Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 99921 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 333(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99921 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 333(@300wpm)
“Wow.”
“Anyway, Evie went in and out of rehab a few times. She’d be sober for a month, and then I’d come back from an away game and she’d have fallen off the wagon. The doctors in rehab put her on antidepressants to treat the root problem, but it just compounded her issues because she’d drink while taking them, and the alcohol would hit her harder. After a while, I couldn’t do it anymore. I decided I would be there for her as a friend, but I needed to end things. I’d contacted a real estate agent to find her a place of her own to live and had planned to sit down and talk to her when she was sober. But the real estate agent stopped by the house when I wasn’t home, and Evie put two and two together. She got really upset and took a bunch of pills. I called the police, but by the time they found her, she was floating in the lake.”
“Oh God.”
“When I pulled up, they were zipping a body bag on a gurney.” He shook his head. “The night of the funeral, I got myself loaded. Fell down a few of the stairs in my house, twisted wrong, and blew out my knee. Career over, too. Some people never learn their lesson. I didn’t pick up the phone when my brother called because I was too busy having fun, and I wanted to cut Evie loose because she was too much work. I should’ve been there for the both of them.”
I might not have known Ryder or Evie, but I felt a profound loss, nonetheless. Not just for the two humans who died, but for the loss of faith and trust in himself that Fox had suffered as a result. Tears streamed down my face. “You’ve experienced unimaginable tragedy. But you can’t blame yourself for decisions others made.”
“Two people who loved me needed me, and I wasn’t there for either of them. I didn’t deserve a second chance. Certainly don’t deserve a third.” He reached out and wiped my tears with his thumbs and swallowed. “But I’m so goddamned selfish, I want it anyway, Josie.”
I looked into his eyes. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
He shrugged. “I have no goddamn idea. I suck at words.”
I laughed through tears. “You’re doing pretty well today.”
“Then I’ll keep going. If what you got out of everything I said so far is that I’m madly in love with you and will do everything in my power to make up for hurting you if you’ll just give me another chance, then maybe there’s hope for me after all.”
“You love me?”
Fox cupped both my cheeks. “Sweetheart, if you’ll let me, I’ll spend as long as I have to and do whatever it takes so that you never doubt that again.”
“Whatever it takes? So you’re going to move here to Manhattan?”
Fox froze. It looked like he might shit his pants. I should’ve kept him on the hook for a lot longer after the hell he’d put me through, but I cracked and smiled. “I’m kidding.”
He blew out all the breath he’d been holding, and his shoulders shook with quiet laughter. “You’re going to make me pay long and hard for screwing up, aren’t you?”
I twisted my lips like I was considering it. “Not too long. I’m guessing the women of Laurel Lake have been doing that for me since I left.”
He groaned. “You have no damn idea.”
I smiled. “That’s what family does. They stick together.”
“How come you’re family after only a few months, yet I’ve lived there my entire life and I’m getting the cold shoulder?”
“Because you deserve it, jackass.”
“True.” Fox’s face had lightened a bit, but he grew serious once again. “But what I don’t deserve is you, doc. Don’t deserve you one bit.”
I smiled. “I am pretty spectacular.”
Fox’s lip twitched. “You sure are, sweetheart. You sure freaking are.”
***
It was the middle of the night by the time we finished talking. Fox, man of normally very few words, had really opened the floodgates. We spoke more about Ryder and Evie, about what it had been like for me coming back to New York and saying goodbye to Nilda, and even about how he had struggled to find his way after his injury had forced his retirement from hockey.
I was emotionally and physically exhausted as we slipped into bed. Fox had driven twelve hours straight, too, so I couldn’t imagine how his eyes were still open. I lay with my head on his chest while he ran his finger over my shoulder, tracing a figure eight in silence in the dark.
“Do you still love him?” he finally said.
I felt my eyebrows reaching toward my nose. “Love who?”
“The douchebag.”
That was the name he’d bestowed on my ex. But he couldn’t be asking if I was in love with Noah after all we’d shared tonight. Could he?