out of pain and anger. That they could work it out, but that was the gullible side. The side that had wanted to believe falling in love with Mark would work out in the end. The other side, the rational side, knew that he wasn’t coming after her. Knew she’d lost more than ten thousand dollars. She’d lost something more important than money. She’d lost her dignity and her heart.
Tears stre“1emamed down her face as she drove the short distance to Bo’s apartment. Once there, she locked herself inside her room and let all her hurt and anger wash through her. By the time she heard Bo’s key open the front door, her chest hurt from crying and her eyes were scratchy and red.
“Chels?” her sister called out.
Chelsea didn’t want to see anyone, talk to anyone, but it was a small apartment and her sister would find her. “In here.”
Bo stood in the doorway, took one look at her, and asked, “What’s wrong? Did something happen?”
Chelsea didn’t know where to begin.
“Did Mark Bressler do something to you?”
Leave it to her twin to narrow it down without Chelsea having to say a word. She looked at her sister, and a tear slipped from Chelsea’s eye and dropped onto the pillow.
“What did he do?”
Nothing. Besides make her fall in love with him. She supposed she could make up a lie, but her sister would know, and Chelsea was too drained to think up anything believable. “I fell in love with him. I tried not to, but I did.” She shook her head. “He doesn’t love me. In fact, he doesn’t care about me at all.”
Bo sat on the bed. Chelsea expected criticism. Waited for a lecture on how her impulsiveness always got her in trouble. How she never learned. Instead her twin sister, the other half of her soul, the dark to her light, climbed into bed and spooned her. Let the warmth of her body heat up the cold places. Her life was in pieces. An absolute mess. There wasn’t a part of her that didn’t love Mark, and she didn’t know how she was going to get through the next few hours and days and weeks. She wanted the pain to go away. She just wanted to be numb.
But three days later, her emotions were still raw, and she couldn’t seem to stop her tears from falling. Her life was in turmoil, and the thought of living in the same state as Mark, and perhaps seeing his face in a crowd, was unbearable. Yet at the same time, the thought of leaving Washington, and perhaps never seeing his face in a crowd, was just as unbearable.
She went through the motions of living. Of checking out help wanted ads. Mostly she ate junk food and watched junk TV.
“Georgeanne Kowalsky has a catering business,” Jules told her over dinner Thursday night at a sports pub on Twelfth Street. Jules seemed to favor sports pubs, which was okay with Chelsea as long as he didn’t start spouting stats. “At least she did a few years ago,” he added. “I could call her and ask if she needs help.”
“How much does it pay?” she asked as she dipped a fry into ketchup. She knew her sister and Jules had taken her to dinner to try and cheer her up. It really wasn’t working, but at least the sports programming on the numerous flat-screen televisions filled any awkward silence.
“I’m not sure,” he answered, and reached for his fork. “Probably more than you’re making right now.”
Which, of course, was zilch. She needed the money. She had enough for first and last month’s rent, plus security deposit, on a studio apartment, but she needed more. Especially if she d“ciaecided to move to Los Angeles.
“Maybe wear your Gaultier tunic for the interview,” Jules suggested. “And brush your hair.”
“I think you’d be great at it,” Bo encouraged. She took a crouton off Jules’s salad and popped it into her mouth. The two were already at the sharing food stage. She and Mark had never shared food. Licking champagne from each other’s bodies didn’t count.
“Maybe I can do some catering.” As long as it had nothing to do with catering to celebrities and athletes. And as long as she didn’t know what she was going to do with her life.
For the first time that she could ever recall, she didn’t have a plan. Not even a vague one. She didn’t feel a burning desire for anything. The feeling of numbness she’d craved had settled about her and she didn’t have the energy to feel much of anything at all.
A commercial for athlete’s foot splashed across several of the flat-screen televisions, and she dunked another fry. She wasn’t going to get her breasts reduced. Something she’d always wanted, but she just really didn’t care now. Her agent called with walk-on parts in local productions, but she turned them down. She just felt… drained. Like her life had gone from a thousand vibrant colors to two shades of gray. Blah and blah-er.
Across the table from her, Bo and Jules laughed at something that was clearly an inside joke between the two of them. He whispered something in her ear, and Bo ducked her face and smiled. Chelsea was glad for Bo. Glad that her twin seemed so happy and in love, but a part of her wished that could be Chelsea too. She reached for her fork, feeling an odd mix of emptiness and envy.
Over Jules’s shoulder, a local news conference splashed across the screen. Chelsea glanced up as the television filled with the images of the Chinooks’ general manager Darby Hogue, coach Larry Nystrom, and Mark Bressler. Everything around her seemed to still, fall away as she stared up at the screen. The sound was off but the closed caption was on. Chelsea read the announcement that Mark had just signed on as the assistant coach to the Seattle Chinooks. He sat at a conference table wearing the charcoal suit and black dress shirt he’d picked out at Hugo Boss the day he’d threatened to have sex with her against the wall. The ends of his dark hair curled up around the bottom of a Chinooks’ ball cap resting on his head. His brown eyes looked out from beneath the dark blue bill, and her empty soul drank him in like cool water. His face was a bit tanner than it had been a few days ago. Probably from coaching Derek without his hat.
Bressler: “I’m honored to be given this opportunity. I’ve worked with a lot of these people for eight years, and I look forward to standing behind the bench as we make another run at the cup this season,” the caption read as he looked out at Chelsea from a dozen or so big-screen televisions.
Her heart squeezed and she set down the fork. Love and loss tore at her, and it felt like he was ripping her heart out all over again.
“What’s wrong?” Bo asked, then turned and looked behind her. “Oh.”
“He took the job,” she said just above a whisper.
“Yeah. This morning.”
On the screen, he reached forward and adjusted a microphone sitting on the table in front of him. His stiff middle finger pointed up as if he was flipping off the world. That same big, injured hand that had slid up her thigh and heated her up all over.
He’d accused her of having sex with him for the bonus money. He’d thrown her feelings for him back in her face like she was nothing, yet still her heart reacted to the sight of him. Still her body craved the touch of his hands.
“Are you okay?” Bo asked.
“Sure.”
The one person who knew her as well as she knew herself wasn’t fooled. Bo rose from her seat and moved beside Chelsea. “It will get better.”
Tears blurred her vision, and she tore her gaze from Mark’s image and looked into her sister’s face. “He ripped my heart out, Bo. How will it ever get better?”
“You can get through this.”
“How?”
She shook her head. “You just will. I promise.”
Chelsea wasn’t so sure, but Bo was trying so hard to convince her, Chelsea nodded. “Okay.”
“What can I do?” Jules asked from across the table.
“You can go kick Mark Bressler’s ass,” Bo answered.
Chelsea glanced at Jules’s face through her tears and almost laughed. He looked like a deer caught in the cross-hairs. “She’s kidding.” She didn’t want Mark hurt. Not even now. Not even after he’d hurt her so badly she could hardly breathe past the pain.
He’d taken the coaching job, and if she stayed in Seattle, she’d have to see him on the news. Standing behind the bench yelling at people. How was she ever going to get over her feeling for him if there was a chance she would see him staring down at her from dozens of televisions?
Chelsea brushed her cheeks. She needed to get out of Seattle. It was the only way to get over Mark. “Could you
