Dirty Score, A Rough Riders Hockey Novel(79)

Mia was gone.



Mia scrolled through images of filming shots from Cynthia on her phone, enlarging a few to study the construction detail. She was exhausted from too little sleep and too much crying, and the sun and wind on the beach weren’t helping her burning eyes. But she was desperate for anything to keep her mind busy, and she’d done as much moving in as she could handle.

She wasn’t going back to the apartment until Cynthia called her and told her UPS had picked up everything she and Rafe had bought on their one-day shopping trip together.

Tapping one image closed, Mia shaded her eyes, scrolled through the costumes, and opened another. Before she could magnify it, a text pinged her phone from Faith, Grant’s girlfriend: I have at least a dozen people who want jerseys like mine. So do all the other girls. And I had brunch with Ted at the Crofts’ this morning. When he heard you’d approached Silver with your designs and not him, honest to God, you’d think someone just told him the Riders lost the playoffs.

Mia laughed, but it hurt. God, she was going to miss everyone. Sure, they were still close now, but she knew how time came between people. Distanced people. And knowing she would eventually lose this hurt.

She dug her toes into the warm sand, tossed her blowing hair over her shoulder, but when she went to respond, she didn’t know what to say. So she ended up sending Faith a sad emoji.

Miss you. When will you be back? Faith asked.

“Ah crap.” Mia dropped an elbow to her knee and her forehead to her hand. She hadn’t thought about that when she’d made the decision to stay.

She hadn’t said good-bye to anyone in DC. And once she started working here… By the sounds of it, Mia wouldn’t get a break until they had to legally give her a break, which would be two weeks’ vacation every year and a few holidays.

Shit.

She might need to push back her start date a day or two. Sneak in a quick flight back east just to see the girls and say good-bye. Sure, Rafe and Tate would hear about it, but Mia would be gone by then. She just wanted to see a few people personally before she didn’t see them again for, hell, probably a year. Tina, Eden, Faith, Sarah, Amy, Rachel, Lily…

Amy, Rachel, Lily.

Her heart broke a little more. They’d be so different in a year. Mia wouldn’t know their sizes or their color preferences like she did now. How could she make outfits for little girls whose tastes changed on a whim when she saw them only once a year?

Would they even remember Mia in a year?

Then she thought of another year without seeing Rafe. Thought back over how miserable she’d been this last year…

A fresh wave of loss tumbled through her and the tears she’d been fighting for hours rose up in her throat. She let her gaze drift to the ocean.

“Suck it up,” she murmured to herself. Everyone moves on. If one of the players got traded, they’d be leaving just like she was leaving. No one was going to watch out for Mia but Mia. That was abundantly clear. It was her own damn fault it had taken her so long to see it.

Mia filled her lungs with the fresh sea air and forced a perspective change. The water was so blue. The waves so serene. The sun so warm. The air so mild.

She could be happy here.

She would be happy here.

She was losing friends and family back east, but she would gain new friends here. Find new opportunities. And, maybe, someday, even create a family of her own.

Until then, work would help fill this hole inside her.

Eventually.

So why were those damn tears choking her again?

“Hey.”

The voice so close behind her when she thought she was alone startled Mia. In the split second between registering the voice and turning, she knew who she would face before her eyes met his. But knowing and seeing were two different things, and Mia’s heart still banged hard against her rib cage. Then it raced and fluttered and squeezed. All her thoughts came to a dead stop, and confusion reeled her brain in a whole different direction. She looked behind him toward the road as if that would explain what he was doing here.

“You are one difficult woman to find,” he said, lowering to the sand beside her in slow, pain-filled movements. “Do you realize how big this beach is?” Once he settled, he dropped the running shoes he was carrying. “Or how small you are? Even when Cynthia gave me an idea of where you were going, it was still like that whole needle-in-a-haystack thing.”

She angled toward him, wincing at the way his injuries looked as the healing process began. That was never a pretty sight. “You went to my apartment?” She shook her head. “What in the hell are you doing here? You should be landing in DC right now.”

“But you’re not in DC.”