Chapter 27 Adrian
ADRIAN
(Six months ago)
I’m slumped on a park bench in the middle of the city.
Tonight the Wings surrendered four goals in the final seven minutes of the last period.
We’ve been choking all season, but this game was by far the worst we’ve ever fucking played.
A complete disaster and more fuel for news outlets to say the Wings have collapsed and are never going to bounce back to the powerhouse team they used to be.
When a group of teenagers walks by, I pull my baseball cap down further. I can’t be recognized right now. Mostly because I don’t exactly recognize myself at the moment.
Normally, I can shake off losses no matter what and go back to being the motivator my team needs me to be, rebuilding Wings morale with pep talks and persuasive strategy sessions. Getting them to believe in themselves again. To laugh. Come back stronger.
But tonight?
I can’t muster any kind of positive words. I’m tired and annoyed, and all the mistakes we made on the ice replay in my head, draining me further. From hitting the post with the puck, to missing those three passes. And that fucking interference call…
Someone stops in front of my park bench. The one I’d told myself I’d sit on for ten minutes, but haven’t been able to leave for the last hour.
My body goes rigid with dread, because I can’t handle talking to a hockey fan in the mental state I’m in. They’ll want pictures or autographs or want to debate about the game, and I just can’t… I can’t handle it right now…
But it’s not a fan.
Wide combat pants tuck into lace up ankle boots. All dark lines and hard edges, right down to the flick of her smoky eyeliner. The shirt she’s wearing is long-sleeved and fitted, covering everything except two keyholes where brown skin peeks out near her clavicles. In her hands is a takeout bag.
“Gross, it’s you,” she says with no inflection in her voice.
I haven’t seen her in so long.
But normally the sight of her is instant warmth, carbonated bubbles floating inside me. Today? My muscles stiffen. “Sonya?”
Her eyes flick up and down as if noting my stooped posture. Then her head inclines. “That’s my name.”
My smile takes so much effort, my cheeks ache. I’m also trying to sit straighter. “What are you doing here?”
If possible, my question trips her up as if she wasn’t expecting to be asked that. Her lips part, then close. She blinks a few times. “Nothing. I was going for a walk. Spotted you and stopped…for no reason.”
Before I can say anything, she shifts her weight from one foot to another. “Oh yeah, and Quinn told me about the loss tonight.”
Despite my best efforts, I feel my smile partially dissolve. “Pretty sure most of the city knows about it considering how badly we bombed.”
“Well then,” says Sonya.
“Yup.”
I expect her to walk away, since that’s been her M.O. for a while now. We’ve been exchanging brief words in passing, and recently? She hasn’t come to any of our games, so I haven’t seen her at all.
Sonya keeps staring at me. I don’t know what she sees on my face, but her mouth tugs down further. Grumbling something under her breath, she sits down next to me. When a container of fries is brought out from her takeout bag, my eyes widen and my stomach plummets.
Any other day, I’d be fucking elated by this. Maybe this could’ve been the perfect time to tell her that I can’t stop thinking about her. About the fact that I haven’t been able to fuck anyone for a while. And there doesn’t seem to be a cure, but does she have any idea?
But no. I can’t say it, since I feel like garbage. Exposed and lost. My hand scrubs down my face and my foot taps erratically on the pavement.
Get it together. Sulking is ugly and selfish. Especially because you don’t deserve to complain about anything. Not with the life you have.
My chest jerks unevenly, before expanding out. “Hey, Sonya.”
“What?”
“A rough and tough hockey player finishes his drink at a bar and gets up to leave. A minute later, he’s back and telling everyone he’s going to have one more drink, but they have to use his hockey stick to—”
She pokes my shoulder. “What are you doing?”
“Wait for the punch line. It’s a funny joke.” One I’ve told enough times, I can repeat it without thinking too hard.
“Yeah, I bet,” she mutters. “But why are you telling it to me?”
Isn’t it obvious? “You’ll laugh.”
Her mouth twitches as she lifts an eyebrow. “When have you ever heard me laugh before?”
I shrug, trying to smile at her again. To smirk. To wink. Anything better than the bone-weary exhaustion that must be written on my face. “I mean, you’ll press your mouth together all tight like when you’re pretending you’re not amused.”
She picks up a fry. “Pass.”
Now I’m frowning. “Pass?”
“Yeah, I didn’t sit here to hear any bad jokes.”
Ouch. “Okay, then why are you here, darling?”
More defeat pinches my chest. Because why did I ask her that?
We’re sitting, finally alone, the glow of the city twinkling all around us.
I should see if she wants to grab a beer at the closest pub.
Or invite her for a walk on the Seawall.
At this time of night, the sunset is beautiful and paints the water pastel.
“I’m here…” She demolishes a few more fries. “Because I’m…hungry. And I need a place to eat.”
Why does she sound like she’s lying?
“Or you love my company, darling.” My chuckle is weak, but it’s a start.
She doesn’t even bother looking at me, digging out another fry. “Nope.”
Her honesty is a gut punch. Today, it somehow hits even harder. I’m still recovering from it when she leans back and finally looks at me again. Dark eyes are scrutinizing hard. Lingering.
“Do I, um, have something on my face?”
Sonya continues staring. “You seem…down.”
“I’m not,” is my automatic denial. “Let me finish my joke. It’s funny,” I insist, internally wincing at my tone because I sound more than a bit desperate.
Sonya waves a fry in the space between us. “What would you be doing if I hadn’t shown up?”
Not talking. Struggling.
“That doesn’t matter. You’d get bored—”
“Answer the question,” she demands in that familiar forceful way of hers. Her shoulders seem to have gone all tense. Her boots thump on the concrete, a fidgety tempo.
“I…”
She elbows me. “No, you’re trying to make something up. I can sense it.”
She can? How?
I try to wipe my expression clean. My brain continues to scramble, trying to find the right answer. Because I can’t tell her the truth. About the misery and frustration that’s been swirling through me ever since we lost tonight.
“Stop being difficult,” Sonya orders, letting out a frustrated exhale.
“I didn’t realize I was…”
“You are. You always are.”
“That’s. New.” Confusion washes through me. “I’ve been told I’m the least difficult person that people know.” It’s true. I will accommodate anything and everything I can for the sake of others. I pass every decision through this matrix of consideration, before making it.
Except…tonight.
Get it together, Adrian.
Once again, I’m telling myself to shake these feelings off and get back to being normal.
Sonya makes a derisive noise, then flicks me with her free hand. “The Wings lost badly. You can admit that sucks.”
“We’ll get back to being…”
My sentence fades off. Seriously? I can’t even come up with anything positive. Why, though? What makes tonight any different?
“Fine. Don’t tell me,” says Sonya, crossing her arms. “But save the jokes for next time, Hughes.” As if she can’t sit still and something is bothering her, she uncrosses her arms. Then she pushes the take-out bag closer to me. “Eat some fries.”
She doesn’t let me argue. A fry is forcibly pushed into my hand. I have no choice but to eat it. It’s crispy and delicious. And it makes me have another. Then another.
We continue eating together. Quietly.
And that makes everything a hundred times harder. Because I don’t experience a lot of them, but no silence has been like this one. It feels intimate. Safe?
Normally, I’m one of those people that always tries to keep the conversation going, but all I want to do is lay my head on Sonya’s shoulder and sit here.
I can’t.
Though, in lieu of that, words seem to unlock inside me.
“It did…suck,” I admit slowly.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
On the heels of that, comes another confession. One that surprises even me.
“I think I might be mad at Matt and Emmad for leaving the Wings, which makes no sense because they didn’t choose to leave us.
They got injured and had to retire, but ever since then, our teamwork on the ice has fallen apart.
We’re not cohesive—and I feel like shit admitting that, because again it’s not their fault.
They got injured. And…” My eyes close and I cover my mouth with my hand.
Through my fingers, I mutter a low and guilty, “Fuck.”
Sonya doesn’t say anything.
Good, because I’m too busy battling something else loosening inside me. Another bigger answer to why today I’m struggling so hard.
In the middle of tonight’s game, I thought I saw someone in the crowd. Short buzzed hair. Brown eyes. A vintage jersey.
Jesse Osler.
A ghost from my haunted past.
Except, it wasn’t him. My eyes were playing tricks on me. And I knew it couldn’t be him, but it knocked me off my game and has clung to me ever since.
My teeth grind. I rub the side of my forehead. I…don’t want to talk about that. Can’t talk about it. The pain is buried in me too deep.
Plus, it’s enough. Sonya has already gotten me to admit more than I ever thought was possible.
How did that happen? How does she do it?
She’s got this mysterious presence about her.
I want to tell the hardworking soldier that’s my heart to stand down for a little while so we can whisper and pour hidden parts of ourselves out.
The parts we think are too bent up to see the light, except when she’s around, I guess.
“I get it,” says Sonya softly. Her features soften by a degree.
“You…get it?”
She nods at me.
“You’re not judging me?”
“For that?” Her hand sticks around as if she’s about to poke me again, but instead she’s patting my knee. “Not even a little bit.”
My pulse stumbles as overhead, clouds begin to darken.
I take off my jacket and drape it over her shoulders.
“Wait—you don’t have to–” she stammers. Then after a moment, shrugs. “I don’t mind getting caught in the rain.”
That makes me smile. Genuinely. I can even wink. “If we were in a movie, this is when the rain would start, darling.”
On cue, thunder rumbles overhead.
Sonya groans.
I laugh. It’s a blunt, unexpected sound. I don’t know where the capacity comes from, didn’t think I had it in me tonight, but it rumbles my entire chest.
Fuck. Now I’m laughing?
This night is messing with me. And now I don’t know what to say.
As if food is the answer to any awkwardness, real or imagined, Sonya tells me to keep eating the fries.
We do. And I’m still not completely myself and haven’t found the Happy Adrian Hughes switch to turn back on for a continuous basis, but this? This is good. So good.
“Not telling jokes was the right call,” I admit, saying it like a confession. “This is peaceful.”
“You’re at peace? I’m secretly plotting.”
My shoulder nudges hers. “Plotting what?”
“Regular doom and gloom stuff,” she deadpans, nudging me back.
My breath hitches in my throat—and I’m dazed. My chest begins to ache and I’m wondering, is there any chance she’s interested in this? Because I’m so tired of flirting as if we’re only playing a game. As if I do this with other women when I don’t.
“Sonya?”
“Yeah.”
I look at her, tensing because am I really going to do this? To stop playing off what’s between us as a no-stakes fun game we play? “You should go out with me.” Anticipation makes my heart pound hard. “If you want?”
Fuck, wait. That makes it sound like I don’t care.
She doesn’t say anything.
“It’ll be a lot of fun,” I exclaim, jittery nerves hijacking my voice.
Fuck, now I sound like I’m a fuckboy selling it!
Her expression scrunches, but no words from Sonya.
Meanwhile, I’m dust. Nothing. Kaput. A pile of disembodied consciousnesses about to fall to the ground. I can’t mess this up, and here I am, fucking messing it up.
“I’d like to take you to dinner and get to know you,” I rush out sincerely. She has to know how important this is to me. I’m leaning forward towards her so much.
But too late, I’ve botched it.
Sonya stands up and gathers our trash. The fries are done, and so is she. Without making eye contact, she returns my jacket and says her goodbye. “No, thanks, Hughes. But I’ll see you around. Feel…better, okay?”
Water droplets fall from the sky.
She walks away in the rain.
My back slumps harder against the bench.
Her turning me down happens all the time between us. I should’ve predicted her rejection, but somehow it’s a blow this time, enough to make me bend over—
The noise of a happy couple jogging jerks me straight.
What am I doing?!
If any of the tabloids caught me in that pose, they’d splash the picture everywhere.
Adrian Hughes alone and sitting in the rain after a massive loss. Then what would my family think? Or the Wings? They’d all worry. Think something was wrong with me.
I know that without a doubt.
And how selfish would that be? I’m out here, forgetting how lucky I am. That anyone else would kill to have my life, to be the captain of the Wings.
Jesse would have loved it.
I get off the bench. And I force myself to move.
It’s the only way I know how to honor my best friend’s legacy. Not give up. Not even for a second. Because it’s Jesse who should be here, not me, living this dream.
Grief and guilt slice into me. Our season might be shit so far, but it’s not over. I have to be like Jesse and do what he would’ve wanted me to do. Going forward, I should be stronger. Clear-headed. Stubborn. Persistent. Optimistic. Determined.
It doesn’t matter if I don’t feel any of those things right now.
Or if a certain ballerina has pulled my heart apart, stepping over invisible carnage as she walked away.
Who cares that I don’t know how to cope with the fact that she doesn’t want me?
That it’s past time for me to get over her, but I don’t know how?
Because regardless, like always, I have to get it together and push ahead. Focus on the priorities I can’t ignore, and try to forget what I can’t have.