FULL NOVELXO Secret Obsession: Chapter 7
TWO YEARS AGO
Iskate out onto the ice after Knox. The dance team has come down to watch us practice, and now that practice is over, it seems like an open invitation to take the girls out with us. My brother has a girl on each arm, and he’s helping them shuffle across the rink in their street shoes.
“Not into it?”
I glance at the opposing team’s benches. A girl stands there, her fingers drumming the boards. She’s got long blonde hair. Blue eyes that seem to stab right through me. She’s devastatingly cute in a dark-blue vest over a thick white sweater that conceals her curves, and light-washed jeans.
“Am I not into what?” I manage, gliding closer.
She waves her hand around at the giggling girls, the flirting hockey players. “This pomp and circumstance.”
I laugh. “If you think this is pomp and circumstance, you haven’t seen anything yet.”
She hums, then sits on top of the boards and swings her legs over. Like a player preparing to join the game, except she just stops. Her heels hit the wall, and she stares at me.
“Are you on the dance team?”
She nods once.
“Do you like it?”
Her smile is quick. “You ask a lot of questions, Whiteshaw.”
“How—”
“It’s on the back of your jersey.” She holds out her hand for me. “But maybe I know it because everyone knows who the goalies are.”
“I’m famous already?” I joke. I’m a freshman. Hardly deserving of any fame. Or infamy.
“Not as famous as you will be, I bet.”
I admire her confidence in me, even if it’s false. She doesn’t really know me, after all. No more than I know her.
I take her hands, but her feet slip out from under her as soon as she touches the ice. She drags me down with her, her yelp loud—but strangely, endearing. Still, my balance only goes so far, and I land on top of her. My chest pressed to her chest, my forearms keeping some of my weight off her, braced on either side of her head.
She stares up at me, and I freeze.
Like an idiot.
“Willow,” she finally whispers.
“What?”
“My name. Willow.”
“Jesus, Miles,” my brother barks, skating to a stop beside us.
He hauls me up, then reaches for Willow’s hand. He helps her to her feet. He gives me an admonishing look, then focuses on her again. Because girls always get his attention—and the two he had on his arms a moment ago are mysteriously gone.
He’s positioned her back to me. I climb to my feet slower, and I catch the shit-eating grin that flashes across his face. The challenge is just for me. My jaw sets. Game fucking on.
And then he’s focusing on Willow again—the girl I barely had a chance to talk to. He’s got her arm looped around his in no time at all, and he helps her move across the ice toward the doors at the far end of the rink.
She doesn’t look back.