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9. Emma

"Are you sure it's okay that I use the gym?"

"I told you it was and I'm the boss," Drake shrugs with a laugh.

"I don't want to get in anyone's way."

"It's six in the morning, and the only players that are in the rink right now are so in the zone they won't even notice you. We have an ice bath, massage chairs, and a sauna too. Feel free to use whatever you want."

"Thanks."

"It's the least I can do when you're willing to help out the guys."

"Do you feel like everyone is staring at us?" I ask as I take a long drink from my coffee cup.

Drake laughs and shakes his head. "No, but I'm used to it. They're probably impressed that we're walking to the rink together. They see me with the most beautiful girl in town and wonder how I got so lucky."

I giggle and blush before I roll my eyes. "You don't like walking?"

"It's just easier to drive. I do notice you like to walk to a lot of places."

"I once had a coach tell me my butt was too big and that I needed to make better choices outside of training to keep it visually pleasing. Walking and taking the stairs became a habit."

He takes a peek behind me, grins as he looks back, and says, "I think your butt is perfect."I playfully slap at him. I cannot stop smiling.

"It was really hard to hear that at eighteen. It's ingrained in me to walk everywhere now. Especially since I'm not training eight hours a day."

"I bet it was. When you say train eight hours a day, what did that entail?"

"Getting up and running every morning, then light weights, yoga, some sort of dance, cardio, and lots of skating and working on routines. Ted was a tyrant when it came to our routines. Somedays we would be on the ice perfecting them for eight to ten hours. I learned how to function on little to no sleep and food."

"Ted was your old skating partner?"

"Boyfriend, roommate, skating partner. We lived and breathed each other for the last three years."

"Why did that end?"

I shrug my shoulders. "I came home from the doctor and told him that I could no longer skate. I told him that I would have to retire. He didn't ask if I was okay, he asked what would happen to my sponsorships."

"I'm sorry you had to deal with such a jerk."

"Live and learn, right?"

"Not necessarily. You're playing it off as if it was nothing, but it was something."

I nod and inhale the cold air into my lungs before blowing it out slowly. You never realize how crappy of a situation you were in until you start telling someone about it. There have been a lot of moments over the last few months when I've realized that.

"It's why I came home. Ted and I haven't been together for six months. Part of me stuck around thinking he'd change his mind, but he had a new partner and girlfriend within a week.

I put my house up for sale on a whim and packed up most of what I owned. Loaded my car down and started driving. I visited places I'd always wanted to go to but hadn't because of my training or Ted. And then one day, I found myself crossing into the city limits of Willow Creek."

"Fate brought you back."

"My dad may not have been a good father. This town may have represented my crappy upbringing, but when everything was imploding around me this town and my father were all I could think about. Aunt Suze and Uncle Hal were great and all, they loved me and did the best they could but I guess I've always been a daddy's girl regardless. I needed my dad and I needed the familiarity and love this town exudes."

"Wow, that's poetic. I felt the same thing when I was in New York City. Everything was so crazy, so hectic, and so unfamiliar. I knew that when I got to a certain point financially I wanted to come back here for good. I didn't realize how much I missed it until the day I came home."

"The second I saw the sign telling me that I was entering Willow Creek, it was almost as if I could breathe again."

"I feel that. Maybe it's because we grew up here that it offers it, but this town definitely represents something special."

We're quiet for a few moments before I hear her inhale and exhale slowly.

"What time is practice today?"

"Players will start filtering in about 10. They'll have a fundamental, drilling practice around noon and then at four they'll scrimmage."

I nod. "That gives me plenty of time to build a plan."

"Why did they tell you that you couldn't skate again?"

I glance down at the ground, stuff my hands in my pocket, and try to make myself small.

Can I disappear right now? I don't want to talk about this with him.

"He said my knee was jacked," I shrug.

"Your knee is jacked? Technical terms?"

"Yes," I laugh. I blow out a breath and look back at him. "Figure skating, the extreme toll the sport took on my body with the extensive training and limited calorie intake has done a lot of damage to my body. They pushed so many steroids and numbing drugs into my body that I'm basically holding together with very thin threads."

"Just to your knee?"

I nod and avoid eye contact. "Originally, the doctor was concerned about cancer. They had to do more tests because the fluid that kept building up needed to be drained often and was full of infection."

"And?"

I retired because I didn't want the world to see me go through that hell. He also highly recommended it. The overtraining and undereating had caused a number of issues including heart and female problems. Drake doesn't need to know that though, I don't want him to look at me with pity.

I'll never forget how serious the doctor was at my last appointment.

"Do you want to have babies someday? Do you want to be able to carry those babies around when they're little and be able to enjoy their babies and grandbabies someday?" the doctor had asked.

"Yes."

"If you continue, you won't have those things. If you continue you will be crippled before you're thirty."

I remember leaving the doctor's office and taking a long walk. I'd never thought about having children, Ted and I had never discussed it. The thought of that being ripped away from me was terrifying.

I decided that I had no other choice but to retire and start focusing on my mental health and taking better care of my body.

"They ruled out cancer, but he told me there was so much damage done to the muscles and tendons that it was a ticking timebomb."

"From overtraining?"

"And over-medicating, I guess you could say. Remember the movie ‘Varsity Blues'? When Paul Walker tries to save his friend from making the same mistake he did with the injections?"

"One of my favorite movies."

"Mine too," I giggle. "You'd have thought it would have replayed in my mind at some point when they were injecting me with so much poison."

"I've heard of that happening to a lot of different athletes."

The winter air is crisp as we step into the well-tended ice rink, the cold seeping through my bones. It"s a familiar place, one that has witnessed countless hours of laughter, determination, and the thrill of gliding across the ice.

I miss sliding across the ice.

Keep missing it, because you're never lacing up your skates again.

"You know, I never imagined you owning a team and being so successful," I say to him as he goes into the weight room with me. "I always imagined you playing sports your entire life."

"I wasn"t always the confident guy you see now," he admits, his gaze fixed on the ice. "High school was tough for me too. I struggled with self-esteem, because of my weight and it took a while to find my footing. I learned different skills while I was finding myself, I guess. I knew I wouldn't be an athlete all my life, I wanted different, more."

"Your weight?"

"I was overweight."

"I never saw you that way," I reply, shocked by this revelation.

"It's all I saw in the mirror for a very long time. I buried myself in coding and gaming, in learning everything I could about the tech world. I knew that I was meant for more, that I wanted more and at the time, didn't know what that was."

"Do you know now?"

"Yeah, this." He gestures to the rink. "I wanted to make a billion dollars and then come home and spread that wealth to others. I did that by bringing the Battle Hawks here. In turn, the business owners and other people in town started to realize that they could set their financial future by capitalizing on the team. I"m meant to lift others up with me, to teach them to fish so that we all thrive."

Surprised by his revelation, I appreciate the honesty he brings to our conversation. "I never would"ve guessed. You always seemed so self-assured. The ‘more' part though, that's perfect and describes you well."

He smiles a hint of nostalgia in his eyes. "Well, I had my fair share of awkward phases. But sports, especially hockey, became my escape. It gave me a sense of purpose and a way to prove myself. I had a pretty intense head injury, and it ruled out playing hockey long-term."

"I didn't know that."

"Most people don't. It's not something that I really shared. Chasity and Callie knew because they helped me after the injury."

"Is that why you bought the team?"

"I bought the team so I could continue being around hockey, I also knew I could offer more to the team than most owners could. The ultimate dream was to buy the team and bring them to Willow Creek to build the town."

"And you did that."

"I did."

"Is that why you bought the rink?"

"Financially, it made more sense to buy the rink. Your dad's heart wasn't here anymore and it was clear. We had a long talk, he told me that his heart was in cooking and that he and Hal wanted to change the bar into a restaurant. Buying the rink allowed that, it allowed Willow Creek to grow as well."

"It doesn't matter that his heart wasn't in it, it wasn't his to sell."

"Maybe not. You may think he was being selfish, but he wasn't. Him giving up the rink helped the town in a dozen different ways, opening the restaurant did too. When other people saw Hank and Hal thriving they followed suit. Besides he hasn't talked to you, in what, ten years? And he was still hopeful that you'd come back."

"He doesn't care about me."

"I think you're wrong."

"We can agree to disagree."

Drake shares snippets of his journey, the challenges he faced, and the victories that shaped him. I reciprocate, revealing the twists and turns of my path, the decisions that led me away from Willow Creek, and the eventual return to the town that holds a piece of my heart.

"Tell me more about your relationship with Zane. Everyone says it wasn't good for you."

"It wasn't," I murmur. "I didn't realize that until I left town though. He's an alcoholic like my father. They were the same human and all I wanted was for him to love me, the same thing I wanted from my dad. I put up with so much, I allowed him to destroy my self-esteem because I thought that was the way it was supposed to be. I thought that's all I deserved. When I left for school I realized that nothing about our relationship was okay."

"I'm sorry you went through that. What was the final straw for you to break up with him?"

"I went to visit him on my Spring Break, he said he had to stay at school for conditioning. It's so cliché, but I went to his dorm room to surprise him and heard him having sex with another girl. I walked in and found him on top of her. I ended it right then and there."

"It's only cliché because it happens a lot. It's not your fault he's a jerk and didn't realize what he had."

"I think a part of me stayed away because I was worried I wouldn't be strong enough to steer clear of him when I came home. You know?"

"Makes sense. I'm glad that you moved past that."

"Me too."

***

Later the next day, I find myself back on the ice, this time surrounded by a group of young girls eager to improve their figure skating skills. I don't think I've ever smiled as much as I do when surrounded by those girls.

I take a moment to watch them, a sense of pride swelling within me. It"s fulfilling to pass on the knowledge I"ve gained over the years and witness the joy on their faces as they conquer new challenges. Lily skates up beside me, her eyes sparkling with shared passion.

"You"re a natural at this, Emma," she says, nodding toward the group of girls. "One day with you and I've learned more than I have in a year of private lessons."

"I'm glad to hear that."

A long time ago, I lost my love for the ice. It's always given me peace when I step on it without an agenda in my head. Seeing the joy in these girls has reminded me of why I began skating in the first place.

As the session progresses, I shift my focus to the hockey players as they skate onto the ice. They are engaged in speed and agility drills; they're working through the plan I gave them.

It feels good to see them having fun and improving at the same time. It feels like it's been a long time since I have effortlessly smiled, but in the last few days, I can't stop smiling.

"Want to grab dinner?" Drake asks.

"I actually have plans already," I murmur.

"With who?"

"Kade. He texted me yesterday and asked to meet up," I shrug nonchalantly.

Drake's eyes narrow and grow dark. His jaw clenches tightly.

"You're my fiancée."

"Fake fiancée," I snap. "However, Kade has some contacts and asked me to do some marketing consulting for him."

"You're already consulting for me."

"For free, I need to be able to eat."

"It's not for free."

"Fucking me into oblivion doesn't count as payment," I sigh as I glance at my watch. "I should go home and get changed."

"Emma," he growls.

I turn on my heel and walk off. He calls after me and I ignore him again.

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