Chapter 23
Twenty Three
Taylor
I email Marguerite to check if she’s able to see me. My heart is in my throat and I think I’m going to be sick. Eloise’s skin was so soft under my fingertips. She tasted like gatorade and sweat, she smelled—okay, she smelled kinda nasty, but I liked it.
I liked everything about that. It was the best kiss I’ve ever had.
Fireworks were exploding through me and ohmygoodness, I have no idea what I’m going to do.
I just kissed my teammate.
My new teammate.
The one who I thought was evil and then we became friends and we shared a bed and… jeez, I screwed this up.
Marguerite emails back quickly, letting me know that she’s out of the office and she’ll be back tomorrow, which is great and all, but I need to stop spiraling now. I’m not sure if I’m breathing at the moment. I think I am.
Or am I breathing too much?
I had the foresight to take my purse with me today and sneak back into the locker room so that I don’t see Eloise again before grabbing my gym bag and ordering a rideshare back to the apartment I’m sharing with Brynn.
Oh, Brynn… shit.
She’s gonna be so pissed when she comes home.
I’m so tense I think I’m about to shit a brick as the rideshare shows up. The drive back to the apartment is tense and awkward. I’m stewing in my own thoughts, and the driver didn’t put on any music, so there’s nothing to distract me.
I’m so fired.
I can’t believe that I did that.
I kissed her.
Her. I kissed her.
I kissed her.
I kissed a woman the day after getting off to a woman in porn. It’s been less than 24 hours of realizing that I might not be straight. What the fuck is my life?
I have to be insane, right? This feels so insane.
The car stops and it takes me a second to realize that we’re at the building that I’m currently living in.
I thank the man and make my way into the apartment like a zombie.
My phone is silent, which is concerning because they’re probably trying to figure out what to do with me.
They’re going to fire me. It's so obvious.
I didn’t even come out or ask her or anything. I just… kissed her.
Shit, this is so bad.
But I think she kissed back. Which I wasn’t expecting in the slightest. It was... I really liked it. I’d like to do more of it.
As soon as I step foot into the apartment and shuck off my shoes, I’m curling up in my bed, trying to use the white sheets as a shield as I bring my phone to my ear and call my sister.
I’m the youngest of three. Well, only by three minutes. My sister, Lucy, has told me many times that they were the best three minutes of her life. But I like to think Lucy knows when I’ve done something spectacularly fucked up like this.
When it takes her more than a few minutes to answer, a worry digs its way into my brain. What if she doesn’t want to talk to me? But it’s also midday, so she’s at work, and she may not be able to answer.
Positive thoughts, Taylor. You’re already spiraling.
“You better have a good reason for calling me today,” she snaps into the phone and there’s a tightness in my chest. Sniffling, I try to wipe my eyes without her hearing. “Shit, Taylor, do I need to fly out?”
“No,” I say, tears pooling in my eyes. Everything that’s exposed to oxygen stings. Maybe it’s all poison.
Where is my emotional support water bottle? “Then, what’s going on?” she asks softly.
“I think I’m going to be fired,” I whimper. “I won’t be a professional hockey player after this week.”
She makes a noise of dissent. “How? You have a contract and there's no proposed trades at this time. You’re so close to the start of the season.”
“I kissed a coworker,” I whimper again.
She’s silent for a minute. “Wait, what?” she asks. “No, Taylor. I think I didn’t hear you correctly. You kissed a coworker?”
“Yeah,” I say.
“How?”
“Very passionately, shirtless, in the locker room. After I knocked her to the ice during a drill.”
“Wait—shirtless? Taylor, what the actual hell are you talking about? You kissed a coworker? Since when did you like girls? I thought you were—”
“Winnie, um,” I sniffle, “Winnie thinks that I may have been compulsory heterosexual. I think that she’s right because I think I’ve always liked looking at women.”
She sighs heavily. “I mean, I’m sorry to not be so shocked, but no shit, Tay. You thought Daphne was hot when we were eight.”
I blink. “Is she not? You’re going to tell me that the purple skirt and the red hair didn’t do it for you? You knew?”
“Of course I did. You drooled over her every chance we watched Scooby Doo. But no, the character design did nothing for me because I’m very straight.”
I’m caught on the drooling part. I don’t remember that other than enjoying looking at her, which I guess could have been a crush. “I did that?”
“Yeah, and with Rosie coming around to the holidays and family reunions, I thought you were just using Frank as a beard until you felt comfortable to let Mom and Dad know that any of their grandchildren will spring solely from James’ dick.”
“Ew,” I mutter. “A beard?”
“Yeah, so consider how surprised I was when I realized that you and Rosie weren’t together and Frank was actually your fiancé when you caught him cheating last month.”
My brain stops. That was only a month ago? Why does that now feel like ages? Goodness me.
“You thought Rosie and I were together?” I whisper. The thought of it makes me wonder if on some cellular level, we were. That we were more a couple than Frank and I ever were.
“I mean, we all had our suspicions. But tell me about this girl you kissed.”
I groan. “It was Eloise. I left practice after Lawson reamed me out and she followed to make sure I was doing okay. And it all happened so fast, but she put hands on my face, and I just—looked up at her, wanting to kiss her… and I did.”
“Eloise?” she shouts so loudly I jerk the phone away from my ear.
“You mean the brand new teammate you hated so much that I had to learn about her exclusively through your rants? The one who fucked up your knee that you held a grudge against? That Eloise?” Her voice is a weird pitch I have to ignore.
“Yeah,” I groan. “And she’s obviously going to tell Coach and they’re going to fire me for sexual assault.”
She tuts. “Well, we can cross that bridge when we get to it. Did you talk to her after the kiss?”
“No. But she moaned when we were kissing,” I say, the memory latching onto my brain. I think I’m going to remember it forever.
“She’s not the first girl you kissed, right?” Lucy asks.
My forehead scrunches up at the thought. “Well, I mean, yeah. I didn’t know I was, I guess bi, until last night.”
The silence on the line is palpable. I think I could get pregnant from how tense this line feels. Then the phone clicks.
I have to look at my screen to make sure that I’m not going insane. She hung up on me. That bitch.
I call her back immediately, which she promptly declines. So I call again.
“No. I’m not talking to you. You’re such an idiot,” she says the last part sharply, loud enough for me to feel it scratching into my skin.
“What did I do wrong? I wanted to test the theory.”
“As you should, on a stranger!” she shouts the second half of the sentence, and oh that makes so much sense. “Not the teammate who you’ve had a hate-on for at least two years.”
I let out an awkward chuckle. “I mean…”
“No. You’re ridiculous. Go talk to Eloise before I do it for you.”
I gulp. “She’s still at practice.”
Lucy groans again. “You left practice early? Shit, you are going to get fired. Mom and Dad coddled you too much.”
“We’re the same age.”
“And yet somehow we are very different, you big baby.” I let her teasing tone hang in the airwaves.
“Despite the idiotic way you went about it, I’m glad you’re learning this about yourself.
And thank you for sharing with me. I just wish you had done it differently.
” There’s a fondness to her tone that makes my stomach warm in the comfort of it.
“Me too,” I say. “Do you think Mom and Dad—?”
“You know they don’t care as long as we’re happy.”
“But I thought that they wanted us all married and straight and having children.”
Lucy snorts. “Do you remember anything about when we were still living with Mom and Dad. How they told us they only expected furry grandbabies?”
“No.”
“Well, don’t you worry about that. I need you to figure out what the fuck you’re doing, because it seems like Eloise is a person you just blew your life up for.”
I nod, slowly, finger trailing across my bottom lip in remembrance of the kiss. “I guess I did. Thanks, Luce.”
“You got it, babes. Now, don’t be a stranger and call me more regularly, after work hours, because now I have no time to eat my lunch before I'm back at my desk.”
I wince. “Sorry.”
“Eh, feel bad for my coworkers because they’re going to have to deal with me hangry.”
“I’ll buy some chocolate for the whole office," I say with a small chuckle.
Her laugh is soft as I hear her snap the container closed. Each click of the lid a bullet in my ears. “I am proud of you, and I love you.”
“Thank you. I love you, too.”
She hangs up, and I look up at the ceiling. Mom and Dad will understand, I think, and I have my accounting degree to fall back on. I’ve been doing some of the team's taxes for the last few years, so I could start a firm or apply to one if I do get fired.
I could have them write it up as a retirement instead.
The thought rips through me, and I’m fairly certain I’ve stopped breathing. Retiring now? That seems like the worst-case scenario.
Even worse than children.
Shit. I think I must’ve ruined my life. Stupid impulse control.
I’m still spiralling when the door slams open a few hours later and a bag is thrown to the ground. Cupboards slam in the kitchen and my stomach turns inward on itself. She’s going to murder me.