Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
Morning After
ELI
I woke up smiling.
I didn’t think that had ever happened to me in my entire twenty-seven years of existence.
Anyone who knew me well knew that I was far from ever being considered a morning person.
I enjoyed sleeping an extra fifteen minutes past the alarm, and it required a good half hour for my brain to wake up and for me to become a functioning human being again.
It was no surprise why I woke up so happy, though. And I was excited to explore that reason even further.
I rolled over, excited to press myself against the handsome man who had… what the hell? Where was Gabe?
There was only empty space next to me. I sat up and looked toward the bathroom. The door was open, and the light was off, no sounds of the shower, either. Had he gone downstairs to get us breakfast? I considered that possibility until I realized his suitcase was gone.
What the actual hell?
A note on the nightstand caught my eye. I grabbed it and immediately recognized Gabe’s handwriting from the times he’d write on the whiteboard in the locker room.
Eli, I’m so sorry for leaving like this.
I didn’t want to wake you up. I got a call at five this morning that needs my attention.
I’ll explain more the next time I see you.
I’m sorry. Emmy already knows I won’t be playing this weekend.
He’s also going to be changing your room so you can stay with him. I’ll see you in Burlington.
My heart dropped. What happened that Gabe had to rush out of here without even waking me up? I wouldn’t have cared. I would have gone back to sleep, but at least I would have been able to tell him goodbye, that I could help if he needed anything.
A darker thought pushed up into my skull like a thorny weed.
What if he was lying? What if last night was a letdown for him and he just needed to get away from me?
Or maybe it had made him realize he didn’t even like men, that he was actually straight?
It wasn’t logical at all—especially not with how into it he had clearly been—but sometimes my thoughts got stuck on the illogical and circled it like a dog chasing its tail.
Relentless and stupidly thinking the chase of a toxic thought would actually get me somewhere when in reality, it had me stuck in place.
The fact of the matter was that Gabe had left.
The next two nights of hot and passionate sex I had been picturing vanished in a puff of smoke.
Maybe that, too, was for the best, because even though I didn’t let Gabe fuck me last night, I also didn’t do a good job of keeping him from getting under my skin.
Clearly not if I was feeling this disappointed about not having him around for the rest of the weekend.
“Ugh,” I said, rubbing my face before getting out of bed. “This fucking sucks.”
I shuffled to the bathroom and started to get ready for the gym. If I wasn’t going to get my frustrations out with a naked Gabe, then I’d do it with a set of heavy weights.
Besides, we had two games to focus on. I had to clear my head. Lock in.
And, maybe most important of all, I had to keep Gabe locked out.
I rolled my suitcase down the bumpy cobblestone path toward a shade-covered table. Emmy sat there, sipping on his coffee and looking out at the river. The Spanish moss hung down like a curtain ready to close around him.
“Hey,” I said. “Coffee any good?”
“It’s as good as the view.” He smiled as I sat across from him. I sipped on my own coffee.
“Yeah, I agree, it’s pretty damn good.”
Our bus wasn’t supposed to get here for another half hour, and I’d been driving myself crazy, stuck inside the hotel room.
I was bored with mindlessly scrolling on my phone, and I couldn’t really get into the one book I was reading, which happened to feature a star-crossed romance plot between two FBI agents.
Wasn’t really in the mood for much pining and swooning, and the action scenes were too short.
I flipped through all the channels on the TV and found nothing, not even a good Forensic Files episode or an entertaining hockey game.
I resorted to sitting at the small wooden desk next to an air-conditioning unit and flipping through a magazine about the city of Savannah and all it had to offer.
Emmy must have sensed my anxious mood (he did have eyes, after all) because he offered to grab a coffee and some fresh air with me, which I very much appreciated.
We won our first game and suffered an embarrassing loss for the second.
A variety of factors were at play. Not having Gabe on the ice was a big one, even though his replacement held his own.
I made some rookie mistakes in the second game that I was sure were going to come up in the video review, and I was ready to get chewed out by the coach.
They were stupid mistakes: I lost the puck three times and threw a panic clear right down the middle.
Even more surprisingly was Emmy’s performance on the ice.
He was usually so controlled and intentional with his plays, and he became one with the ice on his blades, but last night, he’d seemed off for some reason.
It wasn’t like him. I wasn’t sure what was going on with Emmy, but I knew exactly what was happening with me.
I just couldn’t fucking focus. Gabe had me messed up.
I found myself thinking about him all weekend.
I had texted him to make sure he got home safe, and we talked a little bit more.
He apologized and promised he’d make up for it, which did make me feel better, but I still had a nagging feeling that something was off. That I was making a mistake somehow.
It was stupid of me to get so hung up on a guy I could never have, to have it affect my performance in a sport that was my entire life.
You can’t even break into the NHL. You’ll never get there.
I swallowed the acid aftertaste of that memory.
My ex-boyfriend was brutal with his words when he was angry.
And he didn’t even have to be angry at me, yet the blisteringly hurtful comments would somehow end up being aimed at me.
He could have had five consecutive long days at work—he was an ER doctor, so those days were common—and then be upset at me for overcooking the pasta we were supposed to have for dinner.
Then the tirade would begin, the shouting and pointed attacks meant to hurt and belittle.
I’d quickly shut down. He would be spurred on by my silence.
Over and over again. My self-confidence had taken a brutal blow after enduring that for four years.
Interestingly enough though, the longer I played with these guys and this team, the less my desire to jump to the NHL became.
“You know, I got married not too far from here,” Emmy said, still looking at the river as though he hadn’t dropped a pretty big reveal.
I had no idea Emmy was married—or had been married?
“My wife’s family and friends were all based here.
I had met her when I was playing one of these games against the Sharks, actually.
She was at the bar the team went to after our wins.
Anyway, met her and proposed to her three months later.
Then got married a year later, on December twentieth, actually. ”
“Holy shit, Emmy, that’s coming up. Next week.”
“It is. It’s why I played like shit yesterday. I won’t be able to celebrate it—Cassie died last year.”
My heart cracked in half. “Oh no, oh Emmy. Fuck. I’m so sorry.”
He swallowed, his golden-brown eyes pinned on a riverboat that slowly drifted down the river.
He always had a stoic, stone-faced expression, but I could see the raw pain in the way his jaw twitched and his eyes shut.
“I’m still not sure I can even accept it’s real.
That she’s actually gone. It was a car accident, so it was sudden, zero warning.
One day, I woke up with her laughing about a silly dream she had, and then a couple hours later, I was being told I’d never see her again. ” His throat bobbed with emotion.
I was speechless. It was a wonder Emmy even made it through one game this weekend, let alone two.
No wonder he was so quick to anger in the rink last night.
If I were him, I’d be angry at the world too, wanting to smash my stick straight down into the ice and tear the entire arena in half.
“Fuck, Emmy.” I wish I could offer something more, some sort of solution to his pain, but there was nothing I could do except reach over and squeeze his shoulder.
“She was an incredible woman, the perfect wife, would be at every game. I just wish she was still here.” Emmy’s eyes glistened as a tear spilled over, running down his cheek.
“She was a hockey fan, huh?”
“Big-time. Loved it even before we met. She could never get over her fear of getting hurt, so she never played, but she loved watching me and supporting.”
“Did you guys have a honeymoon?” I asked, wanting to shine light on the positive memories they shared together.
“We spent a week in Thailand. Best fucking week of my life. I’ll never forget that time we had over there.”
“What kind of—” A rustling in the nearby bush stopped me short of asking my question.
Emmy and I both turned to look. It sounded way too large to be a bird or a squirrel.
Nothing appeared, though. I turned back around, more concerned about making sure Emmy felt okay than about whatever raccoon was rummaging around for scraps of food. “Anyways, what kind of things did—”
Emmy’s eyes opened wide as he looked over my shoulder. “Eli, stand up slowly and turn around.”
“Huh?”
“Just do it. Don’t make any sudden movements.”
The hair on the back of my neck rose to pinprick points. Goose bumps erupted up my arms as I stood. I listened to Emmy, slowly turning around, unsure of what I’d see and shocked when I did.
A wolf. It was a large one, probably reached up to my hip in height, with tawny white fur and a black muzzle with black-tipped ears, one of them scarred, as if a chunk of it had been bitten off. The wolf took a step closer to us, its teeth bared in a vicious snarl.
Emmy went to stand in front of me, moving with a confidence and quickness that showed zero fear.
He puffed his chest out and kept his hands at his side.
The wolf looked up at Emmy and let go of a menacing growl.
It lowered itself, poised to jump. My mouth went dry.
Holy fucking shit. Should I be shouting for help?
Making some kind of scene to try and scare this thing away?
Before I could snap myself out of my frightened stupor, I heard a sound come from Emmy. It almost sounded like the same growl the wolf had just given us, except deeper, more intense.
The wolf suddenly gave a whimper and pinned its ears down to the back of its head. It took a couple of steps backward before it whipped around and bolted into the same shrubs it had appeared from. Even with the danger gone, though, my pulse wouldn’t slow down. I looked to a calm-looking Emmy.
“What the… holy shit. Are you a wolf whisperer?”
“Growing up, I used to watch a lot of Discovery Channel. Learned how to scare them away in those survival shows.” Emmy grabbed the handle of his suitcase.
I noticed there wasn’t even a slight tremble in his hand.
He really wasn’t very fazed at all by what just happened.
“We should head back inside. I think our ride should be here by now.”
Still a little breathless, I grabbed my suitcase and followed Emmy back into the hotel lobby, looking over my shoulder and half expecting the wolf to jump out of a bush and finish the job. I had a lot of questions swirling around in my head, but one of them kept taking center stage:
Why the hell do I keep seeing wolves everywhere?