Losing an Edge (Portland Storm Book 13) (17 page)

Cam scowled and dug out his phone, glaring at me. Apparently someone was calling, not texting. He swiped his thumb across the screen and answered it. “What?” he demanded. I couldn’t hear the person on the other end well enough to make out what they were saying, let alone determine who it was. A couple of moments passed with Cam listening. “What the hell did you do?” He glanced over at me and shook his head, his expression not giving a darned thing away to me. “I’m at the hospital with Nicky and Jessica. The kids are here. I can’t go off and leave them in the waiting room.” Then silence again. “Because they’re fucking kids, Harry. Try 501 or one of the other guys at Koz’s party.” A couple more beats passed by, and Cam got up to pace. “Well, what do you want me to do? I can’t make those guys sober up in the next five minutes. I can’t wake Babs or someone else up if you can’t.”

I found myself leaning forward in my seat to hear him as he walked, trying to figure out what sort of trouble Harry had gotten himself into.

“Call Bergy or Webs. That’s what you should do.” He walked back in my direction, not paying any attention at all to me. “Because if you’re in jail, you’ve got to have someone bail you out. And they’re going to find out eventually. Might as well let them know what the hell’s going on now so you don’t surprise them with it. Maybe they can start figuring out how to deal with the media…” His voice trailed off as he stalked down the hall.

Jail? Admittedly, the only things I knew about Harry were that he was one of Cam’s teammates and his hair was as red as could be, but I never would have pegged him as one who’d do anything to land himself in jail. What on earth was going on?

I didn’t have long to wonder because as soon as my brother disappeared down the hall, Levi came walking in, filling the space Cam had vacated only moments ago. He was staring down at his phone, not paying attention to where he was going until he practically tripped over my feet, crossed at the ankles.

“Sorry, wasn’t paying attention to where I was going,” he said, slurring the words slightly and glancing up from his phone. Then his eyes met mine. He reeked of beer, but he smiled at me, sweet and cocky all at once. That combination only lasted a few moments, soon dissipating into a pained grimace. “Cadence,” he breathed. “Why are you at the hospital? Are you okay?” He felt my forehead with the back of the hand holding his phone, as if checking me for fever, of all the ridiculous things he could have done.

“I’m fine. Better than you are,” I teased.

He raised a brow, like he doubted me, but that slight change in his position was all it took to make him sway where he stood. He had to be as drunk as I’d ever seen a person.

I reached up a hand to grab hold of his arm and steady him. “Maybe you should sit down.”

“Maybe I should.” So he did. Not very gracefully. He plopped down into the seat next to me so hard it nearly skittered backward across the floor. If it had been against a wall, he might have caused some damage from the force. “I’m a bit drunk.”

“More than a bit, I’d say. Please tell me you didn’t drive here.” I had the awful sense that my note was behind it, too.

He shook his head. “Ghost has all the guys’ keys. Took a cab.”

That was a relief. “So why are you here?” Never mind the fact that he’d asked me the same thing and I hadn’t answered. As drunk as he was, I doubted he could remember his own name for long, let alone anything more pressing.

“Because there aren’t enough beers or strippers in the world to wipe your face from my mind.”

Ouch. So I was the reason for it. Not a good feeling, even if I nearly cracked up at the way he’d said it. I bit down on my lower lip, trying hard not to burst a gut while laughing at the ridiculous honesty of that statement. Still, the pain behind it was evident, not only in how insanely wasted Levi was but in the lines around his mouth and eyes. That sobered me up quickly enough, even if it didn’t come close to helping him sober up.

“Thought I’d keep Nicky company,” he slurred. “Koz wanted to keep throwing strippers my way, having them give me lap dances and shit, so I’d stop being so depressed about you. But I don’t want them. I want you. I want you way too fucking much, but you don’t want me.”

I blinked a few times, not sure if I was trying to fight off tears or if I was simply stunned by what I was about to do. “I do want you,” I said before I spent too much time analyzing it. “That’s the problem.”

His head whipped around to stare at me with bloodshot eyes. “Why’s it a problem?”

“Because I’m scared.” There wasn’t any point hiding the truth. Levi was so drunk, there was no chance he’d remember a single word I said. I could tell him everything without fear that any of it would sink in.

Heck, maybe I should. It’d be nice to tell
someone
in my life everything, or at least someone other than my counselor. I’d filled Sara in on some of it. Cam only knew the bare bones. Mom and my sisters were aware of even less than Cam. The thought of relieving myself of the burden, of ridding myself of the enormous lump that had settled in the center of my chest and refused to budge, was so tempting I doubted I could resist.

“You scared of me?”

I shook my head. “Not you.” If anything, I was scared
for
him. And for me. There hadn’t been too many times in my life that I’d even admitted to myself how much fear I lived with on a daily basis, but Guy showing up at my practice today had sent it all rushing straight back to my heart. Stopping my pulse. Stealing everything good from me in an instant.

There wasn’t any good way to describe it other than fear. And it was debilitating.

“It’s that asshole, Guy, isn’t it?” Levi pressed. “He’s still in your head.”

“In my head?” I shrugged. “It’s not as simple as that.” Nothing was simple.

“Why not?”

I hesitated. Glanced across the waiting room to find that the boys were still fast asleep and Elin might as well be. She wasn’t paying any attention to us. Cam still hadn’t returned from dealing with whatever trouble Harry had gotten himself into. All of that meant there was no point in lying, no reason to tell him anything less than the truth. I bit down on my lower lip again and then I went for it.

“He showed up at practice today.”

“What the fuck is he doing here?” Levi tried to stand up, but his foot slipped and he fell down again almost immediately.

I put my hand on his, hoping it would keep him where he was. We might be in a hospital, but that was no reason for him to go and hurt himself by doing something stupid. “Trying to get me back,” I said. “Telling me how he can’t live without me. Threatening me. And threatening you, too.”

“What about me?”

“Guy knows about you. He didn’t come right out and say he’d hurt you if I didn’t stay away from you, but he might as well have.”

“So that’s what your note was about? Trying to warn me off? So, what, so you can fucking protect me?” Levi was practically roaring now, with no signs of recognizing he was in a public place and should keep it down. “That’s fucking backwards, Cadence. Screwed up. I’m not the one who needs to be protected from this son of a bitch. I saw how he fucking made you cry back in the Winter Games. Maybe no one else did, but I did. I saw it. Fucking bastard.”

Throughout his entire tirade, I kept trying to calm him down so he wouldn’t wake the kids or cause a scene. There weren’t any others in the waiting room at this hour, but there was no telling when someone else might come in. His eyes were flashing, so full of hurt and anger and booze that I could barely find the sweet, self-effacing, funny guy I’d come to care about underneath it all.

“Levi, please,” I said, taking his hand in both of mine and drawing it to my lap.

“Has he threatened you before?”

I shook my head. “Not really. Or maybe. I don’t know. Everything’s a mess in my head.”

“What
everything
? Tell me.”

My shoulders started to go up in a shrug, almost involuntarily, but I stopped myself. “It started years ago. Not long after we first became a team. Things were going great. Our coaches and choreographers loved us and had high hopes for us. I thought I’d hit the jackpot because we seemed like such a perfect match. But before long, it started. He’d catch a rut with his skate in practice, and because of the way we’d be skating side by side, I would stumble or maybe fall. In the early days, he would glower at me and grumble about keeping my footing, and I’d apologize and promise to do better. There was never any point arguing that it hadn’t been my fault, that he was the one who’d caused the mishap. He wouldn’t hear a word of it.

“Before long, I started to believe it myself—because the rest of the time, he was as charming as ever. He was great in front of the cameras. He was personable. He went on and on to anyone who would listen about what a great team we made, how we were going to go as far as we could in figure skating. We were going to win the gold. Or we would, he’d tell me, as long as I got my act together and stopped screwing everything up all the time.”

“Son of a bitch,” Levi grumbled. He rubbed his thumb over the back of my hand. Although, he wasn’t slurring his words anymore. My admission might have done the unthinkable and sobered him up somewhat. That could be dangerous. Maybe he’d remember some of this tomorrow… I couldn’t exactly stop telling him now that I’d started, though.

“It really was my fault often enough that I took it all on myself. And the longer we were together, the worse it got. Early on, he was careful to only berate me when we were alone and no one else would hear. But once we started dating, that changed. I’m not sure if it was because we were together all the time or something else, but he forgot all about that filter. He’d do it quietly so the whole world wouldn’t hear, but hearing about how inadequate I was quickly became a daily thing. And it spread to areas that weren’t strictly related to figure skating. If I wanted to go out with my sisters, he gave me a hard time because I wasn’t giving him enough attention. If I tried to start up a friendship with someone, he soon convinced me that relationship was bad for me, so I’d cut it off before it turned into anything substantial or lasting. He did his best to make sure he was the only person with any influence over me, the only one who held any sway.”

“Why the fuck did you put up with that?”

This time, I couldn’t stop myself from shrugging. “It started so small, but it kept building. Gradually. A bit at a time, he took over my life. I thought he loved me and was pushing me to be the best. That he was looking out for me. It wasn’t until later that I realized he was cutting me off from everyone in my life who would put a stop to it.”

“So what changed? I mean, you were still with him at the Games. And he was still being a bastard. That much was clear to me.”

And now we arrived at the part I had such difficulty putting into words. “A few months later, I was pregnant. I told him as soon as I realized, before I’d had a chance to figure out what I wanted to do about it. He flew off the handle. Screamed bloody murder at me. He said I was trying to ruin our careers. That I’d gotten knocked up on purpose because I was trying to hurt him. Then he demanded I go in for an abortion.”

“And did you? You must have,” Levi said. There was so much sadness simmering beneath the anger in him. With his free hand, he tucked some of my hair behind my ear. Such a gentle and unexpected touch. Too much more of that, and he might just undo me.

I was both intrigued and frightened by the prospect.

I shook my head. I needed to let it all out. Now that I’d started talking, the urge to plow through and empty the whole clip was so strong I felt powerless to stop it. “I didn’t have an abortion. I didn’t think I wanted one, but no matter what, I wasn’t ready to make a snap decision. Not about something like that. So I told him I needed some time to decide what I wanted. Guy sulked all night, telling me over and over again that I was doing this to hurt him and there was no other explanation that made any sense. The next day in practice, we were working on a lift, and he dropped me. He hadn’t hit a rut or anything like that. It was a lift we’d done hundreds, maybe thousands of times before, and he’d never once dropped me. But this time he did. Hard. It was almost like he threw me into the boards more than dropped me.”

“And you miscarried,” Levi finished.

I nodded. “My ankle was sprained pretty badly, but I lost the pregnancy. Had to go in for a D and C. We told everyone it was all about my ankle, though.”

Levi was calm. Too calm. It felt like the dangerous sort of calm that Cam tended to arrive at right before he went off the deep end in trying to protect someone he loved. I couldn’t seem to stop shaking, worrying about what he might do.

“So this son of a bitch treats you like shit for years, knocks you up, then he hurts you bad enough that you lose the baby. Then you leave, and he follows you? And threatens you? Am I understanding this right?”

I wasn’t shocked by hearing profanity, but Levi seemed to have lost some sort of filter over that. Likely because of all the alcohol in his system. In all the time we’d been together, he’d kept it in check a lot better than this. It knocked down a layer of my defenses, leaving me vulnerable. “There was more in between, but yeah. That’s basically it.”

“What kind of more?” Levi growled.

“Nothing too serious. He just wouldn’t take the hint. He kept calling me, leaving me notes on my door or my car. That sort of thing.”

“He stalked you.”

“I wouldn’t go—”

“He fucking stalked you. He abused you for years, and then when you tried to put an end to it, he started stalking you. And he’s still doing it. He’s trying to intimidate you into doing whatever the fuck he wants you to do, and that’s why he’s threatening me. Well, not to my face. I doubt he wants to do that. It’s all about getting to you. But he followed you here to keep stalking you, Cadence.”

I swallowed hard. When he put it like that, there wasn’t much point in trying to argue with him. Maybe I’d never thought of any of it in quite those terms, but there was a sickening ring of truth to them. “Maybe,” I said slowly, taking my hands from his and wrapping my arms around my middle.