Page 64 of Center Ice
“If it walks like a duck…”
“Hey, you do know that I didn’t know about Graham, right?”
Her ordinarily angelic face goes hard, and her short fingernails dig into the fleece fabric of her sweatshirt where she squeezes her biceps. “I know that she called you twenty times to tell you, and if you’d valued her even the smallest amount as a person, as a friend, and as someone you’d slept with, you could have called her back.”
I shove my fists into the front pockets of my jeans. “You’re not wrong. And I’m trying to make it right.”
“By freaking her the fuck out? If you knew anything about her, you’d know that she’s the kind of person who needs time to adjust to big changes. Having you back in Boston, letting you meet Graham, having…whatever relationship you guys have…it’s a huge amount of change within a few short weeks. You don’tgo and say you’re going to marry her when you barely even know her!”
“Even if it’s true?”
“Drew.” It almost makes me laugh how much she sounds like Audrey when she says my name like that, all exasperated and sounding like she’s about to reprimand me. “You can’t know that after being back in her life for, what, three weeks?”
I shrug, because I have no idea how long it’s been. It feels like just yesterday and forever ago that I saw her across the backyard. “All I know is that I want her in my life, and I want to be part of hers.”
“Right, that’s called dating, or even friendship.” Jules looks at me like I’m missing a very important and obvious fact.
“Dating doesn’t seem serious enough for our situation.”
“Why?” Jules asks, right as the cold wind blows through the alley, kicking up leaves and banging together trash bins. Her whole body convulses with a shiver. She’s the kind of tall and thin that means she probably gets cold easily. “Because you have a kid together?”
“Yeah. And because ‘dating’ is way too loose a term for what I want with her.”
“Well, you may need to slow your roll a bit, because like I said, Audrey needs time to adjust to big changes. You want some advice?”
From the little Audrey’s told me about her sister, I know there’s no one in the world she’s closer to. So if anyone can help me make this right, it’s Jules. “Sure.”
“Go home. Let her come to terms with this on her own.”
That was not the advice I was hoping for.
“She can have until she gets home to come to terms with it, and then I want to talk to her. I’ll wait for her in my car.”
“That’s a mistake,” Jules says as she steps back into the kitchen and grabs the edge of the door. “But it’s yours to make.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
DREW
It’s only hours later—after I’ve had dinner delivered and eaten it in my car, called my mom to check on her, fielded texts from some of my teammates who are meeting up for beers, and watched an entire movie on my phone—that it occurs to me that Jules might have told Audrey I was waiting in my car. Audrey could just as easily have parked elsewhere and gone in the front door instead, where I would never have seen her.
Have I been sitting out here like a fool, and she’s been inside this whole time?
I decide to test the theory, so I open my Jeep door and shut it quietly, then walk up the back steps. The door only has a transom window, but by standing on my tiptoes, I’m able to see through it, and sure enough, Audrey is sitting cross-legged on the couch, typing away on her laptop.
When my fist meets the door for a few quick knocks, she practically levitates out of her seat. Then she turns, and the look of annoyance on her face transforms to one of shock when she catches sight of me peering at her through the window.
She stands there, staring at me. Her face conveys the message that she wants me to leave, but when she mouths, “Go away,” there’s no doubt. I raise my hand like I’m going to knockon the window, and she shakes her head back and forth as she starts walking toward the door.
She cracks the door open, then plants her leg behind it like she’s trying to stop me from coming in. As much as I want to push that door open and pull her into my arms, I know that’s not what she wants right now.
“Talk to me, Audrey.”
“I’m not ready to talk about this.”
I take a deep breath through my nose, feeling my nostrils flare and my jaw tick as I grind my teeth together.
“I never want to force you to do anything you’re not comfortable with. But…” I take another deep breath. “I’m kind of going crazy worrying about how badly I screwed things up. I didn’t mean to spook you. I just…I know how strong my feelings are for you, and I don’t want to hide them like I did when we were in college. I don’t want you to doubt how I feel. I don’t want you to question whether I’m in this.” I think back to this afternoon, to how being inside her knocked my whole world off its axis. I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.
