Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
JESSIE
I don’t know why I left her college campus a week ago and hoped—maybe even half expected—to hear from Mia.
But I do know why I haven’t messaged her myself. One, we never exchanged numbers, and two, I know I need to stay away.
Just because she’s in the same city doesn’t mean I can see her. It doesn’t mean I can ask her to let me take her out so I can try to make up for the multiple occasions I fucked up.
But knowing what’s best for her doesn’t override my need. Is she thinking about me? About us?
Part of me hopes her memory replays that day in her bedroom on repeat, just as mine does. All of me wishes Graham hadn’t walked in on us. How far would we have gone? I’m betting all the way. I know that’s what she wanted—to hand herself over to me. She trusted me to take care of her. And I would’ve gone to the ends of the earth to make it special for her.
I still would.
To think some other guy has had that privilege with Mia makes me sick to my stomach.
I stare down at the pucks laid out along the ice as we warm up for tonight’s game.
“You gonna start taking shots at me or what?” Jensen shouts over at me.
It’s a big fixture and I’m already MIA. Worse than normal.
“Yeah, sure.”
Hit after hit, slap shot after slap shot, gets harder and harder, and I take each one faster than the next as I work my way through the line of pucks set up for me.
Jensen stops nearly all of them, which is unsurprising given his insane talent. But some are so fast that he barely gets a chance to move as they go rocketing past him and into the net.
The final puck leaves my stick in a crack that rings above the noise of the crowd and music, and Jensen stands dead still in the center of his goal.
He pulls off his helmet and slowly skates over to me, his eyes fixed on mine the whole time.
I’ve barely spoken today. At morning skate, I was pretty much nonverbal and the same again in the locker room.
What the guys expect from me is to be a joker, the first one to rip the shit out of himself or say something stupid. Masking like that is actually pretty easy for me; it’s less exhausting. When you act like the fun guy, no one asks questions. But today, even that’s too tiring.
“Want to talk about it?” Jensen finally speaks.
I flick my eyes left and then right as I chew on the corner of my mouthguard. “Here?”
“Nah, later. At Riley’s Bar maybe. We can step away from the guys for a second.”
“I’m not going out,” I reply, pushing back away from him, ready to start the next phase in the warm-up.
“The fuck you’re not. Kate, Luna, and Felicity are there tonight since we got a sitter, and you are a part of this team, a part of our group. It’s been too long since we all went out like old times.”
“Not up for it,” I bite out, my bad mood getting the better of me while I focus on rounding up pucks.
“You’re coming.” Zach comes to a stop beside me, spraying ice.
“Well, now, our captain and enforcer has spoken, so get out of that one, Callaghan.” Jensen smirks.
Looking between them both, I prop my hands on my hips. “Why are you so fucking bothered? I need a night to myself.”
“You’ve had enough of those lately,” Jensen counters.
All the guys know I’ve had my battles and that my childhood wasn’t the best, putting it lightly. But they have no idea about my secret drinking. But the worse my drinking gets, the harder it is to keep hidden, especially from an intuitive Jensen. I know Coach has kept what he knows between himself, my therapist, and our GM, but it’s only a matter of time before the fucked-up Jessie literally fucks up on the ice.
“Put your postgame pants and shirt on after the game, Jessie. I want you at Riley’s for at least an hour,” Zach insists. “No excuses.”
“Has your barber gone on strike or something?” Kate—Jensen’s wife and a scary-as-hell litigation lawyer—sits herself down opposite me in our usual private booth at the back of our regular postgame hideout, Riley’s Bar.
“Still as bratty as ever, Mrs. Jones,” I retort and run my hand along the scruff of my jaw.
She’s not wrong; I look like shit.
Since Jensen finally convinced Kate that they were each other’s endgame and not enemies, I’ve seen more of her than I ever did in the previous years we’ve been a part of the same friend group, even though I’ve always lingered on the fringes.
“Look, all I’m saying is, the NHL pays well enough for you to afford a razor, right?” She smiles around the rim of her wineglass.
“Or better still, maybe do a commercial deal for men’s grooming. I could see you in front of your mirror, smiling away, while some cheesy song played,” Felicity—Kate’s best friend and also a lawyer—adds.
I lean forward on my forearms and eye her with a quirked brow, my jovial mask sliding right into place. “Your British accent is fading. You’re starting to sound American.”
She throws a hand to her chest and leans back in the booth. “Really?” Shrugging a shoulder, she looks around the bar—no doubt for her husband, Jon. “So long as it’s only his accent and not his bad jokes that rub off on me, I’ll be good.”
Jensen slides in next to Kate and immediately kisses the top of her head, sending a pink flush to her cheeks. Never did I think this woman would melt for any guy and definitely not for the former bad boy and my best friend, but maybe anything is possible if it’s truly meant to be.
My attention immediately drifts from the conversation about the game we just won tonight and across the room.
A woman in a red coat stands in the main bar area, talking to a couple of friends. I know it isn’t Mia the second my eyes see the woman’s long brown hair, but disappointment still rolls through me.
She turns her head over her shoulder, locking her brown eyes on mine. She’s pretty and definitely my type, but other than appreciating how she looks, I feel nothing. I might as well be staring straight at a blank wall since there’s zero physical reaction.
Quickly, I avert my gaze and immediately find another pair of brown eyes.
“All okay there, man?” Jensen knocks his beer glass against mine. I haven’t touched a drop from the moment he set it down in front of me.
“Yeah, just not thirsty.”
I could easily be on my third drink by now, but tonight, I’m trying to be strong because the second I taste this beer, it’ll be too late. I’m all in with no going back until I wake up on my bathroom floor the next morning.
For me, the worst thing about alcohol addiction is being sufficiently aware of my triggers, but too fucking weak to resist.
And that’s how I feel when I pour myself a drink—weak. In that second when I put the glass to my lips, I know this decision is on me, and so are my actions that follow. The pounding head and fucked-up mentality—I’m answerable for it all.
Alcohol physically poisons your body, but its true toxicity manifests in what it does to your self-esteem. It robs you of everything.
And in my mom’s case, her hope.
Jensen continues to stare at my glass and then back up at me. “Can I get you a soda or something?”
I shake my head and then notice the way Zach observes us from the opposite end of the booth. Our captain misses nothing. His fiancée, Luna Johnson, continues to laugh and joke with Felicity and Kate as they talk about her pregnancy, but that couldn’t be further from the mood settling between us guys.
I’m on borrowed time with this team—I know it. These boys are like brothers to me, and Burrows has given me more chances than I deserve.
Ultimately, I know I’ll end up benched or shipped off to the farm team—or worse, traded. I’ve got a reputation for being a locker-room disrupter and a handful to manage, and at only twenty-six, I would be on my third NHL team since barely graduating from college.
Realistically, how many teams would want to take me on?
Realistically, how long have I got before the last decent thing exits my life?
I look back up at Jensen and blow out a long breath, studying the beer in front of me before bringing it to my lips.