Chapter 54
Fifty-Four
Tedi
As we often do now, Tweetie and I make up some excuse to sneak off before boarding the plane. One of us grabs a snack, and the other one goes to the bathroom, or some version of that. No matter what, we’re usually the last ones to get on the plane. Tweetie usually leads us down the jetway with his hand on my back. The best is when he places his hand low and his fingers cover my ass.
After we had phone sex, the line I’m trying to draw in the sand is getting washed away. Not that I’m crazy for sex, but more because I want to be with him. I crave being able to go up to him whenever I want and touch him, kiss him. Sex is just a really big added bonus.
I continue down the plane aisle as he slides into his normal seat with Conor, Henry, and Rowan. I’m just getting situated when Conor comes over and hands me a box. “Eloise wanted me to give you this. She said it was meant for you.”
I take the small box. “Thanks. I’ll send her a quick text to thank her.”
“Oh, um… she’s with a really big client, so maybe wait until we land.” He’s jittery, but I just smile and thank him again.
The nice thing about where I sit is that there usually isn’t anyone across from me. Sometimes we have extra people like press or staff who don’t always go to games, but the space gave me privacy to interview the other players who, thanks to Bud, aren’t getting any publicity on the team.
The box isn’t wrapped in paper, but it’s a designer box with a ribbon around it. I hope Eloise didn’t spend a fortune on something for me. I untie the bow and place the ribbon on the seat next to me before lifting the lid to the box.
Pushing through the red tissue paper, I see two journals. Tweetie’s journals. The ones I gave him for Christmas the year before we broke up. He’d always used those black-and-white composition ones, and I’d make fun of him for it, while he’d joke about my fancy journals and colored pens.
My hand runs over the worn leather with a small heart in the bottom right corner. I wasn’t going to put his initials on it, and it felt weird putting my name on it, so I settled on a small embossed heart.
I pick it up out of the box. There’s no note or anything. I open it, and the first entry is dated the day I declined his proposal. I shut it and pull out my phone since we haven’t pulled away from the gate yet.
I can’t.
You said no flowers.
I took it back.
Please?
This is private.
Nothing is private when it comes to you.
The plane pushes back from the gate.
Tweetie…
Please. I love you, Tedi, and I want you to read it.
It’s a long flight.
Okay.
We’re on our way to Anaheim, and he’s right, we have a long flight.
As the plane barrels down the runway, I take a deep breath and open his journal. I’m not sure if my stomach dropping is from the plane or the words at the top of the page.
To my teenage self,
Our worst nightmare just came true, and I’m not sure where we go from here.
I knew he wrote to his younger self, but reading it makes me feel Tweetie’s pain. The way he’s almost telling his younger self, like, “Hey, look at us and what a fuckup we are.” The disappointment Tweetie feels when writing, how he made a mistake or messed up is soul-crushing. He’s told me stories about his dad and how messed up of a teenager he was. That if it wasn’t for hockey, he never would’ve gotten his life together.
Tears fill my eyes as I read how much he hurt just like me in those days and weeks and months after our breakup. How he fought himself from coming after me. Telling himself he didn’t deserve me, that he loved me enough not to drag me back into the fucked-up world of him being in professional sports and all that came with it. And then at some point, there’s a shift, and he seems to come out of his grief enough to see that he has to move forward.
If he didn’t play hockey, what else could he do? He never finished college, didn’t have a degree, so how would he support himself? With hockey, he could give his mom the life she’d always deserved.
It was the last entry before he seemed to turn things around that made a fresh set of tears fall down my cheeks.
I have to trust that the universe isn’t done with us yet—that Tedi isn’t just a memory, but a part of my story still being written. Maybe we’re just caught in some in-between, a pause instead of an ending. And one day, when the timing is finally right, she’ll be mine again.
Until that day comes, I’ll wait. And as I wait, I’ll become the man she deserves—the best version of myself, for her.
I pick up the other journal, stuffing the one I’ve read in my bag.
The pilot announces that we’re landing, so I put the second journal in my bag and pack up the rest of my stuff. I have no idea how I’ll face him now or on the bus. All I want to do is get to my hotel room and read the rest of his journal.
The plane lands, and I don’t have to worry because Tweetie doesn’t try to interact with me. I end up talking to one of the trainers on the bus. By the time I get in the lobby, I hear Conor tell Tweetie what room they’re in as they walk to the elevator.
Is he embarrassed or just giving me space? I have no idea.
I don’t unpack or even take off my jacket before I throw myself in the chair in my room and pull out the second journal to continue reading.
This one starts off as he’s working to make his spot on the team. Most of the entries talk about making “them” eat their words, and I’m pretty sure he’s talking about Jana and Kane. How he’s going to make the biggest comeback and fuck everyone who didn’t believe in him. They’re anger-filled entries, and I don’t recognize Tweetie in any of them. I underestimated the chip on his shoulder—it was more like a chunk.
I freeze when I see the entry from the morning after Ford’s retirement party.
We had her for one perfect night before a choice I made a year ago came back to destroy our chance. One impulsive decision was made because I couldn’t handle the questions, because I thought erasing the past would help me move forward. Instead, it was the final nail in the coffin. The moment I removed that tattoo, I severed something I didn’t even realize was still holding us together.
I get it now. It was more than ink—it was a promise. And now she’s gone, buddy. That future we dared to hope for? It vanished the second she walked away. And she’s never coming back. I feel numb and stupid and so goddamn pissed at myself.
I’m sorry. I really am. But love just isn’t in the cards for us, not in this lifetime. We’re not built for fairy tales, for that ride-off-into-the-sunset kind of love.
The hurt will fade. It has to. Because if it doesn’t, I don’t know how we’ll survive.
I read some more entries through the years that passed, though there aren’t many. Most of them talk about how numb he feels, how he tries to mask it around other people so they only see the fun-loving, charming man he wants them to.
Then I reach an entry that’s dated a few months back, when I first arrived in Chicago.
It’s been three years, and she’s just as breathtaking as the last time we saw her. I swore I’d never write her name in these pages again, but here I am—because Tedi Douglas is back in our life. And the second I saw her, I swear my heart remembered how to beat. The numbness faded. and color bled into my vision again.
It took every ounce of control not to pull her into my arms, not to drown in the scent that feels like home. She’s the same sharp-witted, impossible woman we fell for. Fate, the universe, god, someone keeps throwing us back together, and I don’t know why. But I do know that I’d be a fool to waste this chance.
I have no idea how to make her mine again, no way of undoing the past. But if I don’t try, I’ll regret it for the rest of our life. A future without her isn’t a future at all. So wish me luck, buddy, because I’m going all in. One last shot at our one and only love.
What am I doing taking it slow and waiting? He loves me, and I love him. And sure, at points, that wasn’t enough, but we’re not who we were then. And all his painful words confirm to me that trying to convince myself I never mattered to him was misguided.
I pick up both journals, leave my room, and take the stairs one flight up, going to the room I heard Conor tell him they were assigned.
I knock, a lump in my throat and hope in my chest.
We’re going to make it this time.