Chapter 31
CHAPTER
THIRTY-ONE
Axel
My hands won’t stop shaking. I text Sofia that we’ll be late picking up Luca from his playdate with Sofia’s kids. She responds immediately and tells me to take all the time we need, and I try to remember how to breathe.
I shouldn’t be driving anyway.
My heart is beating too quickly, as if some doctor snuck into the bedroom and shot me with adrenaline.
I slide onto the floor, looking up at Luca’s bed, Luca’s toys, Luca’s posters.
The pale blue walls are normally calming, but my heart still skitters.
His stuffed dinosaur is tucked under the covers, waiting for him. His drawings are taped to the pale blue walls—stick figures that might be us or might be aliens.
I draw my knees to my chest and try to breathe.
Why hadn’t Enzo asked me if I’d slept with Gaby? Why hadn’t he just asked me?
A knock sounds on the door, then Enzo opens it slowly. His face is pale, and his eyes are bloodshot. His cheeks are wet, and when I blink, my own vision blurs. I’m crying too.
“I’m sorry I didn’t stay,” I say. “I—I wasn’t going to lose it in front of a stranger.”
“You don’t owe anyone an apology.” He hesitates. “Especially me. I’m so sorry. I ruined everything. I can’t believe I cost you your relationship with Luca.”
“Luca and I have a good relationship.”
“You do. And you could have met him before—” He swallows hard. “If I hadn’t—”
“You thought I’d slept with Gaby.”
He nods.
“That’s why you hated me.”
He nods again. “I’m sorry. I-I should have called you. I didn’t want to hear you say the words. I shut you out, and you lost the chance to have a relationship with your son for the first two years of his life.”
I inhale. My heart jerks. I clench my fists together, as if that can keep blood from exploding through my body. “That’s why you think I’m upset?”
Enzo stares at me, stricken.
“I gave my sample to Gaby freely. I was certain she would be a good mother and happy to make motherhood possible for her. I had no expectations. None. But you left me,” I say.
“You were my best friend, and you left me. You didn’t say goodbye.
You didn’t even ask me for an explanation.
You should have called me and yelled at me for sleeping with Gaby—and I would have told you straight away that I didn’t do that, that I would never have done that to you. ”
Tears slide down Enzo’s face and drip off his jaw. I’ve seen him cry before. I never saw him cry in college, never saw him cry in the years when we were new to the NHL, but I’ve seen him cry many times since he moved to Boston.
I know he misses Gaby. I know he sometimes feels overwhelmed. I know when Luca is sad, sometimes he feels his sadness.
But I’ve never seen him cry like this. It’s ugly and harsh, hitching, gasping sobs that scrape out of him, and it sounds like my own heart breaking.
“I’m sorry,” he sobs. “I’m sorry. I pushed you away.”
“You broke my heart.”
He stares at me, stunned.
“You were the most important person in my life,” I say. “I used to call you when I got to a new hotel room and ask you if you’d been in the city.”
“Because you wanted going-out tips.”
“No! Because I wanted to hear your voice.” I hesitate. “Though I appreciated the going-out tips too. Obviously.”
He gives a soft laugh through his tears. He sniffs. I crawl toward the table where I put some a tissue box. I didn’t think they would ever be for Enzo and me. I take a tissue, then toss the box to Enzo. He catches it easily and takes multiple.
I smile through my tears. “Crying sucks.”
“Yeah.”
I crawl toward him, the carpet rough under my palms, until our knees almost touch. I want to pull him to my body and tell him that I love him. I want to go back to right before the Zoom call. I want everything to be pleasant.
It isn’t.
“You should have called me,” I repeat. I hesitate. “And I really wish that Gaby had told you the truth too. I-I just wanted to be a good friend. I didn’t think I was signing away my friendship to you.”
I wonder if I’ve said too much. I wonder if he’ll defend his sister and storm out. I don’t think so, but I’m not sure.
“I wish she’d said that too.” He inhales. “She fought really hard for custody of me when I was a teenager. She was worried she would have to fight you for custody.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Yes. It is. You’re the best person I know, Axel. I don’t know how she could have thought anything else, but it’s my fault. I-I criticized you after she told me you were the father. I said you partied a lot.”
My heart thuds. I think of the three years I didn’t have Enzo in my life. I think of the pain. The confusion. The anger.
All because Enzo thought I’d slept with his sister. I chew my bottom lip. “Why was it such a big deal for me to sleep with her?”
He glances up at me.
“I didn’t,” I remind him hastily. “I didn’t. But you know sometimes best friends do date their best friends’ siblings, sometimes they even marry them. And you know, the best friends get to see their best friends more. And they like it. They’re a family.”
“Oh.” Enzo looks down. His skin is pinker than before. “I really liked you back then.”
“We were best friends.”
He shakes his head. “No.”
I frown.
“I mean, yes, we were best friends.”
I exhale.
“But you were also more,” he says. “I was in love with you, Axel. I loved you from the first day we met. I’ve always been yours. And—and I know it’s bad to tell you now. And you might just want me to leave, and I-I understand that. I do. I wouldn’t want that, but I do understand that.”
I stare at Enzo. “You dated Sofia.”
He blushes. “That was a mistake. I apologized to her. I-I shouldn’t have done that. I thought I was probably gay, but I wasn’t sure, since, you know, girls are pretty, and some people are bisexual and—”
“You were eighteen,” I say.
“I was eighteen.” He glances at me. “And you were always hooking up with women and talking about how great women are and—”
I pull him toward me. I inhale his scent and crush him against my chest. His arms tighten around me, fingers twisting into the back of my shirt like he’s afraid I’ll dissolve.
“That must have been horrible,” I say. “I’m sorry. You should have told me.”
“I didn’t want the chance that I might lose you from my life,” he says.
I frown. I’m not sure what eighteen-year-old or nineteen-year-old or twenty-year-old me would have done if Enzo had told me he loved me. Maybe we would have gotten together. But I’m not sure. I’m not confident.
What if he’s right? What if I’d just said that ‘sucks bro’ and repeated that I was straight? What if I’d decided that it was probably a bad idea to spend so much time with him? What if I’d tried to set him up with men?
I hope we would have gotten together, and maybe we would have, but…
I swallow hard. I’d been obsessed with joining the NHL back then, and back then, there hadn’t been any out players.
I hadn’t considered myself attracted to men, even though, face it, I was.
Would I have said something idiotic like ‘thank you’?
“I was a fool back then,” I say instead. “I don’t know why I didn’t kiss you. I don’t know why I didn’t put together that the fact that I wanted to spend all my time with you meant something huge. I-I wish I had.”
He squeezes me more tightly.
I’m quiet for a long moment. My anger isn’t gone—maybe it won’t ever be completely gone. Three years is a long time to wonder what you did wrong.
But I understand.
When he thought I’d slept with Gaby, it was the final straw, the proof that I was like his father.
I wasn’t. Of course not. But he didn’t know that.
“I’m sorry you went through that,” I say finally. “I am.”
“I thought you abandoned her,” Enzo says. “I thought you slept with her and abandoned her and hurt her. I thought I’d introduced her to someone like my dad, someone who left. I-I couldn’t forgive you for that.”
My shoulder is wet, and I stroke my fingers through his hair.
I don’t like that this happened, but I do understand it.
Enzo scrambles from my arms.
“You must hate me,” Enzo says. “I-I get it. I don’t want to force you to be with me. I know I moved into your apartment. I know I invaded your space with my issues, and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Axel. You were the nicest person I ever met. You were incredible. I loved you so much.”
I stiffen. “You better still love me.”
“I-I do, but…”
I wrap my arms around my chest. I stare at him.
“I hurt you,” Enzo says.
“You did. You hurt me so much.”
“So I understand if—”
“It’s better if you leave?”
His face crumbles, but he sticks out his jaw and widens his shoulders, like a captured soldier about to be shot by the enemy. “Yes. That.”
I frown. “And custody of Luca?”
“You’re Luca’s father. You have custody of him.”
“You won’t fight me?”
He gives me a strange look. “No. B-but I would like to see him. I don’t want him to think I don’t care about him. I-I could move into another apartment here just like we talked about in the beginning.”
“Like you talked about in the beginning,” I say.
He shrugs. “I-I guess.”
“All because you didn’t speak to me for three years?”
“I hurt you. You didn’t deserve that.”
“No. I didn’t.” I push myself up, heart still hammering. “Stand up, Enzo. I need to tell you something.”