they both shrug.
“What if she doesn’t?” Manning says and walks ahead of me to get onto the plane, leaving me in the middle of the steps with people walking around me.
“What if she doesn’t?” I repeat to myself and make a plan to go and give it one last shot.
Chapter 21
Layla
I open the shades leading out to the backyard. The bright sun shines in right away, making me close one eye. “Too bright to start the day,” I grumble, walking to start my coffee while I turn on the television, and the sound of SportsCenter plays. I turn my attention to the television when they bring up the game yesterday against Edmonton.
“Someone has lit a fire under Adams’s skates because he is having the week of his life,” one of the broadcasters says of Miller, and I have to agree. He is on fire. He scored a goal in every game along with an assist. He was named player of the game for the past two games.
“I guess he’s handling the breakup better than you,” I say to myself and then shake my head. “Breakup? You need to date someone in order to break up with them.”
I watch another play that happened last night, and I couldn’t agree with them more. “He is on fucking fire.” The play shows his skating into the zone, leaving the puck so fast no one sees that it’s not on his blade anymore when Ralph picks it up and shoots it five hole. “Cocky Adams, very, very cocky.”
I hear a knock on the door and lower the volume of the television, waiting to see if perhaps I was mistaken, but the knock comes again. I look at the clock on the wall and see that it’s just a little past nine thirty in the morning. “Who on earth,” I say, walking to the door and unlocking it.
My heart speeds up when I see it’s him. It’s not like I haven’t seen him in the past week. I’ve seen him when I was watching the game. I might have even taped the games and then rewound when I knew he was going to be on. But now he’s standing there in front of me wearing jeans and a T-shirt with a leather jacket. His aviator glasses hide his eyes. I made myself bury the hurt that I felt all week. I forced myself to literally wash him out of my hair, but now here he is, and I’ll be damned if I admit that I’m happy to see him. I don’t even know why I feel like this since the last time I saw him, I was telling him how I didn’t like half of him.
“Good morning,” he says, his smirk coming out. “I brought you coffee,” he says, holding up two cups of coffee. I didn’t even see them in his hands because I was trying to get my heart to beat properly and my breathing to slow from panting.
“Um,” I say, trying to sound smooth, but my mouth is so dry I can’t even swallow.
“You look nice,” he says with a smile, and all I can do is stand here holding the door handle. “Can I come in?” He smirks now again. I move aside so he can walk in, not sure I can talk without stuttering. “It’s good to see you, gorgeous,” he says, stopping beside me and leaning down to kiss the corner of my mouth.
I close the door, turning to see him walking into the house. “What are you doing here?” I ask him when I finally get my words to come back to me. “I mean, why are you here?”
“I’m here to bring you coffee,” he tells me. “And because I missed you.”
“Miller.” I say his name.
“Did you miss me?” he asks, and I just look at him. “Honestly.”
I fold my arms over my chest. “I mean, I saw you at least four nights.”
He laughs now. “I heard your voice every day.” My stomach gets a little flutter. “Listen, about what you said,” he says as he puts the coffees down on the counter. “You were right.”
My mouth hangs open, and my heart that never really got to a normal heartbeat since I opened the door speeds up even more. My palms feel sweaty, so I rub them together. “What was I right about?”
“You were right about the way I acted in front of you,” he says, and I cross my arms over my chest to keep them from