Chapter Fifteen Jamie #2
Harper, Simon, and I go on our trip and return home before Mateo's even done with his school year.
She's agreed to help him with anything he needs while she's in California for the next several weeks.
I don't get involved in the arrangements they make, nor do I question the relationship they're building without me.
I find trouble while they stay out of it, suddenly eager to accept when Taylor offers to set me up one night. Then another. And another.
"Look at you, Sinclair," he smirks. "It only took you two years of being my assistant coach to decide you might like to have some fun outside of my basement. I was afraid the player I once knew had suffered more than a broken leg."
Two years of being his assistant. Four since I let Bailey McKeon introduce me to her friend. Lara or Lena or Lana. Almost six since I craved greasy food and a friendly face, and kissed a man I might've loved before believing something that magical ever happens outside of fairy tales.
"Look at me," I say. "I'm hardly broken at all."
Amazingly, I don't actually sleep with the first woman.
I couldn't say why. She's exactly the type I used to show off at awards dinners or official team parties.
On our date, I take her out to dinner, and she makes it known she'd be happy to follow me home for dessert.
I charm her as I turn her down, and get a kiss on my cheek for my efforts and make promises that will remain unfulfilled.
Once I've returned to my house alone, I crawl into a hoodie that I shouldn't need in this heat.
I get off while wearing it, and I shouldn't need that either.
The next woman and I meet at a bar in the lobby of her hotel, and fucking her takes very little effort.
A short elevator ride and a condom are all we need once we've had a couple of drinks and a few forced laughs.
I don't think she's any better or worse than the last woman I went out with, but I arrived knowing I can't go home with a hard dick again.
I want to come with a stranger's name on my tongue, and she's the ex-wife of someone Taylor played with years ago, so I don't think I'm supposed to fall head over heels or anything. The sex is nice.
I like the third one more than I want to.
She's a teacher, and we meet up at a silly street fair.
We share funnel cake and talk about oceans and lakes.
There are only a few rides here, but I mumble something about heights when she asks me to go on the Ferris wheel, and we keep both feet on the ground.
She talks about her family and doesn't really give a shit about hockey.
I'm relieved when she doesn't give a shit about soccer either.
Strands of her dark hair fall free from her ponytail, and I resist the urge to tuck them behind her ear.
Then she smiles and asks me if I'd like to go home with her, and I say yes because I think I would. I do. That sex is nice, too.
It feels good to be touched again.
She's pretty.
It's a lonely morning. I have a mug of tasteless coffee in one hand and my phone in the other.
I squeeze my eyes shut at Mateo's text as if that will make it disappear when I open them again.
It doesn't, though I've done a decent job blurring it some.
I don't know which woman he's referring to—which probably says a lot about how little I've changed—nor do I know where he saw me with anyone.
Cameras are everywhere. He and I are lucky we spent time together after I'd been mostly forgotten, and before I was remembered again. Far fewer people cared.
But he cares now, and my next exhale is shaky. I try to be funny. Or something.
Prettier than I am?
Impossible, sweetheart.
I don't respond to that because I'm too close to ending up with tears on my face or a mess on my hands.
I want to be drinking coffee with him, one of us in the other's lap, sleepy and lazy about it when we kiss.
My hands would be in his hair, soothing until I need to pull his head back and suck at his neck.
He'd keep us rocking together, both of us soft for a while because everything is so slow and so gentle.
I'm horny enough to know I need to fuck Mateo someday. I'm pathetic enough to know I'd rather fantasize about just being with him this morning.
After I've set my mug on the counter, I refocus on my phone, my texts closed but a new search open.
I quickly type my name and land on sites Mateo might have found.
I read and shake my head and marvel at the manipulation of public perception and the passage of time.
Gone are the days of Jameson Sinclair Scores Five-Hole at a Las Vegas Nightclub next to a picture of liquor-soaked me, several half-dressed women, and at least one slutty man.
Now there's a candid of sober me standing behind date number three, my arms wrapped around her far too sweetly, and the words Two for Holding?
Why the List of Hockey's Hottest Bachelors May Be Down a Man.
Even back then, when everyone loved to hate me for being unstoppable on and off the ice, I could've been found in quieter places if anyone had thought to look for me there.
Now I'm a few years past 40, and I'm not sure I'd be in any VIP lines, but I'm not against the idea of being drunk in a club, especially if a very specific slutty man is next to me.
I frown at the images on my phone. Where I am and where I've been don't change the fact that it's always been a show.
A version of the one my parents made me rehearse as a kid.
I give myself a few minutes to lament the loss of things I've surrendered.
Then I set my mask aside—only here, in the privacy of a place I don't really call home.
Sighing at the terrible puns in the headlines, past and present, I wonder what words they'd use to write about Mateo and me, if given the chance.
Something about backchecking? Stickhandling?
Anything about the crease or the slot would be fair game, I suppose.
Two-man advantage almost makes me smile, but I remember it will be easier for the media to be cruel than kind.
Then I close the search on my phone and walk away.
I miss my view of the ocean, and everywhere I dream about being is closer to there than here. I stop myself just short of wondering what Mateo can see from wherever he is now.
A few days later, another search results in another flurry of photos of me, this time from date number two.
I roll my eyes at any of the articles suggesting they were taken after the adorable embrace candids at the street fair.
I roll them again when some aren't sure whether it's the same woman as before.
Or not before. There's a picture of us at the bar, our knees touching as we lean toward each other to talk.
There's another one once we've stood and are saying goodnight to the bartender, my hand resting against the perfect arch of her lower back.
A third captures us while we're waiting for the elevator.
I'm surprised to see her body pinning mine to the lobby wall.
I remember a lot about that moment. How she smelled like perfume instead of cologne when I breathed her in.
How her cheek was smooth instead of rough when I brushed mine against it.
How she was all softness and curves and lace instead of the taut lines and broad shoulders that had once stood in front of me wearing nothing but boxer briefs and a wet spot I've never been able to forget.
But if anyone had asked, I would've sworn I had pressed my body against hers.
Mateo texts later that night. Having fun?
I'd tell him no, but those two letters are difficult to type.
Over the next month or so, I go out another five or six times, and sleep with none of the women.
I wake to five or six pictures of me touching them in five or six different restaurants or bars or night markets.
Nobody in a position to fire me cares that there's been an uptick in my social life because I've been caught with successful women on dates ranging from cute to classy.
Harper knows better than to go looking for things she doesn't want to see.
If Simon's half the man I want him to be, he'll keep his mouth shut about anything he finds.
I tell myself the hum of guilt I hear is only because of them.
The voice note I receive suggests I'm wrong.
It's late, and I hope you're already asleep by the time I send this, but I don't know.
Maybe you're up. Maybe you're out with someone again.
But I—is this because of me? Is this because of Logan?
He and I aren't—we went camping, and I'll answer anything you want to know about that, if you really want to know it, but it's not—we're not together or anything.
We're just friends. Or maybe—that's probably a shitty word to use, right?
Friends. You and I have said that for years, but it doesn't really come close to describing us.
What we are. Or what we were. But Logan and I are—maybe we're doing the same thing you're doing with all these women.
Are we all reaching for the closest warm body?
I don't know what else I'm allowed to hold on to.
I don't know the right way to be close to anyone else when I'm still in love with you.
But that's not—I want you to be happy, Jamie.
And if you are—fuck, why do I feel like the only person who doesn't think you're happy?
Why do you look so much like Jameson Sinclair again?