Chapter 13 Maybe Your Laugh, Maybe Your Smile—Whatever It Was, It Made Me Fall Pretty Damn Hard
Maybe Your Laugh, Maybe Your Smile—Whatever It Was, It Made Me Fall Pretty Damn Hard
Wyatt
Aria’s eyes are bright green. You can’t miss them. Doesn’t matter how fast I skate past; it doesn’t matter how many people are standing around her. Her eyes burned themselves into my mind years ago, and seeing them now, even just a suggestion of their green, attracts my own like two magnets.
I dig my blades into the ice and stop. My shoulder objects with serious pain.
For a second everything goes black and then just blurry.
I grimace and gasp for air. A few seconds later my sight’s back to normal.
Owen gets the puck, but fuck it. She’s there, in her overalls and that flannel shirt that used to be mine; her hair is in a casual bun, loose strands falling into her face to tickle her freckles, and all I can think is, This is how everything began between us, Aria. You remember?
Her lips form my name. The look on her face, the way she’s breathing the syllables, her green eyes big and round—porra, it all just wipes me out.
A sound that I can’t define any farther escapes my mouth.
A mixture of love, longing, and pain. No one can hear it, but a white cloud forms in the air in front of me.
A shrill sound sweeps across the ice and breaks our eye contact. Blinking, I look around. My teammates glide over to me and gather in a cluster as they trudge through the gangway door.
With the fist of my good arm, I punch Caden in the shoulder. “What just happened?”
When Caden grins, I notice blood on his mouth guard. Paxton’s elbow caught him in the face. He takes his guard out, drool sticking to his hand. “I can’t tell you, man. You were paralyzed by a dark-haired gal in a flannel shirt.”
“Funny.”
He takes off his helmet and smirks. “Owen got a goal, and now we’ve got a break. But, tell me, Lopez, who’s the slice?”
My skates glide across the ice as, one by one, our teammates slip through the door. “Don’t refer to her that way.”
“Only if you tell me who she is.”
Rolling my eyes, I take out my mouth guard and leave the ice. Caden steps into the locker room behind me.
“My ex.”
His eyes widen. “No way.”
“Why not?”
His eyes dart to Aria who is pushing her way through the crowd with Harper to reach the players.
Why is she doing that? That was never her thing.
“She’s hot, dude. Why aren’t you together anymore?”
Cause I fucked up.
“Long story.” My tone makes it clear that I’m in no mood to talk to him about my Aria.
So he just nods and turns to a bouncing fan with pink hair, who shrieks and holds out her arm with a Sharpie.
This is one of the reasons why I love being a player.
This openness toward the fans. Most NHL teams do their utmost to stay cut off, especially in big towns like Vancouver or New York, but here in Aspen we do things differently.
Two steps farther in, another girl bends her upper body over the railing.
At first I don’t realize what she’s up to until I feel her fingers close around my wrist. Adrenaline floods through my body because I wasn’t expecting to be touched and I don’t want Aria to notice.
So I snatch my hand away and stare at the girl with wide-open eyes.
She looks hurt. Next to me, Xander rebukes me with a warning look, and he’s right.
Our fans are behind our success. Zayne drills that into every player from day one.
Sighing, I wipe a hand across my face, put on a smile, and turn back to the blond. “Sorry. Was just surprised.”
She takes a deep breath and gushes forth her next sentence in a single breath. “You are even hotter IRL than in your Insta photos!”
“Umm. Thanks?”
With a cute look on her face, she digs around in her bag before pulling out a Sharpie and holding it under my nose. “Can I get an autograph?”
“Of course.” I take the marker and pull off the top. “Where?”
She pulls down the collar of her shirt and squeezes her breasts upward. “Here!”
Zayne wants us to be nice to our fans. Okay. I can do that. But I won’t do something like this. “Nope. Sorry, but your body belongs to you.”
She runs her tongue across her lips. “It can belong to you, if you want.”
“No, thanks. And it shouldn’t.” I take hold of her wrist before turning it and leaving my name behind on her forearm.
But encountering Aria’s eyes right after, I know she caught every word.
I wipe my hand across my sweaty neck and attempt a smile, just for her, just for us—but in a breath, she turns away.
Harper is tugging at the arm of our right winger. “Hey, Paxton.”
He turns around. “Hi.”
“My friend Aria and I,” she says, pointing her thumb at Aria while saying her name slowly and deliberately, “just wanted to say how good you were out there.”
“Thanks. But training isn’t over yet.” He laughs. “Still time to screw up.”
“I doubt it,” Aria mumbles. She’s speaking so quietly I can hardly catch what she’s saying. Owen nudges me, wanting me to move on. Sorry, Owen, never ever. I’m aware that I’m standing in the way and staring at my ex, but not even the trophy could get me into the locker room right now.
With a grin, Harp puts her hands on her hips. “Unless you drank too much at a certain Halloween party.”
HOLY SHIT.
That’s why Aria’s here. Because of Paxton. Her presence irritated me so much that my mind was unable to put the individual pieces of the puzzle together. For a wild moment, I even thought she was here because of me.
What a joke, Wyatt. What a joke.
Paxton leans against the plexiglass. Wrinkling his forehead, he raises a brow. “Well, actually, yesterday…”
“My shirt,” I say out loud.
Harper, Paxton, and Aria look at me quizzically.
I point at Aria. “You’re wearing my shirt.”
She looks down. Her fingertips stroke the checked fabric. “I didn’t realize that.”
“That’s not true. Of course you did.”
Ladies and gentlemen, this is the dumbest goddamn diversion tactic the world has ever seen.
Aria’s ears turn red. She glares at me. God, how much I’ve missed them, those glowing red-rage ears of hers.
Every time I made her angry, it happened, and every time she could never keep it up for long because I’d grab her, bury my hands in her hair, and kiss her so intimately, so hotly, that she’d forget why she was angry, that she’d forget how to be angry with me in the first place.
I’d pick her up, put her against the wall, and enjoy feeling her lips swell and grow warmer the longer I kissed her.
I’m on the verge of doing it again.
“You want it back?” she asks, her forehead lined, eyebrows tight. “Nice, Wyatt. Nice. No problem. I’ll do that. Right here. Because I don’t want to wear anything that once belonged to you.”
Her fingers are trembling with rage. She’s having a bit of trouble getting her overalls free and, as a result, is becoming even more upset. Harper looks at her, concerned. I, on the other hand, have to keep myself from smiling.
Then she manages, and the straps slide off her shoulders. She tears off the shirt, throws it at my feet, and crosses her arms in front of her chest. “There you go.”
“Ari,” I say, quietly, my voice quivering. “Put the shirt back on. It’s cold as hell in here. You’re gonna freeze.”
“I don’t want it. I don’t want a thing from you.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Paxton looking from me to Aria and back.
Suddenly he pushes back off the plexiglass and raises his arms. “All good, peeps. Something’s going on here that I don’t want anything to do with.
” Walking past me, he pats me on one of my shoulder pads.
“Get moving, rookie. We want to go over a few things.”
He leaves. Aside from Caden and Xander, I’m the only one still out in the corridor. The fans are calling out my name, reaching out their arms, but I only have eyes for Aria.
Harper’s glaring at me now, too. “Why are you even talking to her at all? Fuck off, Lopez.”
Aria purses her lips. “Harp.”
“Only when she puts the shirt back on.”
Harper throws her hands into the air. “Why didn’t you just keep it, seeing that it’s yours and all?”
My lips break into a grin. “She knew. Why did you put it on when you ‘don’t want anything to do with me’?”
“Harper chose it for me.”
“As if you never objected to anything Harp wanted to do.”
Aria swallows. She’s fighting tears.
My body reacts automatically. “Hey.” I take a step toward her and move to touch her cheek, but she flinches so violently that I pull my arm back. “All good. All good, Ari. I’m going. But please, please don’t cry.”
“That’s what you’re saying now, Wyatt.” Her face is spotty, and her lips are trembling. “But you’re the reason why. You are always the reason why.”
“I’m sorry.”
Harper balls her hands into fists and punches me in the chest. “Just go, Wyatt!”
I hesitate. But when I see how difficult it is for Aria to keep herself together, how much I am hurting her by simply standing here and looking at her, I get a grip. I pick the shirt up off the ground and move to give it to her, but she takes a step back. So I turn around and go.
As soon as I’m out of sight, I press my nose into the fabric and breathe in her perfume.
It fogs my mind. That’s how things go with Aria.
She fogs my mind whenever she looks at me, whenever she laughs, whenever she sneaks into my heart and it begins to tickle, soft, real soft, because the most intense feelings always come softly.
Back in the player’s area, I go to my locker and stuff the shirt into my bag before anyone can talk to me.
Owen is lying on a bench, one of his legs dangling, the other up on the wood, tossing the puck back and forth with Caden, who is leaning against the wall.
Samuel is bending over, and Paxton is laughing about something or other that Xander’s showing him on his phone.
Pulling my water bottle out of my bag and downing about half in one go, Paxton looks up.
“Yo, Lopez. What the hell was that all about?”