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Brittany picks my gloves up off the floor and tosses them on top of my bag before sitting next to me.
“I need to wallow, at least for a minute,” I say, trying to wipe the tears from my cheeks before she sees them, but knowing she already has. I don’t fucking care anymore. She also knows most of the emotion pouring out of me right now isn’t about hockey. This damn loss—this goddamn series—is just the icing on the cake that is my fucked up life right now.
I sent her to see Nandy. Shockingly, he saw her. Let her examine him. Let her tell him he is fine, and it’s all in his head. She says he’s an asshole and I can do better. He’s pissed at me now. Pissed at the world still. Like with me, there is a lot more going on with him than just recovery from an injury.
Fynn has hinted that Nandy has thought of giving up. Only hinted. I know he has held back a lot of information. Attempting to decrease the distractions for me.
I told Nandy that I love him. He never said it back, and he has increased his distance from me ever since. And now Fynn is our go between, but Fynn has rapidly become much more than that to me. Nandy wasn’t as excited about the idea of the three of us together as I expected him to be. Is that part of the reason he has pulled away?
My heart seizes up every time Fynn calls me on the way home from the club. He says it casually. On his way home from work, as if he has some desk job where he just wrapped up for the day and is headed home to shower and wash away the stress. But when Fynn goes home and washes away the day, he is washing away sex. Sex with other people. Random people. People who aren’t me. Aren’t Nandy. Aren’t the three of us together.
I want to ask how his night was. I really do, because I care how he is. But I just can’t handle it. He mentioned Derek by name the other night and I nearly lost it. I hate it. I really fucking hate it. How does Nandy accept it so easily? Because Nandy uses Fynn for sex too. Uses him.
This is what I get for wanting to feel things. Thanks a fucking lot Universe.
Before everyone scatters for a few weeks of the summer, Logan always calls a team meeting. Everyone at first, then Captains only.
It is usually a very positive, rah-rah, you guys are the best, hardest working, we’ll get them next year kind of meeting.
Not this year.
This year it’s a nuts and bolts business meeting. Dates and timelines for camp. Media day. When he would like us to hit the weights on our own.
There is one difference. Camp isn’t in Denver. Not the first week, anyway. We aren’t even going to be on the ice the first week. That’s an odd approach. Leadville. We’re going to be in Leadville, running. Running a lot. Trail runs lead by the organizers of the famed Leadville 100. Oh joy.
More team bonding. I fucking hate team bonding.
Sure, it sucks that we lost. But worse is the way we lost. To a way less talented team. We played like crap.
I can’t help but shoulder some of the responsibility. I let my personal life get in the way, didn’t I? But this is a team sport. This can’t all be my fault. I feel guilty. I’ve felt like my world has been spinning off its axis for months now.
And again, sitting here now in our post-season Captains’ meeting, my head and my heart aren’t here.
I’m closing on the house this afternoon.
I haven’t heard from Nandy in weeks now. Fynn says he’s shut him out, too. Fynn is furious with him and the way he has treated me. I feel that too. I know he’s going through a lot, though. Something he has never gone through before.
I’ve had injuries before, not many. Only once did I think it might end my career and that was an off-season freak accident mountain biking. So I know a little about the unease of coming back from an injury. The only reason I even met Nandy was because of an injury.
Sophia hands me the keys to the house. My new house. Rowan and I’s new house.
“Let me know when you decide what to do about the apartment.”
I nod. I’ll most likely rent it out to new players as they come through. Give them a place to settle in. They won’t trash the place if the guy they are renting from is their teammate.
She gives me a kiss on the cheek. “Congrats!”
“Thanks.” I watch her leave out the front door.
I step out onto the patio and stare at the lake and the park. The house is tucked at the far end…no vehicle traffic will come this way on purpose, anyway.
Wandering through, I look at the master bedroom and ponder how big of a bed I can fit in here. It makes me smile. Rowan can have whichever room he wants. It’s ready for him whenever he wants. When his mom dies. So many endings. And endings to come.
But this, this is a beginning and will be for him too.
There is one more reset button I need to hit.
Chapter forty
