Page 45 of Puck Happens

Ignorance was bliss.

“Where was your partner in all of this?”

I blinked at the unexpected question. “Brian? It wasn’t his fault if that’s what you’re asking. It was my mistake that caused him to drop me.”

Maybe there was a tiny window where he could have gone down with me, taken part of the impact of the fall…instead he’d done exactly what he’d been taught to do every day of pairs training. He’d let me go.

“Wasn’t he more than just your skating partner, weren’t you a couple?”

That made me uncomfortable. Uncomfortable enough I swung my leg away from his tree trunk of a thigh and stood up.

“Why does it matter? It’s in the past.”

He put his hands on his knees and stood up as well. I kept misjudging how big he was. I felt his gaze on the top of my head and refused to meet his eyes. No good would come of it.

No good would come of any of this.

“Because if you were mine, I would never drop you.”

For a moment something so bright and hot spread through me I could barely breathe.

That’s how Dillon would love a woman, I thought. All the way.

Rules! You made them for a reason. Come on, Olivia!

I stepped back, pushed my hair behind my ears, did everything but look at him.

“Brian and I were pros. We knew the risks. There was no blame game on either side. It was a lot of stress to put on a relationship, that, if I was honest, had a few cracks in it already.”

Dillon nodded as if that made sense and I was glad he didn’t push for more. I was rattled and shaken. A lot of old ghosts out of the closet where I normally kept them shoved deep inside.

“Hey, I’m starving, how about we go grab dinner?” he suggested.

I nodded, before I thought about it. “Sure, that sounds…wait, no. Dillon, I’m not having dinner with you.”

He chuckled. “We could order in?”

“We can’t do that here,” I said.

“Well, your couch is pretty shit, but-”

“Here. In this town. You know that.”

For a heartbeat we just looked at each other. It was like a fork in the road. If I gave him the slightest nod, he’d have me back in his arms. I knew that. I also knew it would be amazing, I had no doubt about it.

But it would also put everything I’d worked for, to get back here, with a job on the ice, in jeopardy.

In the end, he was the one who nodded and headed to the door. It was on the tip of my tongue to addstop coming to my apartmentto our list of rules.

“See you tomorrow,” he said, at the door.

Do it. Tell him. Say; you can’t come over like this.

But instead, I said, “See you tomorrow.”

* * *

Dillon

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