Page 92 of Offside for Christmas
She felt her carefully constructed walls start to crack. She just didn't realize they were cracking for all the wrong reasons.
Cole's truck was packed. It was Christmas Eve morning.
Ellie watched from behind the corner of the building across the street, half-hidden in the shadows of the early morning. She'd come to say goodbye—but now that she was here, she couldn't make herself move. Couldn't make herself step into his line of sight.
He loaded the last of his boxes, his movements efficient and mechanical, his face set in hard lines. He didn't look around. Didn't pause to take in the town one last time. Didn't glance up at the Christmas lights still twinkling in the gray dawn.
He just wanted to leave.
The apartment above O'Brien's—the place that had almost been a home—was empty again. Back to being just a rental, nothing personal left behind.
Ellie pressed herself against the cold brick wall, her breath misting in the frigid air, watching him close the truck bed. She wanted to run to him. Wanted to beg him not to go. Wanted to tell him she'd been wrong, so wrong, and please just give her one more chance.
Sarah's article was dropping tomorrow. Christmas morning. The truth about the bar fight, about what really happened, about Cole being a hero instead of a villain.
Ellie had helped Sarah finalize it, had connected her with the right people, had done everything she could to make sure Cole's name would be cleared.
It was her gift to him. The only one that mattered.
Let him go to LA with a clean slate. With teams fighting to sign him. With the career he deserved.
Even if it meant losing him forever.
Cole climbed into his truck. The engine started. He didn't look back at the apartment, didn't look at the town square with its giant tree, didn't look across the street where Ellie stood hidden in the shadows with tears freezing on her cheeks.
He just drove away.
And Ellie let him go.
She watched his truck disappear down Main Street, past the garland-wrapped lampposts and the shops with their festive window displays, until the red taillights were swallowed by the gray morning.
Only then did she realize she couldn't feel her fingers. Couldn't feel her toes. Had been standing in the December cold for so long that her whole body had gone numb.
Or maybe that was just her heart.
"Ellie?"
She turned to find Mac standing a few feet away, still in his workout gear from early morning practice, his face stricken.
"I saw his truck," Mac said quietly. "I was coming to... I thought maybe I could talk to him one more time. Convince him to stay. But he's gone, isn't he?"
Ellie nodded, not trusting her voice.
"Did you talk to him? Did you try—"
"No." The word came out broken. "I just watched him leave. I couldn't... I couldn't make myself move."
Mac's expression shifted from confusion to understanding to something that looked like pity. "El..."
"Don't." She held up a hand. "Please don't say it was for the best or that if it's meant to be he'll come back or any of that. Just... don't."
"I wasn't going to." Mac moved closer. "I was going to say you're freezing and you need to come inside before you get hypothermia."
"I don't want to come inside."
"Then let me take you home."
"Mac—"
