Page 115 of Julian

His temerity irritates me, but for some reason, I don’t force him to leave. Instead, I study him. He looks different than he did a few months ago. More secure. It’s showing on the ice and clearly in his confidence in talking to the man who holds his career in his hands.

A single, unbidden thought enters my mind. Love did that to him. Or maybe being loved properly did.

“I’m glad it worked out with you and Daisy,” I tell him. It’s the truth. Even though my love life is in the toilet, I want other people to experience it. I know what it’s like to have the very best love has to offer. Everyone deserves it at some point in their lives. Unfortunately, it’s not everyone’s to keep for long.

I shake my head, wondering if the sleeping pill is already messing with me.

A beat of silence passes between us while flight attendants move through the cabin preparing for departure. Then Grizz smirks faintly. “So I hear you’ve got a pretty good thing going with your former chauffeur.”

The statement jolts me. It’s light, teasing, meant to steer the conversation into what he thinks might be a subject that I’ll be happy to talk about. He has no idea the reason I haven’t been sleeping at night is because of the woman who used to be my… well, she was becoming my everything… is what’s got me twisted up.

He has absolutely no idea what’s coming next. “We broke up yesterday,” I say flatly.

Grizz blinks. “Oh. Wow. I…”

I turn my head and stare out the window toward the tarmac.

“Sorry, Julian,” he says after a second. Awkward silence stretches between us before he finally asks, “You want to talk about it?”

I shake my head automatically. “No.”

I continue to stare out the window, hoping he’ll just get up and leave. I’m the fucking owner of this team. I should tell him to go, but I don’t.

And because he’s Grizz, and there are no other players with the balls to do it, he says, “Actually… I think you should talk about it. I’m going to stay.”

My head whips toward him, eyes hardening in that way I usually level at people that causes them to piss their pants a little. He stares back at me with resolve.

To add insult to injury, he says, “You’re going to have to fire me to get me to leave, so you might as well spill. We probably have twenty minutes at least until takeoff. Plenty of time to unload.”

A flash of fury rises in me. Not that an underling would defy me, but that my life is so fucked up right now and I can’t figure a way out of it. But then I realize… Grizz is sitting right here and maybe… just maybe… he has the answer to my problems, because I sure as fuck can’t figure it out.

My shoulders drop and Grizz sees it, a small reassuring smile coming to his face. Players move past us, no one paying attention. I give in to the urge to spill my guts to someone and lean back in my seat. “Okay… fine.” I rub my hand across my jaw, trying to figure out how to start my story, but decide the beginning is always the best.

“I had a relationship once and it was…” I exhale softly. “It was the kind of thing that doesn’t happen twice in a lifetime.”

Grizz says nothing, but he leans in as I’ve lowered my voice so it doesn’t carry. “She was everything… the sort of love people spend entire lifetimes hoping for.” Grizz’s expression softens, and I’m sure he gets what I’m saying because he has Daisy. I take in a breath, considering how much to share. It was more than just Kylie. It was Ben too, but I don’t want to go that deep into it. “Let’s just say I had it, then it was gone.” The memory doesn’t get any easier to deal with. “And once you experience that,” I say, “it becomes very difficult to believe anything afterward could survive the comparison.”

Grizz leans back slightly, absorbing it. He doesn’t offer words of empathy or encouragement, and I’m glad of it because I’d probably clam up. He just listens.

“At any rate, I’ve obviously dated throughout the years, but I always kept myself in reserve.”

“Until Harper,” he surmises.

I nod. “Harper started getting close to parts of me I’ve kept shut down for a very long time,” I admit. “And instead of handling it well, I…” I laugh bitterly under my breath. “I pushed her away. I got overwhelmed with guilt that I was betraying one memory to pursue another. I got scared that if I reached for something good again, I’d lose it. I shut down, withdrew, and well, Harper’s the type of woman who won’t put up with that. Now… she’s gone and I don’t know what to do.”

I suck in a breath because that was quite the word dump and admittedly, I’m lighter for having released it.

“You remember Thanksgiving?” asks Grizz. I glance over at him and nod. “When I was losing my mind over Daisy?”

“Of course.”

“You told me something that night,” he says. “Actually, you told me a lot of things. But the main thing was that fear makes people stupid.”

This is where my words are going to get tossed back in my face. “That sounds like me.”

“You told me I couldn’t let fear make decisions for me.” Grizz shakes his head slightly. “That if I walked away from something real because I was scared to lose it someday, I’d regret it forever.”

I turn to face him now. Grizz searches my eyes for another second before continuing.