Breathless #5 (The Breathless Romance Series - Book #5) (5 page)

We climbed into the car, and I thought to myself that
I was putting more miles on my engine and my tires in one day than I had put in
the whole past month. But it was in a good cause; I needed to get Johnny to the
game. He had to get out there and win and show everyone that he was back. I
took a deep breath and Johnny leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. “Don’t
worry, babe,” Johnny said, reaching down and resting his hand on my knee for a
moment. “Everything will work out.” I shook my head, laughing as I turned on
the ignition and pulled away from the curb. It was a long way back to campus
for the championships. I couldn’t quite imagine us making it in time, but I
knew I had to try.

Chapter
Six

Once more I was on the road, making the interminable
trip back from Johnny’s hometown. The interstate was a little busier than it
had been before, and I mostly just focused on the road around me. It wouldn’t
do Johnny or me any good to get into an accident when he had a game to get to.
“Were you seriously going to throw it all away?” I asked Johnny.

“I thought it was what I had to do,” Johnny said,
shrugging slightly. “I mean, it’s not like I wanted to stop playing, to lose my
future…but I didn’t think anything else would make it stop. And Claire’s
parents don’t deserve the hounding, neither does my mom.”

“She didn’t quite believe that I was your girlfriend,”
I told Johnny playfully. “In fact, I seem to recall that she said you hadn’t
mentioned a girlfriend at all.” I gave Johnny an arch look and he grinned
sheepishly.

“I don’t tell her a lot of things!” he protested. “I
didn’t even tell her we were going to the championships.” I rolled my eyes.

“If only I’d kept my mouth shut. None of this would
have happened.” I thought about my parents and their stupid misguided notion
that just because Johnny and I were starting to get serious — and I had to
admit it was a bit fast for that — that they needed to hire some private
investigator to figure out what was in Johnny’s past. My parents had nearly
ruined a man’s life, all because they couldn’t trust their own daughter to make
good decisions and because they distrusted anyone who wasn’t wealthy.

As we sped down the highway, going as fast as we
safely could, Johnny called his coach to tell him he was coming. “I can play,
right?” I heard Johnny ask. I wondered what he would have done if the coach had
told him that he couldn’t. Apparently, the coach was just as eager to have
Johnny play the championship game as Johnny was. Now I just had to make sure
that I was able to get him back into town; we didn’t have very much time at
all.

Johnny and I talked a lot during that drive – not
about Claire, but about us. About our future together and what it might look
like. I had far more time left in college than Johnny did — we talked about how
it would be when he graduated, what we wanted to do together, how we wanted
everything to be. I knew that it was a complicated road ahead and so did
Johnny; just because we had managed to get past the worst thing in his past, it
didn’t meant that everything was going to be perfectly smooth sailing. But I
thought to myself that if we could manage to weather what we just had, I would
put good money on us managing to stay together through just about anything.

At one point, Johnny kissed my hand, and I smiled at
him. “What’s on your mind, babe?” I asked. Johnny looked at me — I barely
managed to pay attention to the road.

“I’m sorry I pushed you away. I’m sorry I put you
through all this,” he said. “I should have probably told you right up front
when you first asked, but…” I shook my head.

“It’s easy to see that you loved Claire a lot,” I
said. “I knew what kind of guy you were deep down.” I bit my lip. “I might have,
on a few occasions, been a paranoid freak.” Johnny laughed. “But I knew no
matter how stupid my brain was being to try and convince me that people
wouldn’t be talking about it if there was nothing to it… I knew you were kind,
and gentle, and sweet. At least, off the ice.” Johnny laughed again and gave my
hand a squeeze once more.

It was amazing that we could drive and drive and drive
and somehow still seem to be so far away from the campus. We joked about
Johnny’s tactic of going as far away from home as he could without leaving the
state, and I told him that I was selfishly glad that he hadn’t left the state,
since it would make it much harder for me to chase after him. “Not to mention
that if I went out of state, and you didn’t, it’s not like we’d have ever met.”
I had to agree that that was right.

I had a lot to think about as Johnny and I made our
way up the highway. I had to wonder if the news had already covered the
extraordinary press conference that Johnny and Mr. and Mrs. White had given; I
wondered if everyone at the school was aware of the facts now. I could only
hope that it would have already become old news by the time we got there. Of
course, I couldn’t hope with any real confidence. I had no idea how many
journalists there were in the Whites’ lawn, but I thought that even if CNN had
been there, the campus would take a long time to stop talking about it. Johnny
and I would just have to deal with that. We both knew the facts, and we both
knew the reality of the situation. I thought I could bear the lingering
interest in Johnny with a little better fortitude than I had without him. I
hoped so, at least. “You could let me drive,” Johnny pointed out when I
complained about how far we still were from campus. It was less that I had an
issue with the distance and more that I was concerned that Johnny would miss
suiting up for the game and it would be all my fault.

“My dad is already going to kill me for going on TV
without a lawyer present or his say-so,” I said. “Forget the fact that I didn’t
even say anything, he’s going to be pissed I was even there.” I grinned. “If I
told him I’d let you drive the car on top of that? He’d cancel my card for
sure.”

Chapter
Seven

After what seemed like an eternity, Johnny and I
finally arrived at the stadium, and I pulled right up to the front entrance to
let him out. I was exhausted, but I knew that there was absolutely no way that
I could avoid seeing this game — I had to support Johnny. “You should have some
seats at the front reserved at the box office,” Johnny said to me as we
approached the huge building.

“You didn’t even know if you were going to be
playing,” I pointed out. “You didn’t make any calls other than to your coach
and your mom.”

“I put you on the list for all of the home games, with
a guest. I figured Gigi is cultivating her interest in the game, too,” Johnny said.
I rolled my eyes and told him to hurry up and go in. Johnny reached out and
gave me a quick, passionate kiss, unbuckling his seat belt with one of his
hands. “I love you, Becky,” he said, and I found myself smiling like an idiot.

“I love you, too,” I said, blushing more than a
little. I watched Johnny immediately close the door and head into the stadium,
raising his hand to the security guard as he dashed through the door. I
chuckled to myself, thinking that anyone who could go from being that upset to
running like a kid into the stadium to get ready for the game was more
resilient than I was.

I wandered around the stadium parking lot at a crawl,
trying to find somewhere to park. I knew that Johnny and I had cut it close. He
was only barely going to have enough time to get his gear and jersey on before
the team had to go out onto the ice. I shook my head, thinking about the fact
that Johnny had always seemed to be able to get away with anything — showing up
to classes late, skipping classes, cutting out early to meet me to walk me back
to the dorms. I was actually looking forward to the game for the first time
since I had met Johnny; I had just accepted that hockey was going to be part of
my life for as long as I dated Johnny, but I was starting to appreciate that it
was a major part of his life. I wanted to understand it better. I wanted to
understand him better every day.

I finally found a parking spot way in the back of the
lot and sighed. There wasn’t anything closer. There was no way I’d be able to get
away with walking less than a mile to get into the building. I was so tired
from all the driving I had already done that it didn’t even seem fair. But I
reminded myself that it was the college championship; the game would be
extremely popular. People who hadn’t come out for games before in the regular
season would come for a championship game. I got out of my car and hoped that I
at least would have a chance to get something to eat; I realized that the only
real meal I had had so far that day had been breakfast.
Gor
lunch I had only grabbed a quick bag of chips from the gas station I was
filling my tank at. I walked stiffly, wondering how Johnny had been able to
spring out of my car so fast and started up the long walk to the entrance once
more.

I was relieved when I saw that Georgia was waiting for
me; I had texted her updates just as she had asked me when I’d embarked on this
harebrained scheme to find Johnny, and I had told her we were coming to the
Championship. I had already been so exhausted, but I knew that I couldn’t
possibly let Johnny down, not after everything he had been through. Georgia was
leaning against a stanchion, and as I approached, she waved, grinning at me.
“So, you look happy,” she said, putting her arm around my shoulders.

“I have driven I think a hundred miles today. I am not
happy. I am exhausted. But it should at least be a good game,” I said,
staggering alongside Georgia.

“It’s always a good game when Johnny plays,” Georgia
said. I rolled my eyes.

“Don’t you go chasing after him,
too.
”
Gigi shook her head.

“Nope. He’s all yours. I don’t know if I could have
dealt with all that crap as well as you did.” We went to the box office and I
gave them my name; true to Johnny’s word, they had seats reserved for me — right
behind the glass, where Johnny loved to see me watching him play. Georgia and I
stopped at the concession stand, which I knew was mostly a rip-off, but I was
starving and tired. I got coffee and a couple of hot dogs and fries, and
decided that that would keep me afloat while I watched the game.

Georgia and I got to the stands and started talking
about the whole crazy trip. “I caught part of that press conference!” she said.
We were careful to keep our voices low, since there were so many people in the
stands behind us.

“It was intense,” I said, shaking my head.

“It’s obvious Johnny really loves you,” Gigi told me,
nodding solemnly.

“I know he does, but what brought you to that
conclusion?” Georgia grinned.

“I could see him looking at you every few minutes,
like he needed to see you to keep going. He’s totally gone on you. You’re so
lucky. You met the love of your life the first day you moved in.”

“Hold up, hold up,” I said, laughing and shaking my
head. “We don’t know that he’s the love of my life. We’ve only been dating for
a couple of weeks!”

“Oh, please. You’ve been through hell together and you
didn’t run away.” Georgia poked me in the ribs, nearly upsetting my large
coffee. “If you can do that after only dating a few weeks, you’re going to be
together forever.” I rolled my eyes.

“Don’t jinx it, okay? We’ll just take things how they
come and see how it all plays out.” I thought about everything that had gone on
between Johnny and me; I had been so scared so many times since we had first
met. I had not known what to think about Johnny — whether he was a good guy or
some kind of sociopath, whether he was a player or someone I could trust. I had
gone from being convinced he would never truly be interested in me to having a
fight with my parents over him and standing at his side at what had to have
been one of the most difficult moments in his life.

I had told Johnny about the fights I’d had separately
with my mom and dad about what they had done. He had laughed at the fact that
I’d cursed both of them out, telling them that I would never forgive them. I
told Georgia as we sat waiting for the game to get started; she had known I was
upset, and she had known that I had expressed my upset at both of my parents,
but she hadn’t known the details. It felt good that it was all behind me,
though I knew that it was likely that my parents didn’t look at it that way.
They probably thought that I had been absolutely terrible and that I should
apologize to them over and over again for how I’d “overreacted.” But they had
very nearly ruined Johnny’s life. I didn’t feel any regrets over what I had
said to them.

I was so tired, even as I slurped down coffee, that I
wanted nothing more than for the game to be over. I was gradually starting to
appreciate hockey, but I didn’t think I would ever fully love it for the sake
of the game. I would enjoy it because it was something that Johnny loved. I
just wanted Johnny to get out there and score points, and I wanted the game to
come to an end with us winning, and I wanted to go back to the frat house with
Johnny — or maybe sneak him up to my room in the dorms — and make up for all
the lost opportunities of the past several days. I fidgeted in my seat; as
tired as I was, the prospect of sleeping with Johnny was definitely a powerful
one.

I looked around and saw that there seemed to be an
awful lot of journalists covering the championship. I knew that championship
games tended to merit more attention than regular in-season games, but this
seemed like a lot of reporters for any kind of college game except for at best,
one of the major college football rivalries. I knew that Johnny’s press
conference, the whole situation with Claire White and the resolution that that
had come to, had a lot to do with it. I could only hope that the reporters
minded their manners.