Chapter 2
Two
Tweetie
I’m in the back of an Uber on my way to our morning skate, scrolling through my phone to pass the time, when Aiden’s name flashes on the screen.
I slide my thumb over and bring the phone to my ear. “How’s the fam?”
I played with Aiden back in Florida. We’re roughly the same age, both refusing to hang up our skates. Thankfully, we’re still performing, but there’s no doubt our time is coming.
“Good,” he whispers.
“Why are you whispering?” I whisper back.
“I’m in the closet, packing my shit for an away game. Saige is on the phone in the bedroom.”
“Man, you’re taking whipped to a whole new level. You practically live in a mansion, and you can’t find a room to talk in where you’re not interrupting her?”
He scoffs, and I can’t help but laugh.
“Hey, I’m putting myself on the line right now.” He pauses. “Yeah, I’m almost done packing,” he calls out to who I assume is Saige.
I shake my head. “What’s going on with you?” A quick glance out the window tells me we’re getting closer to the rink.
“Saige is on the phone with Tedi.”
A knot forms in my throat. The moment has come, the one I’ve been dreading for years. Tedi’s engaged or maybe already married. Maybe even pregnant. Aiden’s whispering makes more sense to me now. Ever since Tedi and I were finished, we don’t discuss her when Saige is around. Tedi is Saige’s best friend, her ride or die, and to her, I’m the asshole who broke Tedi’s heart.
“Yeah?” I try to keep the dread and despair, the anger of envisioning her with someone else, out of my fucking tone.
“It’s not good,” he says softly, and I hear the sound of a zipper.
“Who is he?” I try to make it a little easier for Aiden because he’s a great friend to warn me before the news travels and people start looking at me with fucking pity.
“No, that’s not it.”
I straighten in the back of my rideshare, gripping my phone tighter. If it’s not about another guy, then why is Aiden in a closet, whispering, hiding whatever he’s about to tell me about Tedi so his wife doesn’t overhear?
My mind flashes to a million different scenarios. Is she hurt? Is she in the hospital? Is she sick? Fuck, last I knew, she worked for the national league out of New York. Did some asshole?—
“Did she get hit by a bus?” I ask.
My rideshare driver looks over his shoulder at me in a panic.
“That’s where your mind goes?” A door closes behind him.
“What do you expect? You’re being all vague and shit.” My anxiety is at an all-time high, and pretty soon I’m going to have to ask the rideshare driver to detour to the hospital if Aiden doesn’t fucking spill.
“I think you should address this issue. I can hear the panic in your voice.” Aiden is talking normally again. Why didn’t he shut the door to begin with?
“Just fucking tell me,” I grit out.
The rideshare driver pulls to the curb, and I give him a nod of thanks, grab my bag, and get out. On the curb, the cold wind of Chicago seeps into my bones. Fuck, Florida and Nashville definitely had better weather compared to this frozen tundra.
“No one’s reached out to you yet?” he asks.
“Fucking hell, Shamrock, just tell me already.” I linger outside, not wanting anyone else to see my reaction to whatever he’s about to tell me.
“Okay. Okay. Well, you know this new program with the league and how she heads it. Actually, did you know that? Shit, man, I should’ve told you, but things got crazy around here?—”
“I know. Jagger told me,” I interrupt. My agent sent me a text message the night we all went camping before the season started, and it was a gut punch I wasn’t prepared for. I was on fucking pins and needles until Gill Gregory showed up to our campaign. I thanked the universe for small favors that day.
“Okay, good, so you know she got that job and is in charge of the entire program?”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Unlike you sitting in the warm sun, I’m freezing my nuts off, so just tell me whatever you have to.”
He laughs. “Shit, man, as a Wisconsin boy, I can’t even imagine being back in those cold-ass winters.”
“Fuck you and your sun and your palm trees and your shorts in February.”
“My blood has thinned out?—”
“I don’t give a shit, why are you calling me?”
He laughs but sobers quickly. “I’m sorry, man, but your guy isn’t cutting it there, so she’s coming up to handle the Falcons’ campaign herself. She’s hopping on a plane tonight.”
My mouth opens, my bag sliding off my shoulder to the crook of my arm. “Meaning?”
“Sorry, babe, I’m coming. Just got a call quick. Yeah, I know…” Aiden continues talking to Saige in the background while I process what he just told me.
I thought I was in the clear. I thought I wouldn’t have to see her.
“You there?” Aiden asks, whispering again.
Saige is going to kick his ass if he keeps acting all secretive like he is now.
“Yeah. Thanks for letting me know.”
“That’s it? Do you want to talk about it?”
“Nah, it was ages ago. Surely we can coexist. We’re adults, right?”
“Sure.” The doubt in his tone matches what I’m feeling right now. “But?—”
“Thanks, Shamrock. Knock ’em dead tonight.”
“Hell, I’m going up against Cory, I need all the luck I can get, but seriously, Tweetie, if?—”
“I’m good. Go.”
He lingers on the line for a second. “Let’s get together after the season. A bunch of us are thinking about going tropical?—”
“Maybe. We’ll see. I gotta get inside, I think there’s an icicle hanging off my ball sac.” I open the door to the arena and step inside.
He laughs. “God, I miss you.”
I don’t say anything because I still have hurt feelings about my trade so many years ago. “Of course you do. Now go fuck your wife so good she’s not worried about how cagey you’re being by whispering in the closet.”
“Kids are home.”
“Sounds like a drag.” I nod toward the security guard, Mike.
“Does anyone up there know about your past with her?” He changes the subject because he’s concerned.
All of our friends are concerned anytime we might be thrown together. I already bow out of anything Aiden and Saige have because that’s Tedi’s domain. She tends to give me the same respect when it comes to Ford and Lena. She can have Kane and Jana since they screwed me over anyway with that trade from Florida. Tedi and I haven’t been able to coexist with our Florida friends since the demise of our relationship.
“A few, but they’ll be quiet about it.” Although our relationship was never a secret. For all I know, people are talking about it behind my back all the time. “I gotta go. Give Cory my best. Ever since he got out from under you, he’s had the star power.”
“No one made him stay as long as he did, and I don’t see you announcing your retirement.”
“They’ll have to drag me off the ice.”
Aiden laughs. “You, me, and Warner.”
“Fuck, we should do a trio one year. All of us go in one shot.”
He laughs. “You know someone will just come in and take over our spots.”
“They’ll never be as good as us.”
“Definitely not.” The phone muffles. “I know. I know.” He returns. “Okay, I’m here, and so is Ford and all the other guys if you need us. I know this isn’t going to be easy?—”
“Bye.” I cut him off.
“Tweetie.” His voice sounds as though there’s so much more he wants to say, but he can’t fix this situation for me.
I hang up and pocket my phone, chewing over the fact that my ex is going to be working with me. I haven’t seen Tedi in years, and I have no clue how this is going to work.