Chapter 39
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
MADDY
The chilly rink air feels like knives on my burning cheeks as I circle the ice for the millionth time.
“That’s the Way it Is” blasts through my earbuds, and my breath comes in pants as I lean into the turn at the far end of the ice, swinging around the back of the net and gaining speed up the other side, the cadence of my blades slicing across the ice as familiar to me as breathing.
The building is silent, the sky outside the high windows bright with the early afternoon sun.
I should be at the stadium right now, getting ready for the game.
Talking to players who need me. Doing the thing I love.
The thing I do best. Instead, I’m all alone in my happiest place, doing my favorite thing, but the pit that’s been sitting in my stomach since I left Cam in Denver only grows, visions of the pain in his eyes when I told him I had to leave, the determination on his face when he told me he loves me, playing in my head on repeat.
Six days.
It’s been six days since I’ve seen him. Felt his arms around me.
Told him about my day and listened to him tell me about his, the low timbre of his voice soothing me as I settle into him, knowing that there is nowhere else I’d rather be.
Six days without him missing a single breakfast, the cereal, milk, and iced coffee showing up at my door every morning like clockwork, with notes he handwrote himself.
I miss you.
I will love you forever.
I am the luckiest guy in the world to get to call you mine.
Six days of texting him thank yous, him texting me good morning and good night, giving me the space I asked for to figure my shit out.
Six days of me shutting out him and every member of my family while I try and figure out what my shit even is.
The fallout from the article has been…well, almost none at all, actually.
I got a call from the league commissioner asking me if I was treating Cam while we were also engaged in a physical relationship.
When I told him I had never treated Cam at all, he thanked me for being honest and then spent the next twenty minutes talking to me about the seminars he wants me to run in the offseason.
I’ve gotten texts from at least ten guys on the team asking me when I’m getting my ass back to work because they’re one game away from the Super Bowl and there’s no way they can win without me.
Oliver hasn’t been asked about it, at least not that I’ve seen—and I’ve watched all the post-game interviews from the three games he’s had this week.
And when I asked Riley in one of our text conversations whether the kids at school had been mean to her about the article, she told me they hadn’t and even if they had, it didn’t matter because I know who my people are.
I should be overjoyed. I should be throwing myself at Cam and telling him a thousand times how much I love him. I should be at work, helping prep the team for today’s game. I should be answering the zillion phone calls from my family and texts from my friends.
But I’m not doing any of that. Instead, I’m skating alone, exhausted like I haven’t slept for a year, and wondering what the fuck is wrong with me.
I’m a goddamn motherfucking psychologist, and I can’t figure out my own brain.
The shoemaker’s kids have no shoes, but make it the psychologist fucking up the best things in her life because her own feelings elude her.
Someone should come take away my PhD. Clearly, I earned it under false pretenses.
My brain is a mess. My soul is heavy. I miss Cam.
I miss Riley and Ethan. I miss my family.
I would kill to talk to my friends. But I can’t make myself contact any of them.
I haven’t talked to anyone except for Riley because she’s lost enough.
I won’t be another person who leaves her.
Her funny, chatty, chaotic texts have been a lifeline this week.
The song switches to “A New Day Has Come” as I reach the far side of the rink again.
Picking up speed for the turn, I whip around the net and start up the other side.
When movement catches my eye, my heart slams against my ribs and I let out a yelp, coming to such an abrupt halt that even though my skates stop, my upper body keeps moving.
The momentum sends me tumbling forward, leaving me sprawled face down on the ice, my earbuds popping out and skittering over the rink.
With a groan, I turn onto my back, wet cold seeping into my sweatshirt, and I’m immediately met by five grinning faces. Caitlin, Sarah, Emmy, Maya, and Sophie look down on me, hands on their hips. We’re in the middle of an ice rink, and not one single one of them is wearing skates.
“Aren’t you, like, a former hockey player?” Sarah asks. “That was not a very graceful stop, Maddy girl.”
Maya elbows her in the ribs. “It’s been almost a week since she’s seen her man. Probably can’t skate when you’re neck deep in sexual frustration.”
“God, if I had a man who looked like Cam Lowry, I would literally never leave the bedroom. Except to maybe fuck him in the shower. I love shower sex,” Emmy says, dreamy look on her face.
Sophie shakes her head. “Shower sex is overrated. Standing is weird and the soap makes everything too slippery and the whole thing is one big fall hazard.”
Maya snorts out a laugh. “I think you’ve been fucking the wrong people.”
Realizing I’m still lying flat on the ice, I push to sit, still looking up at my friends. “Not to interrupt this fascinating conversation, but what the fuck is happening right now?”
Sarah shrugs. “We’re here to save you from yourself.”
“You’re here to what?”
Caitlin drops right down on the ice and sits next to me. “You haven’t been answering our messages or any of our calls. We know you needed some time and we gave it to you, but time’s up, Maddy. Now you need to talk to us.”
“We love you.” Maya sits down on my other side and wraps an arm around my shoulders, squeezing so tightly my eyes burn. “We know you’re hurting, and we want to understand why so we can help you.”
“I’m not hurting,” I say quickly. Too quickly. “I just don’t love that I’m the laughingstock of the professional sports world, so I’m lying low. That’s all.” The words feel hollow even to my own ears. I’m the laughingstock of nothing. So why can’t I get my shit together?
“That isn’t all.” I turn at my mom’s voice, and my heart squeezes when I see her standing at the edge of the rink with a grocery bag in each hand.
She’s flanked by my dad and Oliver, who are both holding armloads of what looks like red fabric.
When they reach us, the guys lay down the fabric—which turns out to be pieces of the red carpet they use on the ice before games for the national anthem and special events—making a place for everyone to sit.
I stand, ready to move over to the carpet to keep from freezing my ass off even more than I already have, when I’m stopped by my dad.
He puts his hands on my shoulders, studying me for a second.
His eyes rove my face, a little pained, like he can sense my hurt without me having to say a word.
Even with a little gray starting to show at his temples, Jeremy Wright still looks so much like the man who brought over eight different kinds of cereal for dinner the week I came to live with my mom, made me tacos and blanket forts, and taught me how to play hockey.
The former foster kid turned hockey phenom whose hurts matched my own.
Who showed a sad, scared little girl what it meant to be loved.
The tears come before I can stop them, flooding my eyes and spilling down my cheeks, and with my family looking on, I let them come. I couldn’t stop them if I tried.
“Little Red,” my dad murmurs, wrapping me in a tight hug.
And in his arms, for the first time in six days, I break.
I don’t even know exactly what I’m crying for, but the tears fall anyway.
They pour down my cheeks and soak my dad’s sweatshirt for what feels like forever.
But surprisingly, they feel good. Cleansing almost. Like I’m crying out an ache that’s been a part of me for so long I didn’t even realize it was there.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” I mumble, sobs finally starting to slow.
He kisses the side of my head and leans back, his gaze cataloguing my face before his lips tip up in a smile. “We’re going to figure it out. Sit with us and let’s fix it, okay?”
I nod, turning to see that my mom, Oliver, and my friends are sprawled over the red carpet in a circle of sorts, an assortment of snacks set in the middle.
The sight of them all together makes me feel like I’m taking my first deep breath in almost a week.
My mom pats the seat next to her and I take it, my dad dropping down on my other side, each of them taking one of my hands.
Glancing at the snacks, I laugh when I see six boxes of cereal, two gallons of milk, bowls, and spoons.
“Cereal at twelve thirty in the afternoon?” I ask.
My dad shakes his head, a look of mock disappointment over his face. “I taught you better than that. Anytime is a good time for cereal.”
My mom squeezes my hand, bumping my shoulder with hers. “Felt appropriate. Tell us where it hurts, Maddy.”
I turn to look at my mom, at her green eyes and red hair that look so much like mine that if I didn’t know I was adopted, I would think I came directly from her.
Emma Langley gave me a home and a family and a place to call my own, and the words come bubbling up before I can stop them. “I’m so sorry.”
This is the moment I realize I’ve never seen my mom caught off guard before because the expression on her face is entirely foreign to me.
“What do you have to be sorry for?”