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“Um, no,” I reply, trying to keep it short while looking away, attempting to ignore how flustered he makes me. “I said everything I needed to earlier.”

He lightly grabs my arm and moves us away from the group a bit. Leaning down to whisper in my ear, making me shiver, he says, “Brooke, please, I'll explain it all outside.”

He stands back up to his full height, and I instantly miss his closeness. His face is tight, and he looks more stressed than I've ever seen him. Whatever he needs us for seems serious.

“Okay,” I nod slowly, then walk toward the door, knowing he will follow.

Once outside into the chilly January air, I noticed his Jeep parked out front, making me think he had left earlier after I asked him to. Turning to him, I see him standing with his hands in his pockets, the rest of the team trailing behind him.

“Someone vandalised the rink,” he says loudly enough for everyone to hear. “It needs to be kept quiet for now, but we need to head over there immediately.”

“And why did you need to tell me that, Captain?” I shrug at him as the team begins to disperse to check out the rink and see the damage.

“Brooke.” He looks down at me sadly, and then it dawns on me.

“Oh my God,” I gasp. “The Drop.”

Chapter Forty Eight

Grant

We get to the rink, and the contents of the team's locker room are strewn across the ice; we walk toward the bench where Coach Bennett is standing, shaking his head at the destruction.

“What a mess," he grunts at us, and I watch Brooke go past us down the tunnel to the storage room where The Drop is kept.

"We will get it cleaned up." I clap Coach on the back. "The rest of the team is on its way now."

He nods his head at me before he walks over to Andrew, and they assess the damage to the rink.

I follow Brooke quickly. She's stopped in the doorway with her hand over her mouth in shock. I look over her shoulder. Whoever did this has torn down all the rails, ripped and thrown the clothes around, and put some of them in buckets of whatappears to be dye. I brush past Brooke to inspect it as Adam shows up in the doorway.

"Coach said they've done the same to our uniforms," he says grimly, but I'm too focused on Brooke right now to care about my uniform."It's ruined," Brooke whispers, tears welling in her eyes as she looks around the room.

Giving Adam a look, he nods to me as he steers the guys away from the room and toward the ice. "I know I'm the last person you want here right now, but I'm going to hug you, okay?" She nods shakily and accepts the hug, collapsing against me.

We haven't talked in two weeks.

For two weeks, I have endured the agony of missing her, unsure of how to reach out and fix what went wrong. As she sinks deeper into me, tears begin to flow. I gently lower her to sit on the floor and pull her fully into my lap, stroking her back to comfort her.

I realise now that I made a mistake by not listening to her and deciding to end things without properly discussing it first. The past two weeks have been miserable for me. Not even being on the ice or working out has helped ease the pain. I need to support her through this, and I’m determined to do whatever it takes to earn back her trust. "My launch date is in three days." She wipes her eyes on her sleeve, sniffling. "I'll never be able to make the stock up in time."

"We can figure it out," I soothe her as she shakes her head. I take out my phone and text the one person I know who can fix this.

Within seconds, Cami pokes her head around the door, and her eyes widen; I nod my head down to the still crying Brooke, and she nods back at me.

"Hey, B," she says lightly as she kneels next to us and rubs her back; I lean back a little.

"It's awful." She sniffles. "Look at it."

"It's bad." Cami nods, looking around. "But we can't do anything about it, sat on the floor."

"Nooo," Brooke cries and buries her head in my neck. I can't say I'm complaining after so much time away from her. "You're going to make me suck it up and deal with it."

"Yeah, I am."

Cami smiles at me, and I smile back, knowing it's already working as Brooke moves to look at Cami fully. "Come on, B, don't be a quitter."

"I'm not quitting, I'm wallowing."