Chapter Eleven Jamie #3
"I've heard people yelling my name everywhere we've played. Booing me, too. That love-hate relationship I had with them way back then? It's quieter now, but it's still there. I just forgot that it wouldn't be the same here. My fans here haven't stopped being loud."
My voice breaks, and I start to roll away from Mateo, but he's still holding me and won't let go. "Don't leave."
It's what I'd said to him when I asked him to come inside and spend the night, and I'm sure he knows that as well as I do.
A tear rolls over the bridge of my nose.
A few seconds later, his fingertip is there to trace whatever is left behind.
He touches my lips next, and my eyes have adjusted enough that I can watch him watch me.
My hand remains curved over his ribs, and I feel each steady breath before he speaks again.
"Did the cheering make things harder or easier for you tonight?"
"Harder."
"Why?"
I sit with that—lie with it, technically—and think about how to walk this tightrope.
I've been trained on it, and I've been told not to look for a net when the media hits me with question after question.
Of course, I don't take those questions these days.
Official attention is directed at Taylor while I keep busy with anything else that needs to be done.
But Taylor isn't in my bed, and after four and a half years, Mateo wants to know more about me.
I want to tell him without leaving too many more tears on my pillow.
"It was so frustrating. My response to them. Why do I need them so badly? After all this time, why does it matter so much that they still love me like they did before?"
"It was your parents who first got you into hockey, right?"
"Yeah, my dad was a fan, so he suggested it when I was little," I answer. "My mom drove me to practice. Both of them were at my games."
Mateo nods, a subtle thing. "And what did they say to you when you went out on the ice?"
"What did they say to me?"
"Sure. I assume they didn't just open the car door and kick you into the parking lot with your gear. I don't even think they kept it to 'See you later!' So, what did they say to you? What things did you hear most often?"
He lets me roll away then. After another minute, he rolls away too, leaving to use the bathroom and give me time alone with my past. I'd prefer him with me in the present, but sometimes Mateo reads me too well and I'm stuck with what I need instead.
When he returns, I'm on my back, staring at the ceiling.
He keeps distance between us, looking fucking sinful in my pants, and I sigh.
"You know you're allowed back in the bed, right?"
"You know you don't have to have this conversation with me, right?"
I hold my hand out until he takes it, but as soon as he's under the covers, he turns his back to me and pulls me with him, my big spoon to his little one.
There's so much of me that hates this—that we're still here after all this time—but part of me knows I'll always want this with him.
The quiet contact I've never had with anyone else.
Love that feels different from how it's been given to me before.
Ever before. Even when I was five or six or seven, and my parents loved their little hockey player.
"They told me to score the most goals. To win the game. To be the star. To get all the awards and hear the crowd chant my name. They told me I could be the best there ever was, and everyone would adore me."
Mateo pulls me more tightly around him, almost as if I'm his blanket instead of being the one whose blood runs a little too cold. "They didn't bother to point out that you could be adored regardless. That love never had to be contingent upon how well you played a sport."
"No," I say, the answer to a question he didn't actually ask.
"You've chased it your entire life. That crowd and how loudly they cheer for you. You've chased the proof that somebody loves you."
"Why can't I stop wanting that?"
"The cheers or the love?" he asks. "Because I think you should want to be loved, and it's fine to want the cheers, too. But only one of those is something to chase. Only one of those is supposed to be earned by the things you do."
"And the other?"
"You needed to be told that love is unconditional. I'm sorry your parents made it seem like it results from winning a goddamn game."
With my nose pressed to his hair, I breathe him in. "Remember the love-hate thing, though? Pretty notably, I've also had a lot of people not cheer for me. Or only want me for other reasons."
"They wanted you, though," he says. "And there's a fine line there, yeah? Hero. Villain. Heartthrob. Menace. All tied closely together. All tied up in one hell of a career."
He's right. They feel like the same thing now. They've been the same thing forever. Hockey and hatred and cheers and love, all mine for as long as I hold on to the habits I've had since I first understood what a habit is. As long as I stay as close to center ice as possible.
"I don't know how to let it go. If it's all tied together and I drop one thing, what will I have left?"
Mateo becomes all tension and fear in my arms. Anger maybe. Bad things that give him reasons to get out of my bed and trade my pants for his. I'm not sure what he'd do with my jersey, but I don't get to find out when he stays right where he is.
"You won't know until you stop running after everything and look around."
"I wasn't running much after I stopped playing," I argue. "Until I got the job offer, it seemed like I was standing pretty fucking still."
"Well, if that's true, then I guess there wasn't enough worth looking at."
"Come on, you know that's not what I meant."
"I know it's really hard to see past your first love," he murmurs.
"Please, Mateo."
He still doesn't leave me. Instead, he turns in my arms and kisses me on the forehead. "You'll be busy again tomorrow. You should get some sleep."
"It's not my only love," I remind him, waiting until his eyes are closed because I don't want him to go searching for lies in mine. "I love you."
"I know."