SWNOVELS Unravel Me: Chapter 23
I’ve circled Wildheart five times. Five goddamn times.
I’ve repeated my speech over and over, the same one I recited to Bear eight hundred times before I left the house, after making sure my hair looked nice and I was wearing my lucky T-shirt. My hands won’t stop shaking, and I tell myself my sweaty palms sliding against the steering wheel are the reason I miss the entrance to Wildheart a sixth time.
“Fuck.” I grip the steering wheel, softly banging my forehead against it. I should’ve done it a long time ago; maybe it would’ve knocked some sense into me.
But I can’t fuck around about this anymore, so when the light in front of me turns green, I turn into the parking lot at Wildheart Sanctuary and park myself in the same spot I always do, where I have a front row seat to Rosie puttering around in there, finishing the last of her paperwork, doing her final rounds in the cat den, showering them with love one last time before she says good-bye.
Unbuckling my seat belt, I stare down at my trembling hands before wiping them on my jeans, scrubbing one over my mouth, running the other through my hair before fixing my hat back on my head and, finally, getting out of the truck.
The two girls standing behind the desk lift their heads when I walk in, and a cat ambles up to me, dropping itself at my feet and showing me its belly. Silence falls over the room, and my shoulders pull taut as I stoop down, rubbing the cat’s belly.
“Is Rosie around? Can you tell her Adam’s here?”
The girls exchange a look, eyes bulging and heads tipping in my direction. The blonde clears her throat, turning to me. “Uh, Rosie’s not here.”
“She’s not?”
“She wasn’t feeling well. She went home early.”
Standing, I slip my fingers up the back of my hat, scratching my head. “Oh. Okay. Was she okay?”
“Ummm…” They look at each other again.
“Never mind. Thank you.” I give the cat one last pat before heading for the door, and when I’m halfway through it, their hushed words send my heart into overdrive.
“Oh my God. It really is him. Rosie’s dating Adam Lockwood.”
I’m not sure there’s a word to describe what I’m feeling now, bypassing the elevator and racing up all twelve flights to Rosie’s apartment. There are no nerves left, just sheer, unadulterated panic, and it spills out of me with the frantic rap of my knuckles against her door, the way I knock my hat clear off my head and yank at my curls while I wait for her to answer, to tell me I can make this right.
But it’s not Rosie who opens the door, and the narrowed gaze and crossed arms of the tattooed man waiting for me tell me I might be too late.
“Archie—”
“Oh, that’s interesting,” he bites out. “You know who I am, even though we’ve never met, yet you’ve been fucking around with my best friend for the last two months, and she had no idea who you were.”
“No, it’s not—it’s not like that.”
“Really? You didn’t lie to her about your job?”
“No, I—” Fuck . “I did. But I had a—”
“Good reason?” His brows rise. “Can’t wait to hear it.”
The door pulls away from him, and my sweet girl steps into view, pink waves piled on her head and grazing her neck, gaze trained on the hands she wrings at her stomach. When her name leaves my lips, it’s a desperate plea, drowning in the grief I feel rolling off her.
“Rosie .”
She looks at me then, stares up at me with those green eyes, impossibly wide and so wrecked, begging for it to make sense. Everything I want to say to her, everything I practiced when I was in control of this situation, it all dies somewhere in my throat.
I need to hug her. I need to feel her, need her to feel me. To feel how sorry I am, how deeply I care about her. How I’m not fucking going anywhere, because she’s been the one since she walked into my life. If I can just hug her, she’ll know. I’ll squeeze all of it into her, all the love I have.
But she crosses one arm over her stomach, grabbing onto her opposite elbow, and more than I see it, I can feel the wall she’s just erected between us.
“Here if you need me.” Archie presses a kiss to her temple before shooting me a castrating glare and disappearing.
Tears of betrayal swim in her guarded eyes, but the hopelessness might be worst of all. Eyes that shone with so much faith, so much warmth, are now shattered and muted. There’s a certain resignation to them, almost like she was waiting for something bad to happen, for the floor to fall through.
“You lied to me,” she whispers, swiping at the tears that start dripping down her cheeks.
I step toward her, but she steps back. “I’m so sorry, Rosie.”
“Sorry for lying, or sorry you got caught?”
“I was going to tell you. I swear, Rosie. I was going to tell you tonight.”
A huff of laughter escapes her. She tugs the sleeves of her sweater—my sweater —over her hands, wiping at her eyes. “Convenient timing, huh?”
“Dada?” A tiny voice floats down the hallway, stopping my heart. Connor toddles into view, eyes locking with mine and filling with so much excitement before he starts racing toward me. I crouch down, ready to catch him, because I think the only thing in the world that might make me feel better right now is holding this little boy in my arms. “Dada !”
“Connor, no.” Rosie catches him before he can crash into me. For a moment, I stay stooped there on the ground, trying to shove away the startling feeling clawing at my chest. It matches my arms: fucking empty.
Connor points at me, looking at Rosie. “Dada, hug?”
She squeezes his hands in hers, her words hoarse. “Not right now, baby.”
His sweet face crumples, and I’m ready to fall to my knees, beg her for forgiveness, scoop them into my arms and tell them how much I love them.
But then Marco appears, taking Connor’s hand. “Hey, bud. Let’s go play trains.”
“Say bye to Adam, baby,” Rosie tells him, and the simple words bring those tears right down her cheeks again, faster this time, and she turns away to rid her face of the evidence.
“Bye, Dada,” Connor whispers, waving at me. “Lub you.”
I close my eyes to the two words I’ve never heard before, not from him, ones I want to hear all over again but might never get the chance to. “Love you, too, little trouble.”
He points at Rosie. “Big tubble? Lub?”
“Marco,” Rosie chokes out. “Please.”
He scoops Connor into his arms, casting an apologetic glance at me. “Come on, buddy. Uncle Arch is setting up your tracks.”
“Rosie, I—” My phone rings in my pocket, cutting me off. I pull it out, silencing it without looking at it, but before I can tuck it away, it rings again. “Sorry,” I mumble, frowning at the number, the same damn one that’s been lighting it up for over a week now. “I’ll turn it off.”
“You can get it, Adam,” Rosie says, scrubbing her eyes.
“No, I don’t—” It rings again, and Rosie sighs.
“Adam, please. Just answer it.”
Bringing my phone to my ear, I keep my eyes on Rosie. “Hello?”
“Adam? Oh thank God. I’ve been trying you for days!”
I frown, dropping my gaze as I try to place the voice on the other end. When it hits, the frantic plea behind my name, something drops from my chest, sinking low in my stomach. “Courtney?”
Rosie’s face falls, and I know immediately that she knows who Courtney is.
And I refuse to let this woman mess up any relationship other than the one she already lit on fire a year and a half ago.
“I blocked your number for a reason,” I bite out in a low voice as Rosie looks down, giving me space I don’t want.
“I know, but I had to talk to you. It’s about—”
“There’s nothing to talk about. Don’t call me again.” Before I throw my phone in my pocket, I block her number. “Sorry about that. Nobody important.”
Rosie nods, scuffing the floor with her bare toes before she finally meets my gaze. “You’re on Tinder.”
My brows pull down. “Tinder? No.”
She pulls out her phone, showing me my profile on that fucking dating app. “This isn’t you?”
“No, it’s—I mean, yes, it is. But I’m not—I mean, I was —my profile is still—ugh.” I scrub my hands down my face, because nothing is coming out right. I’m all fucked up, panicked, and my words aren’t wording, so I take a breath and try again. “I haven’t used it at all since I met you, Rosie. I promise.”
She looks down, and I hate how quiet her voice is when she speaks next. “Why didn’t you delete your profile? Were you not sure about me?”
I step forward, saying a big fuck you to the distance between us, the part of my brain that warns me to give her space. I take her hands in mine, clutching them between us. “You are the only thing I’ve ever been sure of.” I sweep my thumbs over her knuckles. “It’s a shit excuse, but I just didn’t think about it. I wasn’t logging on, so it wasn’t on my mind.”
Her eyes move between mine as she tugs at her lower lip with her teeth. “The websites are calling you ‘hockey’s most eligible bachelor,’ and ‘the NHL’s serial dater.’ You’ve dated a lot of women in public, but not me. You dated me in private, Adam. Why didn’t you want people to know about me?”
I shake my head, and when she tries to pull away, I yank her closer. “No. No, that’s not it. That’s never been it. This isn’t about you, Rosie. This is about me, and I won’t have you thinking I was trying to hide you, that I was embarrassed in any way, because that’s simply not fucking true.”
“But it feels that way, you get that, don’t you? Everything I’ve read about you this afternoon tells me I’m different.”
“You are different. You are absolutely everything they weren’t for me, in the best and most surprising way. I’ll apologize for a lot of things, because I know I’ve fucked up. God, I’ve fucked up. But I won’t apologize for wanting to keep you to myself, for wanting to wrap you up and keep you tucked away from this world.”
“From your world, Adam. This is your world. And I don’t know it, not at all. And finding that out now makes me feel like I don’t know you .” She steps back, looking up at the ceiling, fighting so damn hard to keep more tears from falling. “God, how dense am I? I’m dating one of the most famous goalies in the NHL, and I have no clue. I feel like such a fool.”
“Fuck, Rosie. I’m a goddamn mess, and I’m so disappointed in myself. I didn’t mean to hurt you, I swear. And I hate more than anything that I’ve made you feel like a fool. I fucking panicked. I told you my name the day we met, and you didn’t react. When you asked me what I did, I realized you had no idea who I was, and I just…I couldn’t. For some reason, the words wouldn’t come.”
I know what I’ve done. Fuck, I know exactly what I’ve done. In lying to her, I’ve perpetuated her deepest fears. She’s spent her whole life wanting someone to choose her, and she’s been let down time and time again. And now, I’m no different.
“I know it feels like you weren’t important enough for me to be truthful with you. I know you’re feeling like I didn’t choose you.”
“It feels a whole lot like you chose us, just only for the summer. You got to play house for a couple months and now you get to go back to being a famous hockey player. You didn’t just hide your job from me, Adam. You put us in a bubble and hid us away from the rest of your life.”
“I did. I saw an opportunity and I ran with it. You didn’t know about the hockey, and I liked it. I didn’t have to wonder which version of me you liked.”
Something in her eyes softens, but then, they’ve always been soft. Kind and gentle, even right now, when I’ve broken her heart.
“I need you to understand that this isn’t about the hockey, Adam. I get that somewhere along the way, as a professional athlete, you’ve been made to feel like that’s all you are. And I can tell you with absolute certainty that’s not true. You are a beautiful human being with so much more to offer. But in letting those worries consume you the way you did, you didn’t just lie to me. You kept whole pieces of yourself from me because you didn’t want to trust me with them. And all I’ve done is trust you. I’ve given you everything. My heaviest, earth-shattering truths.” Her voice drops, and her eyes move to Connor over her shoulder, watching us from his spot on the floor where he plays with Archie and Marco. “And my entire heart. I trusted you with my son, Adam, and you lied to us. You’ve made me feel convenient, temporary, when I thought this might be…” Every one of her insecurities shines in her devastated eyes. “I thought this might be permanent. You promised you wouldn’t hurt me, but this? This hurts.”
Her shoulders slump, and she seems to shrink before my eyes. “I don’t know how to trust you right now. And if I can’t trust you, I don’t know how we can be together.”
Panic bubbles, and the world around me slows to a crawl. “You’re breaking up with me?”
Tear-filled eyes lift to mine. “I…I don’t know. Honestly, Adam, I don’t. When you came into my life, you grounded me. You pulled me to my center, and for the first time since my parents died, I felt like I was finally on level ground. I felt safe, and I felt loved. Now I feel like I’ve lost my footing all over again. I don’t know which way is up, and I hate it. I fucking hate it.”
I swallow down the lump in my throat. “You’re my family, Rosie. You and Connor.”
“Families are built on honesty. Hard truths and scary vulnerabilities. You don’t hide who you are.”
“I don’t want to go back to before. To without you. I don’t want to forget what it feels like, being a family with you.” Something breaks inside me, if anything was still whole. It crawls up my throat, clawing its way out, shattering my next plea as a tear drips from my eye. “Please, Rosie. I can’t let you go. I won’t.”
Rosie steps forward, cupping my cheeks. Her thumbs brush beneath my eyes, coming away wet, stealing my heartbreak and making it hers too. She takes my hands in hers, slender fingers lacing through mine. They’re so small, so warm, so fucking perfect, and I’m terrified it’ll be the last time I hold them.
“I need a minute, Adam. I need some space to breathe, to wrap my head around this and figure out what it means for us, if we can get past it. Can you give me that? Some time? Some patience?”
I look down at our twined hands, the way they fit together. “I’d give you anything you want.” Even if it’s the last thing I want to do right now.
“All I’ve ever wanted is you, Adam. Even the parts you’re scared to share.” She takes my face in her hands, her touch tender and compassionate, just like the way she looks at me. “We have to get comfy with the uncomfy parts of ourselves before we can really know who we are and love that person, before we can let someone else know and love us. I want to know you, but I want you to know you more. Then you can share that person with me. Okay?”
Hope sparks in my chest, a frantic pounding that hurts the way hope can sometimes. “It’s not good-bye? Not forever?”
Her mouth quirks with a sad smile. “I don’t like good-byes.”
I bury my trembling fingers in her hair and bring her forehead to rest against mine. “Promise me. Promise me, Rosie.”
Her eyes flutter closed, lashes lying against her rosy skin as tears cascade down her cheeks. “I don’t think my forever exists without you somewhere inside it.”
In this moment, those words are enough. Enough to breathe life back into me, even if for only a short moment, while we stand here holding each other, her chest rising and falling in time with mine, so close, I can’t tell if that’s her heart or mine beating so fast.
It’s when she finally releases me and backs away that I realize it’s my heart. Because in this moment, it stops beating altogether, a silence so loud, so ear-splitting, I hear every tiny fissure that splinters all the parts of me Rosie and Connor made whole again.
Rosie backs into her apartment, and right before she disappears, she whispers the three words I’ll cling to until she comes back to me.
“I’ll see you.”