Audrey’s face filled with worry as she wrapped Fallon in her arms. “I feel so stupid, like a weak little whiny baby. I’m not that person. I am strong, I am amazing, I am successful. I am the best f**king mom ever! And look at me! I am a mess, cussing left and right. He f**king does this to me!”

Fallon hated that she was putting all this on Audrey, but she didn’t know what to do, who to talk to about it all. All she knew was that she was hurting and she needed someone to tell her what to do.

“Fallon, I don’t know baby. Love is tricky, intense. I don’t know what to say,” Audrey said into her hair. Fallon nodded slowly, knowing that her baby sister wouldn’t have the words to console her.

Who would?

No one knew about Lucas, no one knew what he did, no one knew the mess he could turn her into. Only she knew and only she knew how to deal with him, and that was to completely cut him out of her life.

She had to, or she was gonna go bat-shit f**king crazy.

*************************************************

If looks could kill, Lucas would have been dead at least five times that night. He didn’t know that Fallon could give such deadly looks but she could, and they kind of scared him.

Just a little bit though.

Seeing Fallon would have been everything he wanted if she would have been a little nicer. She was feisty and a little rude, but he liked it. He liked that she didn’t take his shit, he liked that she was a little angry. She had been so submissive when they were together, and now it seemed that she was standing up for herself.

And that was one hell of a turn on.

Call him sadistic but he liked a girl that knew what she wanted and how she wanted it. All he had to do was make her realize that he was the one she wanted. That he had changed, and that he could be the man she needed and trusted. He didn’t know how he was going to do it but he would.

There was only one thing bothering Lucas though, and that was the way Fallon and Elli looked at each other when he said that they had dated seven years ago. Something wasn’t right; Fallon had stared Elli down after the words were spoken, and then she did everything but fully run away from them. What was that about? The owner knew something, and he was determined to find out what it was.

The next morning, Lucas skated around the rink for the morning warm up along with his team. When he stopped by the boards for a drink, Sergei Arshan skated up beside him, also grabbing his drink. Lucas nodded towards him before smacking Sergei’s shin with his stick.

Sergei did the same before saying, “We’re going out tonight, you should come.”

Lucas laughed before squirting some Gatorade in his mouth. “It is Sunday.”

“So?”

“I’m good, catch me on a Friday or Saturday and I’m yours,” Lucas said with a smirk on his face.

There was no way he could go out tonight even if he wanted, not that he did. He had an early morning flight to catch. He was going up to Michigan to see his mom for a couple of days. Since he was on a break before heading out on a six-game road trip, he figured using that time to see his mom would be best. He would be gone for three days and when he came back home, he planned on going to Fallon’s office. By then he figured she would be all buttered up since every day for the next week her office would be filled with presents. Little tokens of his love for her.

He was calling it ‘Operation Get Fallon Back’, and he was going to succeed.

Or he was going to die trying.

**********************************************

Fallon sat cross leg in the middle of her bed with a black box in front of her. Audrey had taken Aiden to the park for a couple hours so that Fallon could do what she needed to do, and that was to get rid of anything that reminded her of Lucas. She had already gone through all her clothes and put all his old shirts and shorts in a black trash bag, the only thing left to do was go through their box.

Fallon had started putting the box together the day after they started dating and it was filled to the brim with things from their relationship. Plane tickets, movie tickets, picture strips, bracelets, dead flower petals — everything was in that box. As Fallon dug through it, she remembered every little thing about each item and tears slowly ran down her cheeks.

Everything was so simple then.

She picked up a buddle of letters that were wrapped in a red bow and couldn’t help the grin that came over her face when she opened each one, reading Lucas’ backwards handwriting. Fallon was the only one that could decipher his writing with no problem, and she soon became the only one he wrote for. She used to love getting his letters, or his little notes. They would make her day.

As she read over one of the last letters he wrote her, she couldn’t help but wonder if he was still struggling with his dyslexia. Fallon used to work with him on his reading and writing and he had started to progress throughout their relationship, but no matter what, it was just so hard for Lucas. He had hid the condition from his family growing up and when they found out about it he was already in high school. The teachers said it was too late for him to be taught the right way, but Fallon couldn’t have disagreed more. She worked extremely hard with him whenever he would let her. Lucas was a proud man and hated showing weakness. Since he classified his dyslexia as a weakness, he wouldn’t read for Fallon much. He said she would think he was stupid, which was nowhere near the truth. Fallon thought he was the smartest, sweetest man in the world, and loved him like he was.

With a shake of her head, she threw the letters back in the box. When she moved a picture of them on the beach in Cabo, she saw the little black Arpel’s box. Her breath caught as she slowly picked the box up, opening it to see the little silver ring that held the most gorgeous pink diamonds ever. Man, how she loved that ring. It took two years for Fallon to take it off after she and Lucas had broken up. Two damn years. The day she took it off was the day she knew she was never going to tell him about Aiden, or that she would ever see him again.