Chapter 24
TWENTY-FOUR
Rain
“Why don’t you just call him?”
“So he can swipe me into voicemail? Nope. Not happening. If he missed me, he’d text me back.”
Erin and Caity exchanged a glance as we worked in the kitchen of Crack One Open, finishing up the s’mores kits for the carnival. We’d already finished the hot chocolate mix and were moving onto snowman kits. Giant marshmallows that I would shove in their faces if they continued to talk about Brian.
“When was the last time you texted him?”
I shrugged, not meeting their eyes. “A few days ago.”
Which was more like a week, because his first text had been:
Brian
Hi. Busy here. Getting Maddy squared away at school and Lin in her new job. Getting my workout in at lumberyard
Nothing about missing me. Of course, I hadn’t given him a great send-off. I’d basically told him to have a nice life. I was surprised he even texted at all.
And yet he had.
And I’d let him hang for a week.
Now who was the asshole? That would be me.
“She’s doing that thing.” Caity nudged Erin, as they both stared at me like I was an exhibit on display.
“What?” I frowned at them. “What thing?”
“You’re thinking too hard.” Caity cocked a hip. “Second-guessing everything. And you’re using work as an excuse.”
“I am not. I’m busy. The carnival is this weekend, and I’ve got way too much to do and not enough time to do it.”
“Do you ever think you do all this stuff for everyone else so you don’t have to confront the loneliness of your own existence?”
Caity and I looked at Erin, our expressions mirror images of WTF.
“Girl, what the hell have you been reading?” Caity shook her head. “Seriously, you need to lay off the dystopian and read more romcoms.”
Erin wrinkled her nose and grabbed the bin with our next project, the snowman kits.
“I just mean, I think you’re in avoidance mode. Doing all this stuff gives you an excuse to not do anything else.”
“It’s not an excuse.” Except it probably was. “If he wanted to contact me, he would.”
“Maybe if you’d sent something other than ‘gee, I’m so busy,’ he would have some idea of how much you miss him.” Caity held up the scissors she was using to cut ribbon. “And don’t even say you don’t miss him. You’ve been moping ever since he left.”
My nose wrinkled. “I have not. There’s just a lot going on right now.”
It sucked that I couldn’t tell my friends what else weighed on my mind. My brothers and I were planning to talk again Thursday, the night before the carnival started. Rebel didn’t have a game until Sunday, so he was able to come home. We’d agreed to make a decision then, no matter what.
“I don’t know, Rain,” Caity said. “If you want the guy, maybe you need to tell him. Have you told him?”
“Of course I did.”
Hadn’t I?
Or had I been a selfish brat who expected him to make all the effort?
“Rain, just call the guy, for fuck’s sake.” Erin clasped her hands in front of her, her expression overly dramatic and hilarious. “Put us all out of our collective misery. Besides, you know you want to.”
I did. I really, really did. “What if he doesn’t want to talk to me?”
Caity leaned on the counter, staring at me. “And what if he’s just been waiting for you? Maybe he thought you didn’t want to hear from him. Like, because you didn’t text him back for a freaking week.”
“I don’t want to be that girl. The clingy girl. The one who doesn’t get the hint.”
Caity threw her hands in the air and huffed. “You’re just scared! Get over it.”
“Okay, so maybe I am. I haven’t exactly had a good track record with hockey players.”
“You just haven’t found the right one.” Erin spoke low and steady. And absolutely right. “Until now.”
“So, we’ve all made up our minds?”
Rowdy looked around the table at each of us, stopping with me. Because he had to know I had something to add.
Rebel and Rocky had walked through the door to the arena conference room just a couple of minutes ago. Rowdy had shut the door behind them, and they’d barely had time to sit before Rebel took a chair and started.
“Before we do this,” I said, “I want to say this. If you three decide you want this…I’m in. I love you all, and I want what’s best for you. Not just for the business. But for you guys. Personally.”
Rowdy stared at me, for long moments, his gaze not giving anything away. Then he looked at Rebel, who nodded, and Rocky, who grinned. Then they all looked at me and smiled.
What the hell? “Okay, now you’re just freaking me out. What’s going on?”
“Don’t freak out, but we met behind your back.” Rowdy held up a hand to stop whatever was about to come out of my mouth. “Yes, I know we agreed not to discuss this unless we were all together, but there were some things the three of us had to say. Most of it was the fact that you were right, and they didn’t want to have to say it to your face.”
Rebel rolled his eyes and stared at the ceiling, but Rocky took the bait, just like Rowdy knew he would.
“Hey, that’s not exactly true.” Rocky gave me a smile that would totally melt any woman’s heart in a five-mile radius. “Okay, maybe it’s a little true. We love you, Rainy. You just scare us a little sometimes. You’re usually right about everything.”
No, I wasn’t. Look how badly I’d screwed up my relationship with Brian. I still hadn’t texted him to tell him how I felt. That wasn’t exactly me being right about everything. That was me being stupid. And indecisive. Two things I typically wasn’t.
“Just to be clear,” I said. “We’re going to turn down the offer?”
“Yes. Because you’re right.” Rebel finally stopped staring at the wall to look at me. “This team and what Pop built here is more important to our players and our fans than jumping to another league.”
I looked at Rocky. “You’re sure?”
“Yeah. I’m sure. And I trust that when I decide I want to play here, you and Rowdy will be running the best damn team in the Northeast Professional Hockey League.”
“Rowdy? Are you really sure this is what you want?”
“It is.” He nodded, his expression as serious as he ever got. “I know you and I are gonna butt heads sometimes, but there’s no one I would rather run this team with. We’re gonna kick ass, Rainy.”
My smile widened.
“We will.”
Now, I just needed to figure out how to fix the mess I’d made of the situation with Brian.