Chapter 37
AVERY
Peyton wasn’t in bed when I opened my eyes the next morning.
For a second, I was worried, but the sound of the shower running calmed me back down.
He did have to go to the morning skate, after all, and that wasn’t a practice he could get away with bailing on.
I was just amazed I’d slept through his alarm; he used the same alarm tone I did, so it should’ve woken me up too.
Huh. Weird.
Then again, I’d slept pretty damn hard. I hadn’t noticed Peyton getting up, either, so… whatever. I couldn’t complain after a night like that.
But a minute or so after the shower stopped, the alarm did go off.
My head snapped toward the beeping phone. What the hell? Maybe he’d forgotten to turn off his second and third alarms?
I grabbed the phone to shut it off. On the screen:
Morning skate Alarm 1
I couldn’t unlock his phone to see if his second alarms were set, but I could at least shut off this one. If the others went off, well, I’d deal with those.
After I’d put his silenced phone on the nightstand again, I sat up and peered at the closed bathroom door. While I couldn’t quite explain the knot of worry forming in my gut, I couldn’t ignore it either. Peyton always needed two or three alarms before he got up.
Yesterday had been perfect. Why was I so sure today was about to be very, very different?
I was pulling on some sweats when he came out of the bathroom.
He, too, had on sweats and a T-shirt, which didn’t help me unwind that knot of worry.
At most, he’d wear a towel around his waist on the way out of the bathroom, and that was only when he hadn’t completely dried off.
Otherwise, he strolled around naked just like I did.
Something was up.
It could wait until we had some coffee, though.
Coward.
Yeah, probably.
But I did need the caffeine to clear my head, so whatever. In silence, we went downstairs, and I made some coffee while Peyton pulled out a couple of slices of leftover pizza.
“Breakfast of champions?” I asked, testing the water.
He laughed, but it sounded forced.
“Come on.” I tipped my head toward the living room. “Let’s sit. My hip is still annoyed about yesterday.”
The nod to yesterday’s marathon sexcapade should’ve prompted a chuckle with some actual feeling. Or at least a little grin.
Nothing.
But he did join me in the living room, and silence hung between us as we drank our coffee and he ate his pizza. I kind of wanted to get him talking now, but he did have to skate, which meant he needed to eat. This could wait a few minutes, if only so he didn’t faceplant on the ice later.
When he’d finished, he took his dishes into the kitchen. He put his plate in the dishwasher, then topped off his coffee. I was relieved that he returned to the living room, but unsettled by the ongoing silence, not to mention how he struggled to even look in my direction.
Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. And he had to leave soon, so we either did this now, or it had to wait until after tonight’s game.
“Hey,” I said tentatively. “You’re kind of on another planet. What’s going on?”
He chewed his lip and stared into his coffee.
“Did I do something wrong?”
His head snapped toward me and he seemed poised to tell me I hadn’t, but that second of hesitation didn’t leave much to the imagination.
My stomach wound around itself. “What did I do?”
Peyton exhaled and dropped his gaze. “It’s not that… I mean, you didn’t…” He closed his eyes. After a moment, he admitted, “I keep thinking about what you said last night.”
“What I said—” My teeth snapped shut and my spine straightened. “Oh. Did I… Fuck, did I jump the gun and say it too soon?”
Peyton shook his head slowly. “No.”
I watched him, completely confused and this close to panicking. “Then?”
His shoulders fell, and he put his coffee cup on a coaster. Raking his hand through his hair, he finally spoke, and he sounded defeated. “I’m… worried you’re not really in love with me.”
My heart dropped into the pit of my stomach. “What? Of course I am! What does that even mean?”
He met my gaze. “It means you told me you loved me right after you said you were grateful I’d helped you into rehab.”
“Yeah? And? I am grateful for that. Shouldn’t I be?”
“It’s not that. It’s—” Peyton scratched the back of his neck and sighed as he met my gaze with tired, bloodshot eyes. “Would you love me like this if things had played out differently?”
“Differently? What things?”
Peyton took a breath. “If we… hadn’t ended up linemates this season.” His expression begged me to put two and two together.
At first, I couldn’t make the connection.
But then I did, and my heart sank deeper than I’d thought possible. We were linemates because there’d been a vacant spot for a first line center. Because our first line center had been very suddenly gone.
I struggled to find my voice, and somehow managed to croak, “You think this”—I gestured at the two of us—“is just because Leif is gone? And, what? Because I fell apart over that and you helped me get back on my feet?”
“I…” He chewed his lip, staring down at his hands.
“Look, we were both attracted to each other before I came here. So maybe something would’ve happened, you know?
But everything that did happen, it was because of…
” He paused, and his shoulders dropped. “Fuck. There’s no way to say it without sounding like I’m accusing you of anything or like I don’t trust you.
I do trust you. I…” He pushed out a breath as he met my gaze.
“I’m worried you’re not really in love with me.
You’re in love with something that feels better than everything you’ve been going through. ”
My lips parted. “That’s… That’s really what you think this is? I don’t have feelings for you—I’m just grabbing on to the first good thing that came along?”
Peyton winced and avoided my eyes again. “I’m saying I don’t know. And I’m not sure you do either. I want this. I…” He was quiet for a painfully long moment before he whispered, “I want this to be real. I’m just scared that neither of us knows if it is or not.”
The emotions crashing over the top of each other in my chest were almost physically painful.
Anger wanted me to jump to my feet and demand to know who the fuck he thought he was, questioning if I was sincere.
Did he really think I couldn’t tell the difference between love and “well, this doesn’t suck as much as everything else”?
That anger was bolstered by bone-deep hurt that he actually thought my grief for my best friend defined everything I did or felt.
And that grief wanted to drag me down to the floor and wrench some more tears out of me, because fuck me, maybe he was right. Everything in my world had been colored by Leif’s death. Everything. How could I say it hadn’t touched our relationship too?
“I’m sorry, Avery,” he said. “I want this. I really do. But I need to know where the lines are between us and…” He pressed his lips together.
“Between us and everything that put me in rehab,” I growled.
He flinched, still refusing to meet my gaze. “Considering I was part of putting you in rehab…”
All the air rushed out of me. “So, what? You regret that now?”
“No.” The word was almost soundless—little more than a soft exhalation—and he finally looked at me through his lashes.
“I’d do it again in a heartbeat. No doubt about it.
But… what happens when you’re on your feet again?
Done with rehab and therapy, and you’re feeling more like yourself?
” He swallowed like it took some serious effort. “Where does that leave us?”
All those emotions surged again, but none of them crystallized into an answer. Not one that could actually pull us back together.
Because we were…
Holy shit, was this ending?
“So you’re…” I swallowed hard. “Are you calling this off, then?”
I didn’t like how long he avoided my gaze and gnawed his lip.
“If you are,” I said, my voice hollow, “then just say so. Rip the bandage off, okay? Because I don’t want—”
“I’m not calling it off. I’m…” He stared down at his wringing hands for a long moment, his brow furrowed with unspoken thoughts. I held my breath, not sure what he was going to say next and without a clue what I wanted him to say.
That wasn’t true. Of course I knew what I wanted him to say. I wanted him to tell me he loved me and everything was fine. But… I also wanted him to tell me the truth, and the truth in the way his eyebrows knitted together and his jaw worked—that wasn’t “I love you and there’s nothing wrong.”
After a fucking eternity, Peyton looked in my eyes. “I’m not saying it’s over. I’m not. I just… I need to step back and think about what we’re doing. And I think you do too.”
It took a lot of work to swallow past both my dry mouth and the sudden lump in my throat. “For how long?” I croaked. “How does that even work?”
Peyton shook his head and dropped his gaze again. “I don’t know. I’ve—I’ve never done this before, so… I don’t know.”
“So this might be over.” Anger crept into my voice, and I let it because that was a lot easier to deal with than all the other emotions trying to shove past it.
“Maybe?” He met me with a helpless look. “I mean it—I don’t know. I don’t want to walk away from this. From you.” He spread his hands. “But I also don’t want to get this invested when I don’t know if you’re here for who I am or what I did.”
I blinked. “But… I do love you for you who are. It’s not because—” I studied him. “Do you really think that’s all this is?”
“That’s the problem,” he whispered. “I don’t know.
And I mean, I have no regrets. Helping you get into rehab—I’d do that again in a heartbeat.
Being with you—that’s been amazing. Like I said, I’m not saying we’re done.
I just need to make sure I know where one thing ends and the other starts. That’s all.”
I flinched away from his gaze.
“I’m sorry, Avery. I really don’t want to end this over—”
“Yeah, I heard you,” I snapped, locking eyes with him again. “But you’re still stepping back and…” I flailed a hand. “If you need to take some time and go think, then fucking go instead of sitting here trying to convince me I should be happy about it.”
He stared at me, lips apart. “I’m not trying to tell you you should be happy about it. I’m not happy about it! I just want—”
“Then maybe it’s the wrong damn move!” I got up, suddenly restless and desperate to get away from him.
“Fuck’s sake. What do you even want me to say?
That I’ve completely compartmentalized everything, and having feelings for you has absolutely nothing to do with anything?
” I threw up my hands. “What am I supposed to say? That I’m sorry I fell in love with you because I fucking did it wrong? ”
“Avery.” He rose too. “You didn’t do anything wrong. I’m not asking you to apologize for anything. You’re not—”
“Then what do you want, Peyton?” I growled. “I can’t change how things happened, and I can’t change the way I feel.” I set my jaw if only to keep myself from breaking down. “Tell me what you want from me.”
Again he stared at me, but this time, his expression shifted from hurt and pleading to something harder. Something more closed off. Straightening a little, he said, “Maybe what we both need right now is some space.”
I threw up my hands again and said nothing. I didn’t say a word and neither did he as he went upstairs, collected his things, and left.
When the door clicked shut behind him, the tiny sound echoing through this huge, empty house, I sank onto the couch and pushed out a breath. My anger had already flamed out. I wasn’t even really angry anyway—I was hurt. I was crushed.
I wanted to be angry. I wanted to light him up and tell him this was bullshit. I wanted to tell him he was reading too much into something. Seeing something that wasn’t there.
But could I tell him—completely honestly—that everything between us wasn’t what he thought it was? That it wasn’t me falling for him because he’d pulled me from the mire? That I’d still have fallen for him like this if we’d just hooked up and started a relationship like normal people?
I groaned aloud. Fuck. Fuck! What if he was right?
Yeah, I’d had a thing for him long before I crashed and burned, but this? These feelings that tumbled through me every time I thought about him? The way my heart went absolutely wild every time I looked at him?
That was new.
And it had all happened since Peyton had brought me home from that club.
I wanted to believe all those feelings happened on their own, but I couldn’t separate them from everything else.
I leaned forward and pushed my hands through my hair.
Fuck. What if he was right?
What if the best thing I’d ever had really was just me clinging to the man who’d saved me from myself?