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Chapter 99: Story Time

last update 게시일: 2026-08-23 21:13:59

By the time I had been at Mercer Athletics for a full month, I no longer felt as though I were borrowing someone else’s desk chair. The office had begun to feel familiar in small, almost imperceptible ways. I knew which printer jammed most often, which coffee machine produced something drinkable, and which afternoons Priya preferred not to be interrupted.

She handed me my first solo project on a Tuesday morning. There would be no oversight, no check-ins, no one hovering over my shoulder. The e
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  • Across The Ice: Falling for my ex’s biggest rival   Chapter 161: Epilogue: Across the Ice

    Five years later, I stood in the stands of the Mercer Hockey and Art Academy with a camera hanging from my neck, a coffee going cold in my hands that I had no intention of drinking, and a very familiar pair of shoulders in my viewfinder.Dean was on the ice with a group of seven-year-olds, crouched low as he patiently explained for what I counted as the fourth time why they shouldn’t skate backward into the net. A girl with a ponytail was arguing with him, her arms crossed, and I watched him surrender with a laugh and let her demonstrate her own theory. She promptly took a spectacular fall, got back up, and declared it a success.“Mama!”Our daughter Montserrat, four years old and already furious about most things, hurtled across the bleachers toward me. Paint covered her hands, with an alarming amount of it smeared across her face. She climbed into my lap and presented me with a drawing of what appeared to be a purple horse carrying a hockey stick.“It is Daddy,” she informed me grav

  • Across The Ice: Falling for my ex’s biggest rival   Chapter 160: Montserrat’s Daughter

    On the morning of my wedding, my tía Rosa pinned a small gold comb into my hair. I had never seen it before, and when I asked where she’d gotten it, she smiled at my reflection.“It belonged to your mother. She wore it the night your father proposed,” she explained, adjusting one of my curls. “She told me that if she ever had a daughter, the comb would go to her on the happiest day of her life. I’ve kept it in my drawer for eleven years, waiting for the right occasion. So here we are, mija.”I touched the necklace at my collarbone, the one with my mother’s name engraved on it. Between the two pieces, I felt as though I’d managed to bring a little of her with me. Around us, my cousins and aunts were talking over one another in Spanish, laughing and fussing over the last few wedding details. My mother would have been right in the middle of it, probably giving everyone her own instructions.The ceremony took place at a vineyard an hour outside the city, beneath an arch Dean had built wit

  • Across The Ice: Falling for my ex’s biggest rival   Chapter 159: Two Sides, One Day

    Wedding planning turned into its own special kind of chaos, complete with color palettes, venue tours, flower arrangements, and a guest list that seemed to grow every time Dean remembered someone else who absolutely had to be there. One evening, he spread invitation samples across the kitchen table while I compared flower arrangements on my laptop, his expression suddenly more serious than the occasion seemed to require.“We need to talk about something.”“That sounds ominous.”“Mason.” He said the name carefully, watching my face. “I want to invite him. I know that might be complicated for you, considering everything, and I wanted to ask instead of assuming.”I closed the laptop and let myself think before answering. Mason had earned his way back into Dean’s life, and, if I was being honest, into mine too. He had helped bring our families together. He had stood up for me when Sophie slapped me. The man he was now wasn’t the same man he had been before, even if the history between us

  • Across The Ice: Falling for my ex’s biggest rival   Chapter 158: Forever, However Long That Is

    Dean had been impossible for four days.He answered my texts with the bare minimum, ignored my calls, and when I finally got a response, it was usually a single, distracted word that said nothing. By Saturday afternoon, I had moved past concern and landed somewhere far less charitable. So when he texted to ask me to dinner, I climbed into his car already annoyed, folding my arms as I settled into the passenger seat.“You’ve been impossible all week.”“I know.”I turned toward him. “That’s all you have to say?”“I promise I’ll explain everything tonight.” He glanced over, and something bright and uneasy moved behind his eyes, an expression that didn’t belong on the face of the man who usually had an answer for everything. “Please trust me a little longer.”“I’m trusting you under protest.”“Noted.”He drove without telling me where we were going. I considered asking several times, but the look on his face suggested I would only get another vague answer, and I was already irritated enou

  • Across The Ice: Falling for my ex’s biggest rival   Chapter 157: One Year

    A year ago, I did everything I could to keep my life from falling apart without making the people I loved suffer. Now I had a career I was proud of, friends who were building lives of their own, and a boyfriend who had somehow made room for hockey and art in a world that had spent years insisting he had to choose.Every now and then, the distance between then and now still surprised me.The biggest change was Dean’s Hockey and Art Academy, which had opened that spring. I loved stopping by after work, especially on afternoons when the younger kids moved between the ice and the art rooms with helmets tucked under their arms and paint on their fingers. Dean had hired coaches to handle most of the hockey instruction, but he still taught painting whenever he could.I had watched him sit beside a child struggling with a drawing and patiently show them how to try again. He never made mistakes seem like proof that someone did not belong. He treated them as part of learning, something Dean him

  • Across The Ice: Falling for my ex’s biggest rival   Chapter 156: Enough

    Dean woke me the next morning with coffee already brewing in the kitchen. I blinked up at him from the bed and found him sitting on the edge of the mattress, fully dressed and looking far too pleased with himself.“You let me sleep in,” I said, pushing myself upright.“I made breakfast. You have time.”I checked the clock and, annoyingly, found he was right. A few minutes later, I followed the smell of coffee into the kitchen, where eggs and toast waited on two plates. Beside my coffee sat my usual hot chocolate.“You’re spoiling me.”“I’m aware.” He caught me around the waist and kissed me before I could say anything else. “I could get used to this, you know. Waking up together, making breakfast, arguing over who gets the bathroom first. All the thrilling parts of domestic life.”I gave him a suspicious look. “You mean you want me to move in.”“Fully, yes. Imagine it. My girlfriend actually living with me instead of going home all the time and leaving me to miss her.”“Your girlfrien

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