Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Summer
The house was dark, so I switched on lights as I headed downstairs and wandered around. No sign of Hatch.
A chill coursed through me. I’d wanted to be alone, but I had hoped he wouldn’t abandon me on my first night in a strange house.
I stood in the kitchen, looking out into the backyard.
I couldn’t see a pool, so not sure what that was about.
But there were tiki torch lights and the silhouette of someone in a chair.
I considered leaving him alone, but I craved human contact, even if it was sub-standard. Feeling a touch chilly, I picked up Hatch’s tuxedo jacket from where he’d draped it over a chair and shrugged it on.
Sniffing the lapel, I inhaled the citrus-cedar scent. It smelled incredible.
Aftershave? Or something more? Most tuxedos were rentals or were worn once then cleaned. This shouldn’t smell of anything but dry-cleaning chemicals, yet I detected it, a masculine scent different from Dash’s. More potent.
I stepped outside onto the patio. Hatch looked up from one of the wicker armchairs.
“Sleep okay?”
“Surprisingly, yes.”
“I’m guessing you haven’t had much lately.”
Maybe I’d said, or perhaps he assumed because that was the lot of a bride in the weeks before her big day.
“Okay if I sit?”
“Sure.”
I took a seat on the sofa across from him. “I borrowed your jacket. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Not at all.” He placed his phone down on the table in front of him.
He’d changed into board shorts and a Rebels T-shirt.
The light of one of the tiki torches illuminated one side of his face while the other remained in shadow.
I couldn’t help seeing that as a metaphor for his personality, or at least the sides he presented to me.
“Did you need something to eat?”
I couldn’t put him to any more trouble, though I was quite hungry. “I’m fine. I just wanted to check out the pool.”
“I might have lied there.”
“It looks like a nice garden, though.”
“Yeah, Aurora used to take care of it before she moved to Chicago to live with us. Now we have someone come in and landscape.”
“What’s that place back there?”
“That’s the pool house, so called because there’s no actual pool. Inside joke.”
I tried to smile but it got stuck. I could feel myself shutting down. While I had no doubt leaving Dash was the right move, why had I waited until the last minute? I could have pulled this stunt at any time but today, five minutes before I was supposed to hit the aisle?
Suddenly, Hatch was sitting beside me. A large, capable hand covered my small one, fisted in my lap.
“W-what?”
“You’re shaking.”
I snatched a breath, but my lungs wouldn’t fill. I tried again. Shook my head. A warm weight touched my back. Hatch’s other hand rubbed in a tight circle, and that sure, gentle touch brought me back. I inhaled, and finally something went in.
“I screwed up so bad.” My accent came out there. Sooo ba-yad. I didn’t care.
“Better to find out now, right?”
“I had five years to find out. But apparently, I prefer buzzer-beater decisions that destroy lives. I even gave up my job.”
“You said that before.” He was close to me, his thigh pressed against mine, like it didn’t matter at all.
Except it did. Because Hatch Kershaw was gorgeous.
I had always thought so. Dark angel gorgeous. But I’d never moved beyond an objective assessment of his attractiveness because of his attitude toward me. I found it difficult to completely appreciate outer beauty when the inner self so obviously hated my guts.
“I quit a month ago. Well, I gave my notice and stayed on to train someone else. Lainey. She has my job now.”
“And you want it back?” He sounded a touch incredulous, with good reason. I couldn’t return, not after what I’d done.
“I liked working there. I liked learning about the business, supporting behind the scenes. I thought—” I broke off, aware of how absurd I sounded.
“You thought what?”
“It’s stupid.”
“Tell me.”
“That I could learn the hockey trade. Be a scout or an analyst.” I had even agreed to continue research for Scott after I left. If I kept my hand in, I might eventually convince Dash that I could contribute in more ways than just hockey wife and mother.
“Addy loves the stats stuff, too.”
“Yeah, we’ve talked about it sometimes. But I didn’t push for what I wanted.”
“I’m sure you can find another job.”
His hands were still touching me. He seemed to realize that and removed them, sending a chill through me.
“Is there a train back to Chicago?”
“You want to leave?” The words came out gruff.
“I can’t stay here, Hatch. Time to face the music.”
He leaned back and brought his ankle up to cross his leg. I was momentarily fascinated by the shape of his calf, the dark hair that looked eminently touchable. I had no idea calves could be sexy.
“Maybe take a couple of days.”
“The longer I leave it, the worse it’ll get.
All my stuff is at Dash’s place. I’ll need to move out and start over.
” No job. No fiancé. Virtually no savings.
I’d spent so much of it in the last year trying to keep up with the Carters.
I had insisted on contributing to the wedding even though the cost of it would barely make a dent in their fortune.
I’d paid for the rehearsal dinner and the floral arrangements, only to find my choices had all been superseded by Dash’s mother and sister.
Roses? Oh, no one does roses at weddings.
I had thought roses romantic, but romance wasn’t important to a wedding, evidently. Roses were out of style. Romance, too.
But I’d stood my ground for my bouquet. Pale pink roses, that was what I wanted. Then I’d left it behind at the church, along with this life I’d blown up.
Hatch considered me, wearing that familiar expression I knew. Disapproval. When he was looking at me at all. Sometimes I would glance his way in the Empty Net or at a team gathering and our gazes would clash. He would look away, as if disgusted.
Now I wasn’t so sure.
He wasn’t looking away now. The tiki torch light mimicked the flutter of a flame. It caught his cheekbones, shaded them like a sculptor revealing beauty in the stone.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like you can’t figure me out.”
Was that why I held some weird fascination for him? Did he wonder how someone like me could have carved a niche into this life where she so obviously didn’t belong?
“I don’t get why you stayed with Carter for so long. Why you waited to do this. It wasn’t like a whirlwind romance where he swept you off your feet and before you know it, ‘Here comes the bride.’ You had ages to figure this out.”
The criticism abraded, but I could take it. I had Shelby Mae as my constant companion, my own best critic, so Hatch Kershaw was following a well-trodden path.
“I was a frog in slowly-heating water. I didn’t realize how complacent I had become, how accepting I was of that brand of toxicity until it was too late.”
“Anyone could see what a jerk he was to you. Addy and Rosie talked about it.”
“Not to me.” But then we weren’t as close as I wanted to believe.
I kept a certain distance from the girls, worried they might want to know more about me.
About my past. Trying to fit in required the walls stay at a certain height.
“Excuse me for not having it all figured out. Must be nice to be so sure of yourself. Your life mapped out, your path so clear.”
“That’s what you think? I have it all figured out?”
“Don’t you? Son of a legend, destined to follow in his skate glide, part of the great Kershaw legacy. I was there when the front office brought you on—you’d swear royalty had descended.”
“Doesn’t mean my life is mapped out. We just lost the Cup. And I played like a donkey.”
So he hadn’t played his best. But this was a team sport. Victory didn’t rest on the shoulders of one man.
“You’re what? Twenty-five years old? You have another ten, fifteen, maybe twenty years with those Kershaw genes.
You have everything in front of you, this amazing family who adores you, the world of hockey at your skates.
You’ve never screwed up and if you did, you’d have your family and friends ready to catch you. ”
I was twenty six and had nothing. I came from dirt, and I was back in the mud yet again.
He didn’t apologize, which was fine. He felt the way he did, and I was the bitch who bailed on his teammate.
“I’m going to go eat some cheese now.”
Defiantly, I returned to the kitchen to make myself another sandwich. When I looked out to the patio again, Hatch was gone.
Just before 6 a.m., the next morning, I snuck out of the house like a thief.
I was getting used to this. Not that I had to climb through a window this time, but my cat burglar reflexes were on point.
I couldn’t impose any longer. I had raided Aurora’s closet and found a pair of coral capris that fit me with the addition of a leopard-skin belt to hold them up.
I also “borrowed” a pair of Gola pink tennis shoes—very Aurora—and a cardigan to cover up the Michigan tee.
I couldn’t leave the wedding dress or underwear behind, so I stuffed it all into a Jansport backpack I found in the closet.
After washing the borrowed clothes, I would return them to Aurora once I was back in Chicago, or to Hatch if he wanted to keep my visit a secret.
The pool house, where my ogre rescuer slept, was quiet. I slipped out the front door to a waiting Uber and was at the Amtrak station in Holland, Michigan, seventeen minutes later in time for the 6:49 train.
A sign at the station read: Train delayed. The 6:49 train to Chicago will now depart at 7:10. Okay. I could do that. I tried to buy a ticket with my Wallet app on my phone, but it wouldn’t work, so I had to dip into my cash reserves. Thirty-seven dollars gone, sixty-three left.
I went through all my texts and listened to the messages. Dash had left voice mails after the texts, each more irate than the other.
“Summer, let’s talk” became “Summer, you can’t do this to me!” in seven tries.
I called him back. He didn’t answer, but as I was leaving a voice mail, his return call came through. I inhaled and answered.
“Hi.”
He didn’t say anything, just let the silence hang.
Finally, he spoke. “Are you out of your fucking mind?”
I laughed nervously. “Probably.”
“Probably? That has to be one of the more stupid moves you’ve ever made, Summer.”
I could feel my body flushing with embarrassment. He was right, but did he have to make me feel so small?
“Maybe. But I can’t say I regret it. And I think you’re going to realize soon it was for the best. I wouldn’t have made you a good wife.”
“Not really for you to decide, though, is it? I think I’d know what a good wife looks like.”
The logic of that escaped me, but I let it slide. “I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you face to face.”
“Worried I’d change your mind for you?”
“Yes, actually. You’re very persuasive.” He had spent the last year convincing me that we were good together.
He snorted. “And you don’t know what you want, Summer.
You never have. I had to tell you what to eat, what to wear, how to behave.
My mom said you must have only ever eaten at fucking Olive Garden or shopped at The Gap.
We could have taught you so much, how to be someone important.
I can’t believe I wasted so much of my time on you. ”
I couldn’t believe it either. He was being a dick, but he had a right to be.
“So where did you go? No one knew where you skipped out to, not even Adeline or Rosie.”
I squirmed on the train platform’s plastic seat. “Out of town. It seemed to be for the best.”
“On that we can agree. I’m heading to St. Bart’s today, on my honeymoon.”
“You’ll have your family. That’ll be good for you.”
He made a scoffing noise, but it wasn’t loud enough to mask something else. A woman’s voice in the background. “Baby, it’s soooo early! Come back to bed.”
I shouldn’t have been surprised, but wow.
“That was fast.”
“You’re going to criticize my choices on our wedding day, Summer?”
“No. I can’t do that.” I tried for a calming breath. “I’m on my way back to the city. I can come by when you’ve left for St. Bart’s.”
“For what?”
“To pick up my stuff.”
“No chance. Security has strict instructions not to let you in. I’ll be back in two weeks, at which point I’ll let you know when I’m ready to speak to you or allow you to come by. Until then, think about every stupid fucking decision you’ve ever made.”
He clicked off.
I stared at the phone, not quite believing what just happened.
Another woman in our bed. Locked out of our apartment.
My credit cards, keys, laptop were all back there.
My gaze fell on an ATM in the train station waiting room, one of those no-brand ones that charged a shit-ton in fees.
I had never been so grateful that I’d resisted joining my finances with Dash.
He had told me what’s mine is yours, babe, but deep down, I knew that was a fallacy. I might need to run.
I’d done it before.
On shaky legs, I approached the machine, inserted my card, and selected the option for a one hundred dollar withdrawal. A message flashed on the screen in a weird dingbats-like script. I waited, but nothing happened. I pressed every button available. Nada.
The damn machine had eaten my card!
Was it possible that—? No. Dash’s family was incredibly wealthy, but not even they had the power to control an ATM in a tiny town, miles from Chicago. I hoped.
Shaking, I opened up the bank app on my phone. My login worked—thank God! My balance was lower than I would have liked, but at least it was mine. I had access to money, but I would need a replacement card.
I mentally scrolled through my options. Unfortunately, all of them were Rebels-related.
For the last five years, my world had revolved around Dash and the team.
Rosie and Adeline might help, but how could I face them after what I had done?
I needed to get to the condo, work my magic on Victor, our doorman, and pick up the essentials.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
I looked up and met the startling green, you-are-so-fucked gaze of Hatch Kershaw.