Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 86367 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 432(@200wpm)___ 345(@250wpm)___ 288(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86367 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 432(@200wpm)___ 345(@250wpm)___ 288(@300wpm)
Pulling out the card, I already know they are from Stone. I can feel it in my bones. What I’m not prepared for is the note.
Thank you for being you.
Missing you.
Stone
At that moment, here in my office, I shed a tear for a man for the first time in my whole life.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
stone
I look down at my phone as I walk into practice and see the last thing she sent me two days ago.
Gorgeous: Just left work. On my way home, might grab something to eat or not. I’m exhausted. Hope you won the game. Sleep well.
My chest tightens with each step as I head into the locker room.
“Hey,” I greet, putting the phone away, seeing most of the guys here. We have practice today from ten to about one, then we are off until tomorrow night.
A couple of them look up at me and nod, and a couple wave, but everyone is either talking to someone or just doing their thing. And with the way I’m feeling, I don’t really want to talk to anyone. The last two days have had me in a whirlwind of emotion. I knew the minute she was leaving she would pull away from me. I knew it. I felt it, yet I wasn’t ready for it. I also knew I have absolutely not one single fucking clue what to do about it. Which made the past two days even worse.
I slip out of my tracksuit and into my gear, then go onto the ice. I’m thankful for the three hours I’m being pushed on the ice because my mind kind of shuts down. The minute I get off the ice and into the locker room, undressing—I grab my phone—thinking she might have texted me something, anything, but I don’t have any new messages.
Tossing my phone back into my locker, I go to the shower and then head out. I’m pulling into my garage when my phone rings, making my heart speed up because I have this stupid hope it’s her. I look at the screen and see my father FaceTiming me.
I take a huge inhale and press the green button. His face fills the screen. “Hey,” he starts with a big smile and then stops. “What’s wrong with you?”
I should have known he would see that something is wrong with me. I don’t know why I’m surprised. “Nothing really.”
“Nothing really.” He leans back in his chair, and I see he’s at home in the kitchen. “What does that even mean?”
“It means that something is bothering me,” I admit to him, “and I don’t know if I want to talk about it.”
“Talking about it is better than letting it fester inside you.” He crosses his arms in front of him. “Are you okay?” The worry is written all over his face.
“I’m fine,” I snap, “it’s just that…” I think about how to word this, but is there even a way to discuss this in a roundabout way so he doesn’t know who I’m talking about.
“I met this girl,” I start, not giving him Ryleigh’s name.
“Oh,” he says, his mouth staying open, making me wait to see if he has more to add. “That’s good, right?”
“It’s amazing,” I confirm, “but—”
He groans. “Nothing good comes with a but. Trust me, I know. You know who uses buts all the time? Your uncles Matthew and Max. We have this tee time, but it’s at five o’clock in the morning.” I chuckle at his tone. “We have this amazing vacation spot, but we have to take five planes and then fourteen hours on a bus.” He shakes his head. “Let’s buy four horses each, but where are we going to put them?”
“Yeah, it’s sort of like that.” I tap the steering wheel with my finger nervously. “I met this amazing, smart, beautiful woman, but she lives in Chicago.”
“Chicago.” His tone is weird as if I said she lived on the moon.
“And we’ve seen each other a couple of times. I was there for a game, and we hooked up.” His eyebrows pinch together. “Then she flew out here last weekend to surprise me.”
“Did she catch you with someone else?” he asks, but then his jaw gets tight. “Stone Cooper Richards.” He uses my full name. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Whoa.” I laugh. “Full name must mean business.” He glares at me. “Anyway, she didn’t find me with anyone else because there isn’t anyone else. There is just her.” I smile when I think about her, because I’m fucking obsessed with her. “So she came down here to surprise me, and it was amazing. It was great. But then, when she left, it was weird.”
“How so?” His voice is softer, the tightness gone.
“She didn’t want me to go in the airport with her. She hasn’t called me since she got back home. She’s sending me all these texts with reasons she can’t talk on the phone.” I close my eyes. “I fucking hate it.”