Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 104081 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 520(@200wpm)___ 416(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104081 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 520(@200wpm)___ 416(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
“I never thought of that,” I admitted softly, mulling on all he’d said. I’d always assumed college athletes had a free pass, that they were the lucky ones who didn’t have to try as hard as the rest of us.
I felt a little guilt at that assumption now.
“Anyway, I was stressed, to put it lightly,” he continued, and I marveled at how his hands spread and shaped the clay, how gracefully his fingertips and palms worked in sync to wedge it.
I’d never stared so much at someone’s hands, and I found myself appreciating the makeup of his, the large knuckles and smooth, bronze skin that stretched over them.
“When I wasn’t in class or studying, I was at the rink, either practicing or playing in games. We partied, of course, but that was stressful sometimes, too, because one night of partying too hard could mean a shit game performance the next day.
I needed something for me,” he said after a pause. “Something that wasn’t goal-oriented, that didn’t have any pressure tied to it. One night when I couldn’t sleep, I was scrolling on my phone, and this time-lapse video of a vase being made came up. I must have watched it a dozen times.” He smiled as if he were back in the memory. “And then, I signed up for a class.”
“And you loved it so much, you made yourself a home studio?”
“Not until I got my signing bonus,” he said. “This shit’s expensive. But, yeah. I knew I’d need it now, in the NHL, even more than I did in college.”
He seemed to be satisfied with whatever he’d done to the clay to prep it, and he balled it up in his hands before rolling over to his wheel.
“When I’m in here, in this space,” he said, looking around at the shelves of clay, at the finished and half-finished and completely unfinished projects. “I’m… free. Free of expectations, free of the pressure I put on myself in every other aspect of my life. If I fuck up,” he said, wetting the wheel a bit before firing it to life. The clay spun centered and beautiful for just a moment before he pushed too hard on it and it warped, nearly flying off before he cut the power on the wheel. Then, he quickly reshaped the clay and put it back in place again, as if it’d never happened. “I just start over.”
My chest tightened as a smile found my lips. “That’s kind of beautiful.”
“That’s not what you said the first night we met,” he teased.
“Yeah, well, I thought I had you pegged.”
He arched a brow. “Is this you admitting that you were wrong?”
“I didn’t say that,” I said quickly. A flash of James struck me so hard I held my next breath for a moment.
He had been just as charming as Vince, just as surprising. He’d made me laugh, made me hot with desire, made me feel safe.
And then he’d broken my fucking heart.
“But…” I added, almost regretful in my admission. “You’re definitely testing my beliefs.”
“How so?”
He settled in at the wheel then, and I lost myself watching him mold the wet clay with his fingertips.
“I dated a guy like you once.”
That made him pause, and the clay warped before he cursed and started over again.
“Rich, I mean,” I clarified. “An athlete. Someone cocksure and popular with the whole world in his hands. And let’s just say he and his entire family showed me that I don’t belong in their world.”
Vince was quiet for a moment, focusing on the clay. I thought I saw the muscle in his jaw tense. “What did he do?”
I sighed. “Well, we were in love. Like… stupid in love. And he made me feel like it didn’t matter that my family was poor and always had been, or that his had more money than God. He lit up when I shared stories about my past with him. He loved introducing me to things I’d never experienced, like fine dining or spending a day on a boat bigger than every house I’ve ever lived in put together. And when he met my parents? He charmed them. He had that power, the ability to make any and everyone fall in love with him.”
For a long pause, I just watched Vince shape the clay, watched him work to get the perfect thickness on all sides.
“He gave me a promise ring.” My voice cracked a bit with that. “It was… stupidly expensive for a promise ring. And gorgeous. And it meant something to me. I was living inside the fairytale where Cinderella gets the prince.” I chuffed out a laugh. “Until I went to his brother’s wedding.
I was… completely out of place,” I said, the memory making my skin burn with a mixture of embarrassment and rage. “Wearing a dress I’d found on the rack at Goodwill while everyone else had on ballgowns and tuxes. From that season, of course, because wearing anything from a line released the year before would have been atrocious. I hadn’t graduated from college yet, didn’t have a job where I could afford even the modest clothes I have now. I was living on loans and scholarships.