“I…”
“It’s so obvious,” she laughs, clinking the large cube of ice in her glass. “Thefirsttime I saw a picture of you two, I knew it was the real thing. And I was happy for you—for both of us. I was happy that we could get what we wanted.”
I look away from her. Deep down, I know that this thing can’t be Wren. That it can’t be her talking to the other teams, and it can’t be her who leaked the information about me and Mandy.
But who else would it be? Who else would want to hurt me, to ruin my reputation like that?
“Cheers,” Mandy says, lifting her glass to mine and drawing me out of my thoughts, “to finding real love.”
When I clink my glass against hers, the sound is a little empty to my ears.
Wren
“What do you want?”
There’s stunned silence on the other end of the line. Or maybe it’s not stunned. Maybe my father has never been stunned in his life.
From the moment I walked out of the Frost arena until I just finally,finallygave in and hit the green button to answer the call, he’s been ringing me nonstop, back-to-back, so I can’t even wallow reading articles about Luca and me online.
After almost a full year of me ignoring his calls, I’ve finally answered. So perhaps there is a moment of shock on his end,and that’s why it takes him a few seconds to say something. Maybe he never really thought I would answer.
I wish I could be the version of myself who didn’t.
“Wren.”
“Obviously. Obviously it’s me, since you won’t fucking leave me alone.”
I’m sitting on the bare couch in my bare apartment, staring up at a kidney-shaped water stain on the ceiling. Again, there’s a pause, and this time I don’t know if it’s because he’s shocked at the way I spoke to him, or if he’s putting together what he’s planning to say.
“I have a job for you, Dubs.”
“Find someone else.”
“I need you.” A beat ticks by and he adds, “I have a job, and I need someone I can trust.”
“You can’t trust me.”
“Au contraire—you are theonlyperson I do. You went to prison for me, my dear.”
I swallow down my objections—it’s not the truth of what happened. I close my eyes, my young self resurfacing, comingback to me. The moment I realized that if I turned myself in—if I took the fall for everything—I could potentially find myself in a normal life.
A life in which I wouldn’t have to look over my shoulder. A life in which I could do normal things, like renting an apartment. Dating guys.
And look how that’s turned out for me.
“I’m not doing that kind of shit anymore,” I tell him. “I’m not even supposed to be talking to you.”
“It’s a secure line. They can’t track you on this.”
That’s not the point.
“Look, Wren,” Dad goes on, his familiar rough voice getting a bit smoother as he turns on his charm. The cadence he uses when he’s trying to get something he wants. “I know you were fired from that hockey thing. And I know you need the money. That home you picked for Louise isnotcheap.”
I’m aware of that. It’s the first thing I thought of when I walked out of Uncle Vic’s office. All I could think about as I packed up my things, realizing not only was I not going to get the bonus for winning the Stanley Cup, but I would not be getting a regular paycheck, period.
After getting fired from the Frost, what’s the likelihood that I’ll be able to find a job? Uncle Vic was my best reference, and he thinks I’m sabotaging the team’s shot at the Cup.
I could talk to my connections at the Bureau, but how long is that going to take? If it’s more than a month or two, I’ll run out of savings, and what will happen to Gran then?
