we’re technically on the edge of a pretty big city.

It reminds me of the town where I grew up, but with a lot more polish.

And when I was a kid, I couldn’t afford a day at the spa.

Max’s money makes my life easier in an infinite number of ways.

Inside, I hand over the credit card that he takes care of every month, to pay for the services that help keep me looking the way he likes. Smooth, soft, polished—every inch the perfect wife.

He joked on our first date about how I was too much for him, and I knew what he meant. When I protested that I was a small town girl at heart, he asked me if I was the homecoming queen or the class valedictorian, as if those were genuinely the only two options he could imagine. When he found out I only had my GED, he almost didn’t ask me out on another date. If he hadn’t already followed me on social media, I think he wouldn’t have. But then I posted another photo of myself on a yacht, and he was hooked right back in.

In the end, I think he saw mouldable potential in me. After all, I’d transformed myself from an edgy emo goth girl with a hick accent to a glittering, cosmopolitan black swan. Sure, I had edges he didn’t like, but I, like a silly fool, was a little too honest with him in the early days about my eagerness to please. I would have agreed to anything to step inside the shield he represented against the outside world. It turned out, I only needed to transform myself into the girl next door—and sign a prenup that prevents me from accessing any of his hockey earnings if we ever break up.

“What are we doing today?” asks the receptionist. “Body wrap and polish, hot stone massage, the radiance facial, and the mani-pedi?”

The usual. I get waxed on an alternate schedule, like clockwork. Homecoming queens don’t have body hair in Max’s fantasy world. “That’s right.”

“Here’s the usual form to fill out, Mrs. Tilman. You know the drill. Have a seat and someone will bring you your favourite lemon tea.”

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