Mistletoe Face Off (Chicago Blizzard Hockey #1)

Chapter 15Harrison

Chapter Fifteen

Harrison

I watch Holly leave, an unpleasant feeling clawing at my belly. Usually when we argue like this, there's a sense of camaraderie between us, like we're in this together, putting on a show. Tonight felt different, and I can't quite put my finger on why.

Sure, our argument was over something completely minor and Christmas related, and I think we pulled it off well enough for the audience. But Holly lacked her usual spark, and considering the last time I saw her we went on that date and shared some incredible kissing, I would have expected to feel more… I don’t know, closeness with her? Yeah, that’s the word. Closeness.

Maybe something's happened? My belly twists at the thought that Macy could be hurt in some way or let down by her idiot of a father again. Or maybe Holly is just snowed under with work, and her mind elsewhere.

Whatever it is, I push it to the back of my head as I spend the rest of the event playing the role of Santa for the fans, talking to kids, and skating with families.

Finally, after I've discarded the Santa suit, I've worked myself up enough to need to know if there’s something going on, so I jump in my car and head over to Holly’s apartment.

It's not too late when I press the number of her apartment on the building intercom. It's only just after 9:00PM, so I hope she's still up.

“Hello?” comes her voice over the crackly line.

“It's me, Harry.”

There's a pause before she says, “It's kinda late.”

What does that mean? She doesn't want to see me? Or does she really go to bed at 9:00?

“I just wanna talk to you. You seemed… different tonight. Can I come up?” I hold my breath.

After a beat, the buzzer sounds and the door pops open, and I make my way quickly up to her floor. When I get there, she's waiting at the door, and my concern that something is wrong grows into full on worry.

“What's going on, Holly? Is everything okay?”

“You'd better come in,” she replies, her face pale as she stands back for me to walk through her door.

She leads me to the living room, where she fusses, offering me a drink and a snack.

I place my hands on her shoulders. “Holly. I don’t need anything. I just need you to tell me what’s going on.”

“Let's sit down,” she says, and I take her hand in mine as we sit side by side on her sofa.

“Whatever it is, let me help you,” I say straight off the bat.

She lets out a heavy breath, her pretty face creased in worry, and my heart clenches.

I reach for her hand. “Is it Macy? Is she okay? Or your mom? Or you? Please say you’re all okay.”

“We’re all fine,” she assures me. “I… I met with someone before the team charity event.”

My first thought is it's her ex-husband. She's seen him and he’s said or done something to upset her.

What she says next me shakes me to the bone.

“Harry, I’m just going to ask you straight. Were you involved in a figure skating doping scandal when you were a teenager?”

Instantly my chest constricts painfully, my ribs squeezing like a vise around my lungs, making it impossible to draw a full breath.

She knows ?

I swallow, playing for time. The way I see it, I've got a bunch of ways I could react. I could flat out deny the story. I could dismiss it as rumor. I could feign ignorance. But Holly’s a journalist. She can dig up whatever she wants. And besides, I want to be totally honest with this woman, just as I want her to be with me.

So in the end, I simply choose the truth. She deserves it.

“Yes,” I reply, watching her for her reaction. Her eyelids flutter like she’s been hit in the gut and she takes a sharp breath.

“So, it's true?”

“Can you explain to me why you want to know?” I ask, my head screaming at me She's a journalist! She’s a journalist! But this is Holly, the woman I've got feelings for. The woman who gets me. The woman who brings out a side of me I haven't seen in a long, long time. Surely, whatever she's doing, for whatever reason she's asking me about this, she's got my best interests at heart.

“My boss gave me a contact and I met with him tonight before the charity event. He told me that he knows Garth Gluckman.”

I tighten my jaw at the name. “What did he say about Garth?”

“That you were involved in a doping incident at a figure skating competition when you were a teenager, and that you got disqualified because of it. Harry, is it true?”

I bow my head. “Yeah.”

“Oh.”

I look back up at her to see the pain written across her face.

“Why did you do it?” she asks.

“Do you want me to tell you the whole story?”

She nods, and I force myself to dredge up a dark time of my life, a time I've worked so hard to forget.

“I was a pretty good figure skater back then. I started learning when I was young and I showed promise, as they say. Garth Gluckman became my coach when I started getting good at about twelve. He was demanding, but he got the best out of me. On the ice anyway. When we were at a regional competition where I was competing, he told me I needed to improve my skills to win. I thought he meant working harder, which I was prepared to do. It turns out he wanted that, but he also wanted me to take some performance enhancers to ensure I won.”

“So, it was your coach?” she asks, her eyes wide with astonishment.

“Garth’s not entirely to blame. At first, I agreed to taking them. I figured he was my coach, he knew best. If I wanted to progress from regionals to nationals, I needed that extra push.”

Holly pulls her hand from mine, recoiling from me. “You took the drugs?” she asks, aghast.

I shake my head. “I went home and told my mom about what he wanted me to do. She insisted on me having a blood test, which I did. Of course they found nothing, and Mom and I met with Garth. He seemed reasonable about it, telling me it was my choice not to take anything. But Mom was spooked, and she fired him as my coach.”

“I do not blame her.”

“Then the story came out that Garth had discovered I’d been taking performance enhancers without his knowledge, and that he couldn't work with me anymore because of it. He said I was using a designer drug that went undetected by testing practices at the time. That was the story he sold to the press, like he had these strong morals, and I had gone against what he believed in.” Bitterness rises in me, quick and sharp, leaving a sour taste in my mouth as I think of the man who tried to destroy me when I was just a teenager.

Holly holds her hand over her mouth. “Oh, my gosh, Harry. He lied about you!”

“Yup. He made out I was the one who had the idea, not him.”

“But you were only a kid!”

“Which made me a pretty easy target.”

“Harry, you've got to know that this is absolutely despicable. Why did your mom not go to the press herself to put the record straight? She could have gone to the police, too, you know. What your coach did is against the law.”

“I guess my mom knew the odds were stacked against us at the time. For whatever reason, he decided to flip the script on me. He was the great Garth Gluckman. She was just a single mom trying to do the best for her son. Sometimes it's easier to leave things behind and start afresh somewhere else. Not for a minute have I questioned how she handled it back then. She did what she did because she thought it was the best thing for us.”

“But she could have told the truth. She could have cleared your name.”

“She was a single mom in a world she knew very little about. She hadn’t been a figure skater herself. She had no connections, no way to stand up to this powerful, celebrated coach. She did what she could at the time, Holly. I don’t blame her for any of this.”

“Is that when you moved to Chicago and changed your last name?”

I nod, memories of what it was like to arrive in the city as a scared kid, knowing no one, and having to start at a new school. “My dad wasn't on the scene much. His parenting style since they divorced had become a lot like your ex-husband’s is with Macy. My mom was the one in my corner. When we moved to Chicago it was so she could be near her sister. It was my idea to take her name instead of my father’s. I figured I would leave both his name and figure skating behind.”

“That's when you turned up at school.”

“It was the fresh start I needed, and I will be forever grateful to my mom for bringing me here.”

“She sounds like a great mom.”

I smile as I think of the brave, loving, fiercely protective woman I get to call Mom. “She is. I'm lucky to have her.”

“That's why you're so loyal and kind and compassionate. You had that example in your life from your mom, from what she did for you.”

As hard as this conversation is, it feels good to finally get to talk about this thing that I've been carrying around with me all these years. The thing that haunts me. And talking with Holly about it is extra special.

“I went along to hockey trials and made the team. It felt great being able to use some of the skills I had learned in a new sport, a sport that I fell in love with from the very first game.”

She smiles. “I remember how great you were back then. Half the girls in Senior Year were in love with you.”

“Only half?” I reply in an attempt to lighten my mood.

She collects her phone from the coffee table. “I found this.” She passes it to me and I skim the words on the screen, my chest tightening.

“That's the original article from back then.”

“I can't believe it. I can't believe a coach would do that to a kid, because that's what you were. You were a kid, Harry.” There's outrage in her words, anger written across her features.

I switch off the screen. I don't need to look at what's written. I know the lies all too well. “It's all in the past. I've moved on. I went from being this scared kid whose years of hard work had come to nothing, to being a decent hockey player at a new school in a new city, way across the country from where it all went down. I haven't looked back, and I'm where I am now through sheer determination and hard work.”

She nudges closer to me and takes my hand in both of hers. “It is such a horrible story. Harry, I am so sorry that I doubted you for even one second. I knew in my heart that you are a good man, and I let doubt creep in. I’m thoroughly ashamed of myself.” She hangs her head.

“It's fine,” I say, even though it feels far from fine.

She lifts her gaze to mine, her eyes filled with tears. “It's not fine. You're the most incredible man I've ever known, and I allowed some guy in a seedy bar with his facts all wrong get in my head and make me doubt who you are.”

I lift her chin. “Hey. You're being too hard on yourself.”

A tear runs down her cheek, and she swipes it away with her fingertips. “I think I was looking for any excuse not to allow myself to fall for you.”

“Why do you think you were looking for an excuse?”

She takes a breath. “You know I've been burnt before, and I've spent the years since things fell apart with my ex making sure I don't let anyone get close.”

“But I got close,” I say softly.

She presses her lips together and nods.

I capture her gaze with mine. “I’m glad. And as for this doping scandal, what matters the most is that you told me about it.”

She pulls her lips into a watery smile. “You’re one in a million, you know that, Harry?”

I shrug, a small smile playing on my lips. “I've lived with this for years, and I'm doing okay.”

“Star defenseman for the Chicago Blizzard, probable captain next season. Yeah, I'd say you're doing okay.”

“Only probable captain?” I tease.

“Definite captain,” she replies, her eyes soft. “I'm going to tell my boss I'm not doing the article on you first thing tomorrow morning.”

“But your promotion to National News.”

She shakes her head. “Doesn't matter.”

My heart squeezes. “You’d do that for me?”

“Of course I would.”

It doesn't feel great that she doubted me, even for a second, but I understand where she's coming from. She's been hurt, her trust broken.

I want to be the man who can build that trust back up again.

“I know we've only been on one date, but I want you to know you mean so much to me,” she says.

“Weird, because I was going to say that exact same thing.”

She leans in and places a soft kiss against my cheek, and I breathe in her intoxicating scent, the touch of her lips against my skin sending a tingle down my spine.

“You know, as nice as it is to be kissed on the cheek by you, I think we can do a whole lot better than that,” I say, that clawing in my belly being replaced by an entirely more pleasurable feeling.

“Oh, really?” Her face is lit up by her beautiful smile, her eyes flaming in intensity, and I’m sure she's never looked this beautiful. “What did you have in mind?” she asks, toying with the collar of my shirt.

Unable to resist her for one second longer, I cup her face in my hands and reply softly, “This,” as I lean in and press my lips against hers. She melts at my touch, and emboldened, I slip my hands around her waist and lift her up and out of her seat, placing her on my lap so she's straddling me, her knees on either sides of my hips as she lets out a little squeal.

“That's much better,” I say and I pull her close. Her soft curves meld against my hard edges, a perfect fit.

I've never fallen this hard or this fast before, but as I hold her in my arms, I know with bone-deep certainty that I never want to let go. The thought of a future without Holly by my side seems impossible now.