Page 52 of The Wildest One

“From everything you’ve told me, she was into you, Beck. Really fucking into you. And the kicker is that she’s graduating this year, isn’t she?”

I huffed out some air. “Yeah, in May.”

“Which means, in a handful of months, her life will be completely changing, and she won’t have school holding her back.”

“School didn’t hold her back during the summers when I asked her to come to Paris or Africa.”

Even after he rubbed it, his blond hair was too wet to spike the way it normally did when it was dry. “True, but going full-time with her dad, she’s got vacation, I’m sure, and a bit more flexibility since she’ll be giving him so many hours.”

Now I was questioning why I’d told him so much.

Jesus.

“What are you? A fucking closet relationship expert?”

“I’m piecing it all together and coming up with a conclusion.”

“Do you have one?”

He hung his head. “Unfortunately.”

“Which is?”

He squeezed my shoulder. “She’s dating someone.”

Those words shouldn’t hit.

There was absolutely no fucking reason for them to hit.

Two years had passed since I’d touched her, over six months since we’d texted.

At this point, she should have been a faded memory.

But she wasn’t.

That was the impact Jolie had made on me.

The same shoulder he was gripping, he now shook. “I wish you knew that answer instead of a bunch of unknowns. That’s why you should have texted her today.”

“No.”

“What do you mean, no? You want to see her—it’s obvious. It’s been eating at you since you stepped out onto the ice—that’s why tonight’s game got fucked. I don’t care what you say, she’s the reason we lost. And had you texted her, you wouldn’t be sitting here, guessing.”

“I’m not fucking guessing, Landon.”

But I was guessing.

He nodded toward my lap. “Text her now.”

“Now—”

“Get showered and get dressed,” our coach said as he walked into the locker room, cutting me off. He stood in the center of the team. “Our plane leaves in less than an hour.” His hands went to his hips. “If you’re wondering if we’re going to talk about the way Boston crucified us this evening, the answer to that is yes. We’ll be doing that on the plane, and we have a lot to discuss.”

I turned to Landon. “Why bother? We’re leaving in less than an hour. Even if she came, I wouldn’t be able to see her.”

He released my shoulder and gave me a smile. “For the second time in your fucking life, just listen to me. You’ve got to admit, I have a solid track record when it comes to this shit, considering the first time you listened to me was when I encouraged you to go talk to Jolie in that bar.”

I glanced down at my phone, my fingers moving on their own—pulling up Jolie’s name in my Contacts and hitting the button for Messages, our texts loading on the screen.