Page 36 of Unravel Me

Her eyes spark. “Really?”

“Yup. You’re always kind to me, and you teach me new things. I’m lucky to have a friend like you.”

Lily flushes crimson before examining the bracelet I’m working on. “You’re doing really good. Maybe you can give it to your girlfriend when you see her next.” She cocks her head. “How come you and your friends are fighting over calling her?”

“Because I’m confused, and they’re only making me more confused. What do you think I should do?”

“Well…” She taps her lip. “You have a crush? Like, a super big one?”

“Super-duper big.”

“Easy-peasy then.”

“Easy-peasy?” Nothing about this feels easy-peasy. I’m out of practice. My gut says I should call Rosie. It’s been a whole thirteen hours. I don’t want her thinking I didn’t have the best time, or that I don’t want to see her again. My heart reminds me that nothing’s worked out for so long, warns me to slow down. My brain is like a fucking circus monkey; it has no idea which direction to go in, so it just keeps riding in circles.

“It’s like at lunchtime when there are extra chocolate pudding cups. I love chocolate pudding, so I eat mine superfast so I can grab another one before it’s all gone. That’s what you’re supposed to do with things you really like. Grab it before someone else does.”

I drum my fingers. “I did accidentally keep her hat.”

Emmett arches a brow. “Accidentally?”

I swallow. “Accidentally on purpose.”

“Classic move,” Carter says. “Know what I kept of Ollie’s after our first time together, so she’d have no choice but to come back?” He wags his brows at his wife. “Her heart.”

She rolls her eyes from across the room. “Adam, how was Rosie when you told her about hockey?”

My gaze falls to the bracelet I’ve barely touched.

“Adam,” Olivia repeats slowly. “How was Rosie when you told her about hockey?”

“She doesn’t watch sports,” I say to the bracelet.

“Oh for God’s sake. You didn’t tell her, did you?”

“I got scared,” I blurt, ignoring the surprised looks from my friends. “She asked me what I did, and I was going to tell her. The words were right there, I swear. But everything was going so perfectly, and in the moment all I could picture was everything that could go wrong.” I pull at the bracelet, watching it slowly unravel, the way this little white lie is sure to at some point if I don’t handle this quickly. “Hockey changes everything. I don’t want to be Adam Lockwood, Vancouver Viper. Not to her. I just want to be me.”

It’s the perfect storm, really. I don’t lie, ever. What’s the point? But here I am in the off-season, nothing but free time and sunshine on the horizon. Days on end to explore things with Rosie without the time commitment hockey pulls from me. Without the media on my back, cameras in my face. I just need a few days to figure this out, to screw my head on right and explain this to her.

Olivia’s brown eyes shine with compassion, but it’s Lily who speaks up first.

“I don’t like hockey, but I like you. Hockey isn’t what makes you special.” She taps her chest and smiles. “It’s your heart.”

She’s right; I know she is. But that doesn’t stop the panic that squeezes my throat at the text message that pops up on my screen two minutes later.

Trouble

Hi Adam. I had a great time last night, but I think we need to talk.

* * *

In the history of not being sure what I’m doing, this takes the cake.

Call her, they all said. And what did I do?

Said a rushed good-bye, ran out to my truck, and drove somewhere I probably shouldn’t be.

And now here I am on the twelfth floor, standing outside the same door I watched her disappear behind last night with a dopey, bashful grin, and cheeks the same color as her name.

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