Chapter Fifteen Jamie #3
I want to drop my phone to the floor. I also can't stop listening to him, his voice no longer a balm when he sounds this tired and this disappointed in me.
Part of me wants to defend myself by saying that I probably haven't had any more sex with these women than he's had with Logan, but I don't think that was his point.
And I could argue that he's the one who gave up on me, but I've never been convinced that's true when I'm the one who moved away.
Still lying in bed in nothing but my briefs, I glance at the time and wonder whether he's awake.
I don't want to talk to him, but I'm just frustrated enough that I need to respond.
The only question is whether I text it or say it out loud.
I decide my raspy voice would give him a way to torture himself too, and I start recording.
I've always been Jameson Sinclair.
Whether Mateo's quiet accusation got to me or not, I don't go out with anyone for a while.
Swimming laps at the gym becomes a priority again.
I talk to my parents more than I have in a while.
I spend hours on a video chat with Kai while he preps the bar for the day.
He tells me he hasn't seen Mateo in almost a year, and suggests that I stop being a fucking idiot.
It's what it sounds like, anyway.
He really says, "That man's the only choice you've ever made for you, J."
"Hockey," I argue weakly. "I love hockey. I've chosen that for me, too."
"You chose hockey because your dad told you to try it, and your mom cheered you on, and it came so damn naturally to you.
You stayed with it because everyone around you made it your entire identity, and you didn't have to be anyone else.
Even off the ice you've been hockey player and playboy, or hockey player and girl dad, or former hockey player and current coach.
You love hockey, and it was easy to love because until you ran from here one night, it had given more than it's taken.
But you met Mateo, and he was easy to love too, and he was all yours. Only yours."
I've always been Jameson Sinclair.
"Kai—"
"You've never been anyone but J to me," he says, pausing in front of his screen with a couple of bottles of vodka in his hands.
I don't think he's read my mind, especially when we're almost three thousand miles apart, but I can't ask when he keeps talking.
"Then the rest of the world learned your name, and you started making decisions with them in mind.
The choices didn't stop being for you. They just stopped being for J—or Jamie. "
I swallow hard and blink away tears before they fall. "We've never talked about this."
"Guess we've gotta add it to the list."
He's not wrong. I try to keep myself from feeling terrible about it by remembering how many important things we have shared.
Who cares that I didn't tell him about my attraction to men, or that my name carries pride and loss everywhere I go?
We've spent countless hours mourning his dad and bitching about my mom.
We've cried when dreams have come true and laughed when it's all gone wrong.
We've pulled each other from fights and cleaned each other's wounds, and gone weeks without speaking and picked up right where we left off.
When we have to, we'll get a little pissed off that there's something we've ignored—maybe even hidden—and then we'll be best friends again. And I need my best friend now.
"I'm scared, Kai. Really fucking scared. What will happen if everyone finds out?" I ask, hushed in case a fear spoken too loudly will have a better chance of damning me. "What will they do to me?"
"If nobody ever finds out, what will you have done to yourself?"
I don't answer Kai. I can't, in part because the right words sit heavy at the back of my throat, and in part because I get a string of texts from Taylor in the next several seconds.
It will be safer to respond to him. I already know a quick goodbye will be forgiven by the man who can see that I'm still reeling.
In fact, he nods and waves me off, gesturing to a bar I can't see but could navigate in my sleep.
As I scroll through the messages, I figure Taylor is probably bored and ready for more of my internet-exaggerated antics.
We haven't had any meetings at the front office recently, and we've still got some time before camp.
He's asking whether I'm in New Jersey now, and whether I have plans for next week.
There are a few insults thrown in for good measure.
I think he sends them out of habit more than anything.
Too eager to hear another voice today, even if it's his, I respond to his texts with a call and several prepared excuses for why I'm not interested in another date right now.
Taylor interrupts me not long after I've begun, telling me he's just glad I'm finally getting laid.
I don't bother explaining to him that it's only happened twice.
In the next breath, he invites me to the lake house for the third time.
When I say yes, he asks whether anyone will join me this year.
Even planning for a group trip, I feel so fucking alone in a way that can't be solved by blind dates or coworkers, but Kai has the bar and Harper will start her junior year soon.
And if Mateo thinks I look too much like Jameson Sinclair in some pictures, I don't want to know what he'd say when faced with the real thing.
The man he fell in love with isn't the same one going to Taylor's for a week.
Taylor grunts while I stare at my reflection in a hallway mirror. I'm not sure I actually respond before he hangs up on me. Days later, I'm packing my bag.
Our new goalie coach—a guy named Oskar, rumored to drink, swear, and fuck more than the rest of our staff combined—joins us at the lake.
I'm irrationally annoyed to find out Wyatt is back.
I greet Taylor's son for the first time since he and Harper engaged in an assortment of underage fun, and I look forward to teasing her about those memories later.
I end up in the same room I had last year, the futon an unnecessary prop now.
The sun calls us to the dock for beer and a boat ride almost as soon as we've arrived.
That first night, it's just the five of us, drinking too much and laughing too hard. For fleeting moments, I feel like everything is exactly the way it should be.
I've always been Jameson Sinclair.
However much hockey takes from me now, I haven't stopped loving it.
The scrape of ice beneath my blades and the stillness on the rink before anyone else is there.
The energy in a locker room as the team prepares for a big game or celebrates a big win.
And yes, the cheers from people who are excited to be there with me and get to see me at my best and maybe even be proud of me for a couple of hours.
I'm not playing anymore, and I still carry phantom pain everywhere, but this is only my second offseason as a coach, and I just need a little more time.
Hockey will start giving to me again if I wait.
We're sluggish the following morning, all of us getting older and slower about recovering from a late night.
We devour grease and coffee and don't bother showering before we tumble toward the lake.
We spend most of the day on the boat again.
That afternoon, we're joined by Bailey McKeon and a friend of hers I recognize too quickly.
They bring a couple of others, and we sprawl everywhere, more beer in our hands.
The warm afternoon drags on, and Lara or Lena or Lana clings to me as intently as her bikini clings to her.
She hasn't let go by the time the sun goes down.
I haven't asked her to. The women have their own place to stay, but I already know none of them will turn down a request to stay with one of us.
I also know I've had more to drink than is smart with a mostly empty stomach and a pathetically needy body.
The likelihood of making smart choices is ticking away.
Still, after a failed round of pool on a table that didn't use to be here, and a few successful rounds of a card game I've never played before, I tell everyone I'm going to bed.
Alone.
At least a few people look terribly disappointed in me. Taylor seems intrigued.
I almost promise them it's just for the night. That I can feel my restraint fading. That the man in the headlines hasn't gone far, no matter how misleading any of those articles or pictures have been. Lara or Lena or Lana can wait one more day.
Mateo once waited years.