Caged (Gold Hockey Book 11) by Elise Faber (romantic love story reading TXT) 📕

the last hours in a perpetual cycle of self-flagellation, she was laughing and walking arm-in-arm with her friend, and the bottom wasn’t falling out of the world, and . . . she was beginning to wonder if she hadn’t been the least bit hasty with Ethan.

Cue more internal whipping.

“Dani? Is there a reason you look like you’ve swallowed a lemon?”

“I’m . . .” She sighed. “My head is a mess.”

“And here I’ve promised to not give you an inquisition.”

Dani snorted. “You’d take advantage of a woman on the edge?”

“Hell yes, I would.” A beat, a squeeze of her arm. “But I won’t because I promised.”

“A woman who sticks by her word.”

“Yeah.” Fanny nudged Dani with her elbow. “Kind of like my friend.”

“I haven’t had that many friends,” she whispered, the words slipping off her tongue uninvited.

Fanny tugged her to a stop. “And why’s that, do you think?”

“Because I’m . . .”

A nerd, shy, self-conscious . . . not worthy.

The last crept through her mind like insidious ivy crawling up the trunk of a tree. She waited, expecting the pang that usually accompanied the thought, the cold frost that followed, creeping in through the fronts of her sneakers, soaking into her socks, chilling her toes.

But the pang, the iciness didn’t come.

Instead, something red-hot flared in its place, and suddenly, her brain went clear. She wasn’t what they had said.

And why, why had it taken her so long to see?

“I was . . . well, for a long time I’ve made myself small.”

Fanny’s expression gentled. “Why, babe? When you’re so fucking big and bright?”

“Because I’m an idiot?”

A shake of her head, brown locks flailing behind her. “Nope. That’s one thing you’re not.”

A sigh. “Because I’m scared?”

Fanny tapped her nose. “Ding. Ding. Give the girl a prize.”

Laughter floated up, like a balloon drifting toward the sky, escaping her lips in a quiet puff of sound. “I thought you said no inquisitions?”

“Well, you gave me a freebie, what’s a girl supposed to do?”

“I—”

The question was what was she supposed to do? Because seriously, what the fuck was she doing? She needed to find Ethan and explain, to tell him . . . something that would come to her, knowing coming to fruition as she went after him.

It was bad. She needed to—

“Hang on.” She tugged her arm free, started down the hall. “I need to—”

“Hey!”

She stopped, turned around.

Fanny’s mouth was tipped up at the corners. “Should I wait?”

Nerves bubbled into the space laughter had just occupied. But . . . fuck . . . hadn’t she been scared long enough?

Yes. Yes.

“No,” she told Fanny. “Don’t wait.”

“Carbs and booze another night!”

She nodded in agreement . . . and then she ran in a very undignified manner toward the parking lot.

When she burst out through the door, the air was cold, spreading across her face, tightening her skin, drying out her lips—or maybe that was nerves. Because the urge to spin back around and run inside to find Fanny for the booze with a side of carbs was intense.

Grew even more intense when she found Ethan standing there, his gaze on the ground, his hands fisted at his sides.

Turn tail.

Run.

Hide.

Her spine prickled, her foot slid back.

And then his stare drifted up, collided with hers.

She couldn’t miss the hurt in his eyes, the misery, the despair. The trifecta of emotions was a literal gut punch, and her foot stopped its motion. Then moved forward to join the other.

Her throat seized.

Words exploded.

“Sara brought a beautiful woman named Roxanne to set you up with, and I freaked out. I thought that I couldn’t possibly measure up and shouldn’t get in the way of someone who clearly fit you better than me.”

His face turned . . . scary. That was the only way she could think to describe it, but instead of stoppering the words up, it only made them come faster.

“And I’ve always been quiet. My family is great, but they’re all big personalities, and it was just easier to blend into the background, to sit back and enjoy the show. I wasn’t ever the type of girl who’d battle to be in the front. I was just happy with what I had.”

A fierce expression.

Gentle fingers lifting to grasp hers, his thumb brushing the inside of her wrist, tracing light circles on her skin.

And she found that the rest of it wasn’t so hard.

“Then I reached for more,” she whispered. “Then I dared to want something big and beautiful, and . . . the universe slapped me back.” Her eyes closed, and those fingers gripped tighter, tugging her away from the door, slipping an arm around her waist and bringing her body flush against the side of his.

Warm and strong, one hand wiping away the tears she hadn’t even known escaped, then drawing her even closer as voices came close.

“You coming, Eth?” Brit called from somewhere nearby.

Ethan shifted her, shielding her body with his, and she felt a piece of her heart chip away, slip right through the holes in her safety net and drift over to him, to his palm, to those gentle circles on her skin. “Another time,” he called.

“Okay. But just so you know,” she called back, “I’m pretending I don’t see Dani with you.”

“Stay in your lane, Brit.”

“That’s for race car drivers.”

A sigh. “Then between the pipes.”

“That I can do,” she hollered. “See ya.”

Then she was gone, and Dani was alone with Ethan again, only this time they weren’t standing in the shadows next to the arena, they were moving.

Or maybe they’d been moving the whole time.

Because by the time she processed they were walking, Ethan was beeping the locks on his car, opening the door. “Sit,” he murmured, plunking her into the passenger’s seat and reaching over her to buckle her belt.

Then he crossed around the front of the car, got in, and drove out of the parking lot.

He didn’t speak as he drove, navigating the bright lights of the waterfront, the semi-quiet streets. There were always a few people out in a city