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

like San Francisco, but this late, it was a muted hum of activities, the traffic gone, most people tucked safely into their beds. She turned to look out at the water, wanting to explain more, wanting to apologize, to find something to make him understand.

Ethan reached out and squeezed her knee. “It’s okay.”

“That I freaked out or I can’t find the words to explain?”

Another squeeze. “Both. You don’t owe me anything, sweetheart. Explanation or words or otherwise.”

“But . . .”

When she trailed off, words lost again, he didn’t get impatient, just waited.

“I want to give it to you.”

His fingers convulsed.

She sucked in a breath.

He turned into a parking lot, the lights twinkling at regular intervals, the water of the Bay in the distance. It was a clear night, the moon shining down on the waves and their crests, turning them shades of black and gray and silver. But the beauty of that undulating mix of salt and water couldn’t hold her attention.

Not when every cell in her body was focused on the man next to her.

Not when he said, “I only want what you’re willing to give.”

And that unlocked the rest of it.

“I fell for the popular boy in high school.” The memories threatened to swell up, to overwhelm her, but she shoved them down. “The long and short is that I was the baby in my family, the quiet one, the protected one, and I fell for a boy who didn’t believe in protecting me in any sense. I was too weak or infatuated or stupid to recognize what was happening, and by the time I did, I was pregnant.”

Ethan sucked in a breath.

“It’s stupid, really,” she said, hating the sharp slice of pain, the way this truth made her want to curl up and go quiet, to lock the hurt down. “I figured we’d get married, and everything would be perfect. I’d somehow have the fairy tale ending.”

Her heart thudded.

Her palms were sweaty.

Her throat was tight.

But Ethan didn’t rush her.

And she found that her heart slowed, her throat loosened, and the moisture on her palms dried.

“He just . . . pretended I didn’t exist.” A breath. “I told him I was pregnant, and he just dropped me off at my house, and then at school the next day, he ignored me completely. It wasn’t even hours before he was with the most popular girl in school.” A tall, slender blond, much like Roxanne. Except, she’d been snake-mean where Roxanne seemed nice.

“I was a teenager. I was emotional and heartbroken and hurt and—” A shake of her head. “And I tried to talk to him, but he was . . . well, cruel. So, then I knew I couldn’t rely on him, couldn’t expect a happy ending from him, so I thought the baby and I would make our own.” Her eyes burned at the memory. “But I lost the baby, and I got really sick.”

His fingers were like a vise on her leg, but instead of hurting, they grounded her, helped her finish the story.

“My parents hadn’t known until I started bleeding, until it was bad, and they needed to call an ambulance.” She shook her head, a thousand little slices of agony crisscrossing through her insides. “I was in the hospital for a while, and after I recovered, my family . . . they gave me a pass. I homeschooled for the rest of the school year, and we moved the next. New school. Fresh start for my senior year,” she said with a sigh. “But I was different, smaller. Quieter. No happy ending. No fairy tale. No prince. No boyfriend.”

Dani shuddered out a breath.

There it was. Her whole sad sob story.

One no one knew except her family.

But . . . shouldn’t this feel better? To get everything off her chest? Cutting the bindings, releasing their hold on her?

Instead, the past was like a mace inside her, spikes jabbing at her from all sides, her spine as rigid and stiff as a piece of wood. God this hurt, and she wanted to crawl back into herself, to cover the pain, the spikes, wrap up and bury the splinters from that wood.

She wanted to be small again.

She wanted to not feel again.

No sooner had that thought crossed her mind before Ethan moved.

The car jerked as he shoved his seat back and then in the next instant, her seat belt was unlatched and she was hauled over the console, plunked into his lap with his warm, strong arms wrapped tight around her.

“I’m sorry.”

Just two words but filled with empathy instead of pity for the first time. Her family had been sympathetic, sure, but they’d largely been pitying. Poor Dani. Poor, naïve, unworldly Dani.

It was different with Ethan, however.

No pity.

No pat on the head.

Just warm arms and a steady heartbeat against her ear when he brought her even closer.

“I should be over this by now.” She found the words she’d thought to herself a million times before allowing them to slip out, and his arms grew tighter. “I was a teenager, and it was puppy love, and—”

“You were hurt and lost a dream. That doesn’t just go away.” A soft hand on her back, rubbing lightly. “That changes a person. Irrevocably.”

“And what about your dreams?” she whispered, lifting up, her eyes meeting his. “Which ones have you lost?”

A shadow of pain across his face, and guilt swarmed her.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean. I—”

“It’s okay,” he said, just as quietly. “I lost a friend. First year in the league. He was struck and killed by a drunk driver.”

“Oh, Ethan.” She covered his jaw with her palm. “I’m so sorry.”

She half-expected him to say something along the lines of life happens or shit gets real or bad things sometimes happen to good people, or one of a myriad of other platitudes people pitch to each other when they don’t know what to say or how to react.

Instead, he covered her hand with his own, his gaze on hers. “Thank you.”

The