Chapter 23
twenty-three
. . .
Bex
Luke Henry grins, his arms outstretched. “Babe!”
I cross the five steps of the restaurant’s entrance in a hurry, burrowing into his barrel chest. He folds his arms around me, holding me close.
“It’s good to see you, B,” he says into my hair.
He’s a good six foot three, two hundred twenty pounds, and the sweetest cinnamon roll ever to exist. He pretends to be a playboy, and yeah, he sleeps around a fair bit, but he’s never once made me feel like one of his playthings.
Like he’s just interested in me for sex.
He treats me like a real person. Like he cares about me. Like I actually mean something.
And I fucking love it as much as I hate it.
Love it, because I’m severely lacking this sort of unconditional friendship in my life. Hate it, because it only serves to remind me of everything I’m missing and desperately want.
To my everlasting horror, a few tears leak from the corner of my eyes. To hide them, I bury my face in his neck, his skin warm and rough with stubble. His cologne is comforting, the scent branded into my brain as safe. He’s my protector. My bestie. He’ll never toy me around or do me wrong.
And not because my brother would kick his ass. Because he genuinely likes me for me, and not what I can do for him.
I missed the damn bastard. Why did he have to sign with Tampa and not with Boston? Doesn’t he know I need him here, with me?
“It’s good to see you too, Lukey.”
His warm chuckle rumbles through me. “Oh, don’t cry. I promise I’m not worth crying over.”
Although he’s pretending to joke, I know it’s what he truly believes, and I poke him between the ribs, hard. He flinches, his entire body spasming around me.
“Shut up with that. You know I don’t like when you talk that way.”
Seb’s hearty laugh sounds behind me. “Damn. Finally someone who knows how to put you in your place.”
Luke grins, shifting his arm around my shoulders. “She’s good at that.”
The tension eases from his body, and I watch as my goaltender embraces his brother, followed by Audrey wrapping her arms around him.
She cuffs Luke on the back of his head. “You don’t write, you don’t call… You can’t even send a carrier pigeon?”
“Audrey,” he whines. “You know what the season’s like.”
“I do. And that’s why I know you promised to keep in touch, and you haven’t fucking kept your part of the deal.” She kisses his cheek. “Don’t worry, I forgive you. This time.”
Seb laughs, reaching for his wife’s hand. “Be nice, Auds. If we’re too hard on him, he might never leave. You know he likes when you’re mean.”
Luke rolls his eyes at his brother’s good-natured teasing. “Yeah, yeah, it’s make fun of Luke night.”
“You mean every night,” he shoots back.
“How about some dinner?” I cut in. It’s always a toss-up whether they’ll laugh or throw punches. Tonight, they seem to be in a good mood, but I’ve seen how quickly cajoling can turn into a fistfight with the Henry brothers.
The restaurant’s host is waiting expectantly. He seems relieved when we finally approach, and in short order, we’re whisked away to a quiet corner in the back, where nobody can fawn over the two NHL superstars.
There have been a few articles published about my being related to Wyatt, how his career and mine intersect.
Since I work for the team, and am young (and female) for my position, I get a decent amount of media attention.
It’s exponentially more intense when I spend time with Luke.
The press—and the internet comment section—always think there’s more going on than there is.
Joke’s on them, though, because we are friends. Great friends. A questionable pair, maybe, the twenty-four-year-old hotshot hockey player and the thirty-one-year-old neuroscience nerd. But we complement each other. Nobody else has to understand it. We do.
Dinner is excellent—the food good, the company better. Seb and Luke joke and tease each other, and Audrey gets in on the action, too, taunting both her husband and brother-in-law in equal measure.
I’m overcome by this overwhelming sense of comfort. Of unconditional love and acceptance. Seb never blinked at Luke’s and my friendship; all four Henry brothers welcomed me into their family with open arms. And I couldn’t be more thankful.
After dinner, Seb and Audrey head back to their place—they have a newborn at home—and Luke and I hit a bar downtown that I know a few of the Grizzlies like.
Not the hipster bar Ceci and I have frequented. This one is a smoky, sultry speakeasy with live jazz music and a chill vibe. It’s the type of place where Luke and I can disappear into the night, nobody hassling us.
We sit at a table for two, catching up and drinking the night away until we’re stumbling out of there in the early hours of the morning, hanging off each other. Luke sees me off in my rideshare, waving in the rearview mirror until he’s a tiny speck of dust.
I’m tipsy, but still functional, a hazy fogginess clouding the corners of my mind. It dulls some of the ever-present inner monologue running through my head. I feel surprisingly empty, though. Not in a physical sense. More in a soul-crushing, full-body numbness sort of way.
My sheets still smell of Nick’s woodsy cologne. The pillow has lost its indent from his head, and the place where he slept is cold, but his presence in my tiny apartment can’t be denied. He left his mark. I couldn’t erase him even if I wanted to.
He left before breakfast. The oven timer went off, he pulled the food out, and then he bounced. He didn’t want to stay, and I didn’t know how to ask him to. Not after baring my soul.
I was fully clothed, but I was stripped bare. There’s no way to recover from that.
Now, my buzz is wearing off, my head’s getting tender, and there’s nobody there to take care of me. To make sure I take my meds, to put me to bed, to hold me all night long.
I’ve wanted someone to come home to. I’ve wanted a partner. But I never once considered that maybe… I want him.
I shouldn’t. Our history being what it is, I don’t know how it would ever work. If it would ever work. But the more I think about it, the more I want to try.
What if I put myself out there and he turns me down? What if he’s only being nice to me for Elsy’s sake, and not for my own? I’ve laid it all out on the line—what if it turns him off? If he runs away screaming?
He didn’t that day. But that doesn’t mean he won’t. I must exude repellent from my pores, because nobody ever sticks around.
Sure, I’ve got Ceci. Wyatt and Elsy. Vanessa and Audrey. Robby and Amelia and Riley. Luke and Seb.
But my parents? They only have criticism. The men I’ve dated? They only wanted one thing.
And it was never me. Not the real me. A fictionalized, idealized version of the perfect daughter or perfect girlfriend, sure. The kind of impossible standards I tried to live up to for way too many years, always failing, never happy.
I’m done with that. Done with them.