Chapter 45
Chapter Forty-Five
AIDAN
The air has that damp chill that always precedes a snowfall. Tonight’s impending storm is predicted to dump half a foot of snow by morning, as winter comes in with a bang.
With any luck, I’ll be watching the first flakes fall from my bedroom window, with Morgan tucked in beside me. It’s a ridiculous thing to hope for, given my inability to be honest about my feelings the last few times we talked and the fact that she’s meeting another guy for a date tonight.
I might be the underdog going into this, but I’m not giving up without a fight.
Small groups mill around outside the restaurant, grumbling about the wait and the weather, and blending in with them gives me the perfect cover to scan the well-lit interior of the restaurant, where I spy Morgan sitting alone along the wall.
I knew she’d be early. Banked on it, actually. Why this asshole isn’t picking her up for dates, or taking her home afterward, makes no sense to me. But tonight, it’s working in my favor.
I pull my collar up around my neck and keep my head down, hoping I’m not recognized before he arrives. Luckily, he’s right on time and comes strolling toward the door at a brisk pace, until I step into his path.
“Hey, man,” I say, and he steps back like I’m a danger to him. Which I am, but not in the way he first thinks. But then the recognition dawns in his eyes.
“Oh, wow. Hey. You’re—”
“Yeah,” I interrupt before he can draw anyone’s attention by saying my name. Maybe no one out on this sidewalk is a hockey fan, but just in case.
“Are you . . . eating here tonight?” His brows scrunch together, clearly wondering why I’m standing outside this restaurant talking to him.
“Depends on you, actually.”
With his brows still low and one side of his mouth pulling back slightly, his face is full of confusion. “How so?”
“I have a proposition for you. What do you say I get you a luxury box for next season, and you don’t show up for dinner tonight?”
“Why . . . ?” He drags out the question, clearly having trouble figuring out why I’d spend over a hundred grand to have dinner with his date.
“Because that girl you’re going to meet tonight? She has my whole heart. I’m pretty sure I have hers too.”
“Then why has she gone out with me several times?”
My lips twist together the same way they do when I’m physically in pain. “Because she needs a good guy in her life, and I fucked up. Now, I need a chance to make things right. Maybe she won’t take me back, in which case you get the girl and a luxury box.”
He clenches his jaw as he looks at me, clearly torn. I’d say he’s a fool for giving her up for a box at the arena, but I almost gave her up because of my own damn fears, so I’m hardly one to point fingers.
“If she’s not into you anymore, you’ll walk away?” Sean asks.
My heart is in my throat at the idea of walking away from her for good, but if that’s what she wants, I’ll do what’s best for her. “I will.”
“I’m only considering your offer because I have no desire to be part of some sort of love triangle. If she’s not over you, I don’t want to be involved.” He pauses. “But, she seems really sweet, so if you’re not totally committed to being good to her, maybe save us both the time and walk away?”
“I’m going to give her the whole damn world, as long as she’ll let me.”
He gives me a quick, decisive nod. “Okay.”
I get that he doesn’t want to be part of a messy situation, but the fact that he just gave up so easily speaks volumes.
“Thanks, man. I’ll get that suite set up. The number for the office that handles luxury boxes is online, call anytime after Monday and they’ll have more information for you.”
He nods, then turns, walking away, and I step into the restaurant. I bypass the host, telling her I’m meeting someone, and walk straight over to Morgan. The shock on her face is expected, but the hostility in her rigid body language isn’t.
“What are you doing here?” she asks, her gaze moving beyond me and darting around the restaurant like she’s afraid Sean might walk in and find me in his seat.
“Having dinner with you,” I say as I slip my jacket off and hang it on the back of the chair.
She folds her arms across the table in front of her, leaning toward me and lowering her voice as I take my seat. Her strawberry blonde hair is down in loose waves, falling forward over the expanse of bare skin in her square-neck top. “I’m meeting someone.”
“Are you disappointed that I’m here instead?”
“Instead?” she asks.
“Yes, instead. I asked your date to bow out of dinner so I’d have a chance to convince you that I was wrong and stupid, and to tell you that I’m sorry.” I take a deep breath, relieved she didn’t throw her drink in my face and tell me to go to hell.
Her face softens, the slightest hint of a smile evident on those full lips. “Keep going . . .”
I pick up the straw sitting next to the glass of water that was already on the table when I arrived, and pull the paper off it, just to have something to do with my hands.
“This has never been ‘just friends’ for me. I knew from that first night in Bermuda that you were perfect for me, just the same as I knew I’d never be good enough for you—”
“Why would you think that?” she asks, before her eyes flit down to where I’m folding the straw wrapper into a thin rectangle.
“I didn’t want a relationship, and you’re clearly a relationship kind of girl.
Then we found out we were working together and your dad was my agent, and .
. . I couldn’t stop wanting us to be together, but I also hated keeping us a secret.
You are not someone to keep hidden. You shine too brightly for that.
You need someone who can show you off, who can shower you with praise and affection.
You deserve that. And I didn’t think I could be the one to give it to you. ”
“Are you ever going to tell me why you’re so opposed to a relationship?”
I sigh and fold the paper wrapper again before glancing up at her. “Remember how I told you about Hayley?”
She tilts her chin as she studies me. “You never told me her name, but I assume that’s the college girlfriend you thought you were in love with?”
“Yeah. There’s . . . a bit more to the story, though.
We started dating my freshman year, and when I found out my mom died, she was there for me every step of the way.
She comforted me when I completely broke down, held my hand at the funeral, made sure I went to my classes for the rest of the semester when the only thing I wanted to focus on, my only escape from the sadness, was hockey.
There was so much darkness lurking in me then, and she pulled me out just enough that I didn’t succumb to it.
I don’t know how I’d have gotten through that period without her.
Going through that trauma together . . .
it deepened our relationship in a lot of ways, and also filled in some cracks that would have probably made it clear we weren’t right for each other.
By junior year, those cracks were starting to show.
I was under immense pressure to perform on the ice that year, because I’d already been drafted and there was a lot of talk about me getting called up.
And then . . .” I swallow as I glance down at the paper wrapper I’ve now circled around my pinky multiple times. “We found out she was pregnant.”
Morgan’s lips part before she sinks her teeth into her lower lip and nods for me to continue.
“It was February when we found out I was getting called up to Minnesota, and the plan was for her to finish out the last few months of the semester at school, and then she’d join me in Minneapolis and we’d have the baby there.
She was going to take a year off school, and then finish up her senior year once our lives were more settled.
But . . . right before I moved, she miscarried. ”
“Oh shit, Aidan,” Morgan says, her eyes glazing over with unshed tears. “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t think either of us was emotionally ready to be a parent, but we were committed to figuring it out. And then, once there was no baby, she decided it was better if we ended things and she stayed to finish up her degree.”
“So you . . . moved to Minnesota without her, without the family you’d expected to have with you?”
“Yes, and it broke me. It was like losing my parents all over again but worse, in a way, because I’d spent so much time, when we found out she was pregnant, envisioning what kind of father I wanted to be.
I’d catalogued all the good things about my dad before he succumbed to his addiction, and all the good things about Max, too.
I wanted to be the best dad I could be, and I don’t know .
. .” I say, shaking my head. “I guess I was so focused on becoming a dad, I didn’t think enough about how Hayley was feeling about becoming a mom.
When she lost the baby, she didn’t seem nearly as upset about it as I was. I think she was . . . relieved?”
“That’s a terrible thing to have experienced,” Morgan says, reaching her hand across the table and wrapping it around one of mine.
“Yeah. So I moved to Minnesota alone. I was in a funk, and I couldn’t pull myself out of it.
Eventually my coach recognized what was happening and stepped in.
He made sure I got the help I needed—a therapist to talk through things with, and plenty of time with my new teammates so I didn’t feel alone.
He was basically another dad to me. He wouldn’t take no for an answer when I tried to shut down.
He pushed me but also supported me. His family became like a second family for me.
I . . .” I gulp through the memories. “Not every coach would do something like that, and I don’t know what would have happened if he hadn’t stepped in.
I definitely would have lost my NHL contract. ”
“So losing Hayley and the baby the way you did was what made you so afraid of a relationship?” she clarifies.