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I’m tired of talking tonight. I don’t feel like pushing him. I shouldn’t have to force him into a conversation to figure out how he’s feeling about things. About me. He’s a grown man. If he isn’t comfortable with his emotions, that’s his problem.
The air between us is stilted and heavy with all the things we aren’t saying, which is the complete opposite of what it was when I first returned home tonight. I’m not sure what changed between then and now, but I don’t care enough to find out anymore. I’m exhausted.
“Night,” I say, inviting him to leave with that one final word.
I can feel his eyes on me as he stands in the doorway a few more seconds, but I don’t look.
“Night,” he finally replies.
He shuts the door behind him, and my eyelids follow. My head thumps against the wall when I lean it back. I take a deep inhale and exhale before finally rising from the floor to crawl into his bed. The pillow smells like him, and I wonder if he slept here this afternoon.
My phone chimes. I pick it up from the side table where it’s charging. It’s from Johnny. I never answered him before, but he’s persistent. He knows what he wants. Me. Something about his straightforward approach is so appealing right now. He’s a hot musician, and in a room full of females vying for his attention, he noticed me. That thought is empowering. It feels especially good after another night of uncertainty with my best friend’s brother.
I respond to his message, and we text back and forth for the next few minutes. And by the time I shut off the light and close my eyes, I have a date with the rocker the next night. But for some reason, he’s not the one I dream about.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
OLLIE
Jealousy is such a worthless emotion. It’s destructive and pointless. I’ve hooked up with plenty of women over the years, but never any that I had serious feelings for. Those nights were always transactional. We met, we flirted, we went home, and I left that same evening or the morning after. I never cared if my teammates went home with the same girls the next time we went to the bar. I wasn’t invested enough for it to matter. So, jealousy is an emotion I’ve never felt before.
Until now.
Sims and McMann are like me in their view of women. I’ve never seen either of them tied to the same female for long. They’re both harmless, even in the way they’ve always teased and flirted with Madison. It never bothered me before. But last night was a different story.
The puck leaves my stick and whizzes by Charlie’s broad shoulder into the upper-left corner of the net.
Too bad I didn’t aim about three inches to the right, where his big head sits, encased in a helmet and cage.
Hockey is a game of inches after all. I slam Sims into the side wall for good measure. An odd sound leaves his mouth as the air is knocked from his chest. It’s weirdly gratifying. Sims doesn’t agree.
“Fuck, Burnham,” my practice partner says when he recovers a couple of minutes later. His face is covered by sweat and a scowl. “What’s your problem today?”
“I don’t have a problem,” I lie, my words arrogant and my attitude obnoxious. “Just preparing for the big house next fall. If it’s too much for you, I can ask one of the freshmen to take your place.”
He glares at me while saluting his middle finger and rubbing his sore chest.
“I think that’s enough for today,” Charlie declares as he skates over.
His eyes are narrowed on me when he removes his helmet. I can see the irritation lying there.
Both of my former teammates agreed to meet at the rink today for some practice on the ice. They were doing me a favor. That was their first mistake. They didn’t realize they were getting a beast in place of the winger they were used to playing with. But I needed an outlet. The pressure was building inside my chest until I was about to burst, like a geyser that pulsed until exploding in the form of steam and boiling water into the air. I was aching for a release.
McMann and Sims don’t say another word to me as they skate off the ice and start walking down the hallway to the locker room. But their expressions speak loudly enough. I’m an asshole. If only I could find it within myself to care. Instead, I feel a weird satisfaction after kicking both their asses all over the ice today. Because all I could picture when they arrived earlier was Sims’s suggestive banter with Mads and McMann’s hands on her hips when he pulled her into his lap and slobbered on her neck like a dog in heat. She wore my shirt while she allowed another man’s hands and lips on her body.
I held my tongue last night. And I might forgive them for their transgressions … eventually. But I will never forget, as they found out today.
Am I being unfair? Probably. I mean, no one knows what happened between Madison and me, not even them. They don’t know that her taste is imprinted on my brain like a permanent fixture in my senses after that stolen moment outside of Cheerz. Or that I can’t tear my eyes away from her when she’s in the room even if I do everything in my power to hide it from her and anyone else who might be around.
But it was the jealousy thing that really threw me for a loop. I hated the way it felt. I’ve always been possessive of Mads, but never uncontrolled. Watching McMann put his grubby hands on her body and his mouth on her skin … I was irrationally angry. I was two seconds away from losing it on his ass and hers for not immediately standing from his lap.
She can’t kiss me one night and let him paw her the next.
But wait … what am I saying? I never cared if women did that before. And it was just a kiss.
I slap a puck into the net from the blue line and then sprint from one end to the other on my blades. But the exertion doesn’t unwind the tension in my muscles.
I don’t understand how I’m feeling. If I was a communicator, I might tell Mads to stop teasing me with her longing looks and flirty words. She draws me in, only to spit me out in the next moment. She’s the only woman who’s ever gotten underneath my skin this way, and I hate it. I hate her for it.
