Page 3 of Play Your Part

The words felt like a gut punch. We made plans to go to the season-opening party within the last two weeks. We’d both been busy lately—me staying at the McIntyres’ while Connie and Rich took a week-long vacation and Justin with a trip to New York to see his mom—but wesaweach other. We had dinner and sex and watched a movie with me falling asleep on his shoulder. He’d seemed a little distant, but it didn’t feel out of the ordinary. Justin got moody, and I ignored it.

I could practically hear the hinges coming off our relationship, one-by-one, with each word he spoke.

I glared at him. “And you didn’t tell me because…?”

Justin glared back. He didn’t want this conversation. I came here unannounced. I ruined his chance to sneak away like a thief in the night. I searched the room for a note, my gaze locking on a piece of paper on the countertop. Justin followed my line of sight.

“Justin, what’s going on?”

“Your father fucking traded me… after I dedicated myself to his team for five years.” He pounded an open palm on the countertop.

I flinched and took a step backward.

“He tossed me aside like I don’t matter.”

“What does that mean for us?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.

Justin looked down at his hands white-knuckling the countertop before finding my gaze again. When he spoke, the anger was gone from his voice. “Kennedy, you know I care about you… but this isn’t… you’re not… the same person I fell in love with. I thought you’d get back to that…”

My chest constricted, a pain settling in its center. For the first time in a year, I had begun to finallyfeelagain, but I couldn’t argue with Justin. I wasn’t the same person as when we met before my mom died; I didn’t know if I could get back to that person. If who I was now wasn’t good enough for him…

“I’ve sold the house,” Justin said after a prolonged silence. He looked around the rooms on the first floor, avoiding my gaze. “The movers should have packed your things.”

I barely processed the words. This was happening too quickly—my relationship ending, my plans going up in a puff of smoke. Plans I had been sure would include me moving in here. Into this now empty house. I waited for a rush of anger or devastating sadness, but I felt… nothing.

Shock. This must be shock.

“Justin,” I whispered, drawing his eyes to mine. I knew him well enough to know that anything I said or did wouldn’t get through. His decisiveness was something I’d always admired. But I had to try. “If you give me more time, maybe if I go with you, and we start over away from here—”

“It’s been a year, Kennedy. How much longer am I supposed to wait? We want different things. I have dreams, and you… I don’t know what you want. It’s like you’ve stalled. How do you expect me to be serious with someone like that?”

A tear slid down my cheek. I thought Justin understood me better than anyone. He knew my history and had seen me at my very worst. Even so, he couldn’t accept me. And how could I blame him? He worked every day toward his future, and all I did was try to keep my head above water.

“Mr. Ward?” The mover with the clipboard stood at the kitchen entrance.

“Just a minute,” Justin said before walking to me.

He rested his hand on my shoulder, but I recoiled from his touch. I didn’t need a reminder of what I was losing.

“I’m sorry, Kennedy.”

“You’ll regret this,” I said, forcing a fire into my voice I didn’t yet feel. I hoped my glower conveyed the fury and hurt that would no doubt hit me later.

Justin walked away from me, his pinched expression remaining unchanged.

I felt outside of myself as I watched him complete the moving paperwork before signing an autograph for the mover’s son. As if nothing had happened between us, Justin smiled and asked for the kid’s name, handing over a piece of paper that would make that child’s day.

I waited until the doors slammed and the house quieted before snatching the envelope Justin left behind. Thinking the goodbye letter would gut me, I wanted to read it alone, to cry in peace. But when I opened it, all that greeted me were instructions for returning my keys to the realtor after I moved my belongings out of the house.

2

ALEXEI

Forty-eighthoursago,myhockey career had been dead in the water, so I guess I shouldn’t complain about the sweltering heat cooking me alive.

My agent told me I should never complain about anything again, but the heat in Palmer City, North Carolina, carried so much humidity, my filter was on the verge of coming loose. A filter I very much had to keep intact. I loosened my tie and pleaded silently for extreme air-conditioning inside the house.

“Ah, Alexei, I hope you haven’t been waiting too long.”

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