Chapter 30
CHAPTER
THIRTY
WILDER
It’s been two hours since she sent me that goddamn picture, and I still can’t focus, my concentration non-fucking-existent.
Because Maisie Delacroix is filling my head like static.
The same way that she has been since she came on my fingers three days ago, whimpering, moaning my name.
I’ve never allowed myself any type of vice. Nothing that could become an addiction. I couldn’t, not when there was rot in my veins.
But after a single taste of her, I am hooked. Addicted.
Desperate for another hit of her like she’s the most potent drug on the planet.
I’ve jerked off more times than I want to admit since that night in her living room, replaying it in my head over and over.
I feel out of control. Like a goddamn teenager unable to keep shit in check.
And then today… she sends that picture, teasing me, offering me the smallest glimpse of bare skin in lace, and I feel like I’m losing my goddamn mind, sitting in my office with a hard-on that I can’t get to go down.
I should’ve said yes when she asked if I was busy tonight. I should’ve made up an excuse, but I’m done denying myself.
I can’t stay the fuck away from her. I’ve tried, and look how that ended up. My fingers buried in her cunt.
Sighing, I slam my laptop closed and stand from my desk.
We’ve got an away series coming up, and regardless of whether I want it or not, I have a job to do. I’ve got to make sure the defense is prepared, but it’s impossible when I can’t focus.
So, I’m going to Maisie’s.
I’m going to have dinner and then hopefully her for dessert because I’ve spent the last three days thinking about all the ways I’m going to eat her pussy.
My phone rings just as I push through the exit doors of the arena, and I glance down to see Camila’s name on the screen.
It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve talked to her. Between my coaching schedule and my newest distraction, I’ve hardly had time.
Or the headspace for the conversation.
I answer, pressing it to my shoulder as I unlock my truck and slide into the driver’s seat.
“Hello.”
“Oh, hi, Wilder. Long time no talk. Glad you could pick up and stop dodging my phone calls.”
I smirk. “What’s up?”
I hear a huff expelled through the speaker. “What’s up? What’s up? Jesus, I’m going to punch you the next time I see you.”
The call transfers to my truck when I pull out onto the highway, so I toss my phone into the cup holder and keep my eyes on the road.
“We texted… a couple of times.”
Camila sighs. “One-word responses do not count as holding a conversation, contrary to what you think. I just want to know what’s going on in your life. I miss you. I worry about you. I’m a mother now; it’s literally woven into my genetic makeup.”
She’s the only person in my life who’s ever cared enough to worry about me.
That’s what always has the feeling of guilt weighing my stomach down like lead when I try to avoid the conversations, the questions. To push her away.
To not let her get any closer to the demons that are constantly waging a war inside my mind.
“Just been swamped with work, and I—”
“Bullshit. I know you better than you know yourself. All you do is work, punch that stupid bag, half-ass sleep, and do it again.”
I scoff, rolling my eyes. “Christ, Cam. Sum up my entire pathetic existence, why don’t you?”
I say it teasingly, but the truth, the one buried deep down that I don’t want to admit even to myself, is that since I lost my career, since I lost hockey almost entirely… I feel like I have zero fucking purpose.
I mean, fuck, I’ve spent my entire life working toward the goal of being a professional hockey player.
It saved my life.
It gave me something to believe in, something to hope for, something to hold on to when everything in my world was miserable.
That’s why I refuse to go out this way. To let anyone else dictate the way my career will end. If I’m going to retire, it’s going to be on my terms. I earned that. I fought for it. I deserve it after the decade I spent giving every ounce of myself.
Camila’s laugh brings me out of my head, and I blink, realizing that I’m driving, but I have no goddamn clue where I’m even going.
The streets are familiar, but it’s been so long since I’ve been here, everything looks different and the same all at once.
“I’m just saying. Wait… are you seeing someone?”
“What?” I grunt. “C’mon, Cam. You know me. The only thing I see is the back of a girl’s head when I’m fuc—”
“Hey, hey, woahhhhh.” She balks. “There are little ears present, and ew. I do not even want to think about that because gross.”
It’s bullshit, but she doesn’t need to know that I haven’t touched anyone since I’ve been here except… Maisie.
And before her? I can’t even fucking remember.
“Actually, I was calling today not just to check on you, but because I have a favor.”
My brow lifts. Camila with a favor?
It’s been a long time since she’s asked anything of me. I mean, she could ask me to rope the fucking moon for her and Lily, and I’d do it, but it’s not something she normally does.
“Okay, what kind of favor?”
A moment of silence passes. “So, you’re probably going to want to say no to this, but I really would love if you said yes. If not for me, then for you.”
Fuck.
I already do not like where this is going.
“I still keep in touch with Mrs. Aucoin at Crescent House.” The name slithers down my spine and makes me want to puke just hearing it, a flurry of unwanted memories hurdling back.
“She asks about you, and I know that it’s not a very pleasant place for you, Wilder, but she asked if you would be willing to stop by while you’re in town and talk with the kids there. ”
Goddamnit.
Somehow, I knew the moment she said her name, that fucking place, this is where the conversation would be headed. She knows a lot about my childhood, but she doesn’t know all of the worst shit. The shit I could never speak out loud.
“Cam.”
“It would be for the kids, Wilder,” she says softly, and my stomach twists so sharp, my head swimming so hard that the road blurs in front of the windshield.
“You know how much it would’ve meant to you back then.
Listen, I understand if you choose not to.
A hundred percent, and I wouldn’t blame you.
But I also think that this could be part of healing yourself, healing your heart…
healing that little boy who’s still somewhere in there. ”
I snatch the phone out of the cup holder, my finger hovering over the button on the screen to end the call.
But I don’t.
I never fucking do because it’s Cam. The closest thing I’ll ever have to a family.
“I don’t… I don’t know if I can.”
I can hear the smile in her voice. “You can, Wilder. You can do anything. I think it would be good for you, and who knows, you might just change someone’s life. Give them someone to look up to and show them that there is a big, beautiful life waiting for them.”
I swallow down the bile that’s sliding up my throat, my fingers tightening around the steering wheel.
“I’ll think about it.”
“That’s all I’m asking. I know it would mean so much to those kids.”
My thoughts flit to Maisie.
She’d be ecstatic working with more kids, introducing them to reading. Her eyes light up when she talks about the program, when she’s around the kids, a smile so bright and beautiful overtaking her face.
“Yeah. Maybe.” I haven’t the slightest clue why, but the words spill out of me so quickly I don’t even have the chance to stop them. “I don’t know, Camila. I’ll think about it. That’s got to be enough for now.”
I have no idea if I’m ever going to be able to face that place again, whether it’s for her or anyone.
“It is. I’ve got to go run and feed Lily, but I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”
“Yep.”
I end the call before she says anything else, and then I hurl it across the truck with a roar that shakes the entire cab.
“Fuck!”
I keep running, and no matter where I go, no matter what happens, I’m never going to outrun the past that’s haunting me.