Breathless #5 (The Breathless Romance Series - Book #5) by Claire Adams Read Free Book Online Page A

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.
    As Georgia and I sat and talked and ate, we pulled up
more information on hockey and she started quizzing me. “I don’t even know why
I have to go through with this,” I said. “Johnny knows I’m not some, like, hockey
super-fan.”
    “But you need to be able to talk to him about
something he loves. Come on, he’ll appreciate it, I promise.” I knew Gigi was
right, but that didn’t make me any more interested in learning things about a
sport I’d only recently developed a passing interest in. As long as Johnny was on
the ice I’d be into it, but I didn’t think I’d ever really know the differences
between any of the professional teams unless Johnny went pro. And I didn’t
think I would particularly care. I would cheer for whatever team Johnny liked
and devote brain cells to something else that actually mattered in the grand
scheme of things.
    But Georgia was right; Johnny had done so much for me —
he had loved me passionately, he had been so wonderful to me on so many
occasions, he had tried to protect me from the pain that he was dealing with. I
could afford to learn at least to know what he was talking about at any given
time when it came to his favorite sport. It wouldn’t kill me to know more about
Johnny’s position on the ice or what he might get fouled for. I was so tired
and so ready for the game to start — we had sped down the highway enough to
make it so that we got to the stadium with apparently more time than we had
expected for Johnny to get ready. Or maybe they’d delayed for another reason. I
wanted to curl up in Johnny’s arms and press my cheek to his chest and feel
that safe, warm feeling once more. I had no doubts in my mind at all that
Johnny and our team would win; they had won every game I had ever seen them
play before. The possibility that they might even struggle a little bit hadn’t
really occurred to me. “Ah, here they come. Come on, Becky, let everyone see
you cheering for your man!” I laughed at Georgia, but went along with it; I
cheered for Johnny as he came out, and he glanced up at me, a happy look in his
eyes once more. That look was worth every bit of the fatigue in my bones.

 
    Chapter
Eight
    Within moments of the team taking the ice, I realized
that this was not going to be the great, winning game that I had believed it
would be. The reporters were shouting for Johnny, taking pictures, and I heard
some of them turning to camera and making statements about Johnny’s past — about
the rape and suicide of Claire White, about the press conference he had given a
few hours earlier. On the ice, Johnny looked like a spooked horse at the sight
of the reporters and photographers.
    When the team started to play, it was difficult for me
to watch; where normally Johnny was all aggression and focus on the ice, he
didn’t seem to be able to concentrate. I remembered that he’d floundered just a
little bit on one previous occasion — when everything had been great between us
and he’d kept looking up at me in the stands. Some of the students watching the
game shouted jeers, and I shivered; I would be even more distracted than Johnny
was, and he was pretty distracted. I looked around. It wasn’t fair — it wasn’t
right. There out to be rules against press trying to hound a player at a time
like this. “What’s wrong with him?” Georgia asked me as quietly as she could.
    “It’s all the hounding. Some of it’s even people from the school,” I said, pointing out one or two girls from the
campus who were waving signs proclaiming Johnny to be guilty. I shook my head.
Johnny had