Chapter 21

I paced around my house nervously. Jordan was going to be over in a little while. I wasn’t sure exactly what I was nervous about. I just knew that I was nervous. I’d never broken up with anyone before. Sure, I’d left Corey, but I hadn’t really broken up with him. I’d disappeared instead. There was a knock on the door and I opened it to see Jordan standing on the other side.

“Hey, Hun,” he said throwing his arms around me. I hugged him back.

“How was your trip?” I asked him after a kiss. I closed the door as he made his way into the house.

“It was fine. The usual. How has everything been here?” Hm, where to start.

“Kind of crazy,” I told him. Hey, I wasn’t lying.

“That’s what happens after filming a pretty major movie.”

There was a kind of awkward pause between us after that. I was struggling to think of how to breach the topic. Even as I did so I could tell that something was a little off with Jordan as well. Something was definitely up with him too.

“Can I ask you something?” he finally asked, breaking the silence.

“Sure, what’s up?” He cleared his throat before saying anything.

“How do you see things going between us?”

I jerked my head up in surprise. I hadn’t seen that question coming. I paused for a minute trying to figure out what he meant by asking that. Was he trying to elevate the relationship or did he want to break up too? I decided that honesty was definitely the best policy in this case.

“Truthfully, I kind of see us as being more friends than anything,” I told him. He let out a deep breath.

“You have no idea how happy I am to hear that.” I smiled at his response. In any other situation I probably would have been offended, but not this time.

“You feel the same way,” I said. It wasn’t a question. He nodded.

“Things have just been so hectic. You filmed a movie and weren’t around. Now I’m filming and won’t be around. I don’t know when it happened, but at some point we reverted into just being friends.”

“I completely agree.”

There were no hard feelings. I wasn’t in love with Jordan, and he wasn’t in love with me. I also didn’t hold any grudges or regret anything that happened between us. There had never been a major fight and we weren’t fighting now. Those were really signs that we were truly only meant to be friends.

“Well, I promised you a nice dinner when I got home. Still up for it?” Jordan asked. I smiled and laughed.

“Definitely.”

“I’ll pick you up at 7.”

He stood up and gave me a hug before heading to the door. He turned back one last time and smiled at me before leaving. When he was gone I felt like a huge weight had been lifted off of my shoulders. I don’t know what people were so nervous about. Breakups weren’t that hard.

I thought about calling Corey right away and telling him, but when I looked at the clock I realized that wouldn’t be a good idea. It was the middle of the afternoon and it was a game day for him. While I didn’t know for sure, I figured his game day routine was still relatively similar to what it had been in London. That meant he’d kill me if I called and woke him up from his nap right now.

Instead I called Brianna and told her the news. Even she sounded a little relieved to hear it. When I got off the phone with her I decided to go for a run. I’d skipped my normal workout that morning because of my nerves and now I felt guilty. I changed and grabbed my iPod before heading outside.

Almost an hour later I was back at the house showering and getting ready for dinner with Jordan. It was a little strange to be getting ready to go to dinner with him as just a friend. When he picked me up he greeted me with a kiss on the cheek. It wasn’t any different than when we’d been together.

We sat down to dinner and there was never a lull in the conversation. Before when we’d been dating there had always been pauses. Now it was just one flowing conversation. I couldn’t explain it and neither could he. We talked about his prep work for the film and about the interviews and photo shoots I’d been doing. I’m sure to anyone in the restaurant it looked like we were still together.

When he dropped me off he gave me another kiss on the cheek and said he’d call to catch up soon. Based on how dinner had gone, I believed him. I even hoped that he would. We’d always been close, and I didn’t want to lose that just because we weren’t together anymore.

I changed into pajamas and checked the score of the game. I smiled when I saw that the Ducks had won. I wondered if I should call Corey but then remembered Ileana was going to be home tomorrow. I decided to just leave him alone for the night. He’d call me later when he’d finished talking to her. I got into bed and fell asleep with a smile on my face.










Corey groaned when his alarm went off the next morning. He was dreading today. It hadn’t been easy talking to Ileana the last couple of days on the phone knowing that he was ending things with her when she came home. It especially wasn’t easy knowing she was probably going to throw something at him when he did.

He finally pulled himself out of bed and grabbed some breakfast before heading to the rink. He went through his usual routine before practice. He was a little distracted on the ice. He played it off to the guys like he was just tired from the night before. For whatever reason he just didn’t want anyone to know about what he was doing until it was done.

He passed on offers from some of the guys for lunch, choosing instead to just go home. He needed to think about what he was going to say to Ileana and how he was going to say it. They’d been together for about a year at this point. He felt he owed it to her to not be an asshole about the whole thing.

He turned his phone on and saw he had a voicemail. For a second he wondered if it was Amelia. Jordan was supposed to be back yesterday. He wondered if Amelia had talked to him yet and if so, how she’d gotten through it all. He was tempted to call her and check, but decided to just worry about himself right now. He clenched his teeth when he heard Ileana’s voice in his voicemail.

“Hey, sweetie. I just landed and I’m back in town. Can you come over as soon as you get out of practice? I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever. Love you!”

He cringed at the last couple of words. She always said that to him. He’d never said it back. Did that make him an asshole? He didn’t think so. It’d be worse if he lied to her and did say it, right? He’d gotten around it by saying “you too” or something along those lines. Okay, maybe he was a bit of an asshole. Nothing he could do about it now.

He took a deep breath before starting up his car. When he did he decided it was best to just head over to Ileana’s like she wanted. The longer he put it off, the more he was going to psyche himself out. He pulled up and got out of the car. He’d hardly knocked on the door when it was pulled open. She flew into his arms with a squeal and he felt bad all over again.

“Thanks for coming right away,” she said as she followed him into the living room. He just smiled and nodded. He wasn’t good at this whole pretending thing.

“How was your flight?” he asked, trying to be polite. It was also just him trying to gain the courage to get this over with. He realized he was kind of scared of her.

“Ugh, it was awful. Turbulence the whole time. I thought I was going to be sick,” she complained as she fell down next to him on the couch.

“I’m sorry,” was all he could manage to say. She just shrugged.

“How was practice?” she asked.

“It was practice.” God, he felt like someone had cranked the heat up to 150. Come on, Corey, just get it over with.

“I need to talk to you about something,” they said in unison. He looked at her in surprise. She gave him the same expression back.

“You go first,” he insisted. Hey, maybe she was going to break up with him. Wouldn’t that make things easier?

“Okay.” She took a deep breath. “My grandmother’s dying. I’m going to be in and out of town for the next little bit. They don’t know how much time she has left.”

He felt awful. He felt guilty. Was this really happening? He couldn’t break up with someone who had a family member dying. He realized she was looking at him strangely when he didn’t respond.

“I’m really sorry, Ileana,” he said. He couldn’t even form words right now. All he could think was that Amelia was going to kill him.

“The doctors said it could be weeks or it could be months. They’re just kind of taking the wait and see approach. Basically all they can do now is try to make her as comfortable as possible.” He nodded because he didn’t know what else to say.

“I’m so sorry,” he said again, lamely, a few minutes later. She curled up on him, laying her head on his shoulder.

“I know what you can do to make me feel better,” she whispered in his ear.

He squeezed his eyes shut. This was not happening, he told himself. Sure enough, when he opened his eyes she was giving him that look. He knew what that look meant. He should tell her no. He couldn’t do that to Amelia. It was bad enough that he’d decided he couldn’t end things with Ileana because of the situation with her grandmother. He couldn’t sleep with her too.

Of course, how was he supposed to stay with Ileana and not sleep with her? He seriously wished that he’d be struck by lightning, or that something, anything, would happen to him right now. Ileana grabbed his chin and forced him to turn towards her. She kissed him and he wished that Amelia would somehow find a way to understand as he kissed Ileana back.