27. Xavi
Chapter 27
Xavi
“F uck off,” I snapped, my body heavy, my eyes dry and scratchy, my anger peaking. “Don’t try to tell me how to cope with this.”
Cole leaned back against the kitchen counter, his arms crossed over his black long-sleeve, his jaw flexing like he was biting back what he wanted to say. “You’re not the only one she’s ghosted, Xav. You think we don’t care? You think we’re just okay with her dropping off the face of the earth?”
“She just wanted time to think,” Colton said, his voice low and soft for once, not a hint of jokiness or false happiness. He dropped his keys on the counter as he rounded the kitchen island. “We’re all trying to give her that.”
“It’s been almost three weeks!” I shot back, sharp and angry and bitter .
“We know.” Cole swallowed and glanced across at Colton, his gaze looking for something, anything . “We can’t assume that three weeks is enough. None of us have been in her position.”
“He’s right.”
“It’s enough. It’s enough, and she’s probably made her decision, and it’s probably not us,” I said, the words leaving my mouth before they really hit home for me. My throat closed abruptly, feeling like a goddamn hockey puck was stuck in it, and I moved, ripping the fridge open. Cold air flooded my face, but it didn’t do a thing to cool me down. My hand found the box of the eighteen-pack I’d half emptied yesterday. I yanked out a can.
Cole’s footsteps were heavy against the tile floor before he stepped in front of me, slamming the fridge door and putting his hand on top of the pull tab of the Stella. “You really want to do this again?”
I didn’t answer. Just stared at him, too tired and fed up to deal with this, and waited for him to move.
“You’re hungover from yesterday and you’re reaching for one like it’s water,” he added, his eyes narrowing.
“I’m not hungover,” I lied.
“You think we didn’t hear you coming out here last night and cracking one open over and over?” Colton said from somewhere behind me. “I could hear you throwing up last night. The wall between your bathroom and my bedroom is thin .”
“And I know it wasn’t just last night.” Cole’s jaw worked as he tightened his grip on the top of the can. “Did you honestly think we wouldn’t notice?”
“Back off,” I clipped, pulling on the can, but he didn’t let it go. “Cole?—”
“No. You’re drinking yourself sideways every night, Xav. You put whiskey in your fucking coffee three days ago. I could smell it.” He pulled back, but I was too tired to fight it, and the can easily slipped out of my fingers. Shame crept in that he’d caught that, my cheeks and ears burning, and I wanted to shut it down and lie and say that it hadn’t happened. But I couldn’t.
“I didn’t sleep,” I said instead, as if it was at all a good excuse.
“You smell like Smokey’s every time you pass me,” Colton added, his voice a little harsher now. “You’ve been late to morning skate more times than I can count, and you picked up how many minutes in penalties last game?”
I turned to him, wanting to shut it down but wanting to fight. This wasn’t fair — they were treating me like a child for trying to cope with something they clearly found easy. “So I get chippy. I take a couple of stupid penalties and suddenly, I’m an alcoholic?”
“It’s not just chippy, Xav,” Cole said, pulling open the fridge and putting the beer back. “Coach already gave you a dressing down. If you cross-check a guy after the whistle again, you’re looking at a fucking suspension. Do you genuinely want to tank the season over this?”
I pressed the butt of my palms against my eyes, my face burning, my chest aching. “You think I don’t know I’m blowing it?” My voice cracked on the too-loud words, and I tried to hide it, tried to hide the rising tide of anger and grief and all-encompassing hurt that I desperately needed to numb. “Do you think I don’t feel it when my legs are ten seconds behind my brain every time I hit the ice? I don’t… I don’t want to feel like that, like this , but all I can fucking see is her face and all I can do is think about her and I can’t, I can’t, I can’t?—”
Colton stepped around the counter with a mumbled shit and Cole took a step toward me, the anger draining out of his face for a moment.
“You’ve got to get your shit together, for you ,” Colton said, his voice a little gentler.
I let out a rough, humorless laugh. “Right. I need to sit here and pretend like I’m fine. That’ll go so well.”
“That’s not what we’re saying.” Cole put a hand on my shoulder, and I tried to shrug it off, but he wouldn’t let me. “We know that wouldn’t help, but neither is drinking yourself stupid. You’re spiraling, Xav. We’re just trying to keep you from cracking your head open when you hit the bottom.”
“Maybe I need to hit it,” I rasped. “Maybe that’s the only way I’ll actually come to terms with this.”
Colton grabbed my arm, pulling gently, trying to bring me in for a hug that I couldn’t handle right now. “Xavi?—”
I yanked free from both of them. “I can’t just sit and wait,” I mumbled, pushing my hand through my hair, gripping it, needing to feel something .
“Then what?” Colton asked, following me as I started to move out of the kitchen. “You just gonna drink yourself into a coma while we wait?”
“No.” My feet led me down the short hallway to the foyer, and I grabbed my slip-on boots from the floor, pulling them on one at a time. “I’m gonna fix it.”
Colton scoffed, and Cole’s voice carried through the hall. “By doing what , exactly?”
I didn’t answer. Just grabbed my keys.
The door slammed behind me.
The sky outside was almost bruise-colored, dark clouds stretching low over the neighborhood and the fog of rain in the distance. I slid into my black BMW M4, heart thudding in my chest like I’d just skated off a penalty kill. The engine rumbled to life beneath me, a low growl that matched the twisting of my stomach.
Dad had her address. I knew that. And I hadn’t asked for it until now, hadn’t wanted to cross that line.
But I was done waiting. Done wondering.
I backed out of the driveway and set the satnav.
————
I didn’t knock like I should’ve. I pounded on the door instead, heavy and impatient.
When the door finally swung open, she stood there, barefoot in leggings and a baggy shirt, my hoodie hanging loosely from her shoulders. Her hair was a mess. Her eyes were puffy. No makeup, no smile, just hell in human form.
“Xavi?” She blinked at me like I was a ghost, like she wasn’t quite sure I was real, her eyes roving over the still-healing cut on my jaw from the fight in Denver. “What are you?—”
I didn’t let her finish.
I stepped in, cupped her face, and kissed her.
Weeks of silence, of ignored texts and calls, of wondering if I’d said too much or been too much melted from me in an instant the moment my mouth met hers. She was so soft beneath my touch, her body frozen for just a moment before I felt her fingers clutch the front of my shirt just barely. But she didn’t pull away.
I pushed her back against the closest wall, not fully realizing that it was the side of a refrigerator until it swayed just a little with her weight, but I didn’t care. I kicked the door shut behind me.
The smell of her hit me hard, her shampoo and body wash too familiar to me now. She tasted the same, and I hoped to god I didn’t smell like booze — I shouldn’t have, not when Cole hadn’t let me have that first one, but the worry still hit me.
I broke the kiss slowly, my breath tangled up in hers, my fingers wrapped in her hair. She stared up at me, eyes wide and a little damp, her lower lip trembling.
“I had to see you,” I breathed, my thumbs brushing across her cheeks. My heart was racing, my throat raw. “It’s been almost three weeks.”
Her breathing went a little unstable. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“I don’t care.” I let my forehead drop to hers. “You disappeared. You won’t text me—us—back. I know I’m supposed to be giving you time, but I… I can’t. I’m losing my fucking mind, Annie.”
A small, choked little noise came from her, and the ache in my chest came roaring back to life. I’d never seen her this much of a mess, not even the night at Smokey’s, and all of my usual ease in talking down a person who was upset went out the window. I didn’t know how to do it in situations like this. Strangers? Easy. The woman I was slipping into madness over? Chaotically difficult.
“Please, baby,” I croaked, pressing my mouth to hers again, wanting it to be soft and easy and persuasive, but my body was so desperate for her that it moved on its own. The kiss was messier than intended, my fingers gripping her tight, my throat closing in with every lazy drag of her lips to my fevered ones.
It felt like she wasn’t meeting me halfway.
I tried to pull her closer, but her palms pressed against my chest, flat, gentle, but insistent.
It took everything in me to pull my mouth from hers again.
“I can’t.”
My heart thudded painfully in my chest. “What do you mean you can’t ?” I rasped.
Her eyes lifted to mine, glassy and bloodshot, tears gathering in the corners. “It’s over, Xavi.”
My stomach dropped. I swear, my heart stopped beating, the constant, aching thudding pausing. “No, it’s not.”
She swallowed, her throat working, her voice wobbling. “Xavi, please don’t make this harder?—”
“No. No . You don’t get to just say that like it’s done and gone and like it never mattered.” My throat felt like it was closing in. Hell, the whole world felt like it was closing in. Was this cracking my head at the bottom of the spiral?
“It wouldn’t have worked.” Her breath rose and fell erratically, her voice shot, the tears starting to slip free. “Three guys and one woman? That’s not how life works, Xav.”
“Don’t give me that,” I said, my voice fully cracking now. I pushed back from her, giving her space, giving me space, the feeling of overwhelming suffocation settling in. It was happening again. I was being left behind. “We were making it work, Annie, we were figuring it out. We had a few kinks on the road but we were ironing them out. You don’t know that it couldn’t have worked?—”
“I had to make a choice,” she croaked.
“You didn’t choose,” I shot back, a flash of anger streaking through the dark apartment. “You ran.”
Silence. Thick, heavy.
“You didn’t even give us a chance to help you figure this out,” I murmured, trying to calm it down, trying not to let my frustration seep into this. “You didn’t give me a shot, baby.”
Her head dipped, and for a second, I didn’t quite know why she was moving. But then my hoodie slipped off her shoulders, pooling in her hands, and she held it out to me without a word.
I stared at it in horror. “I don’t want it back.”
“Please.”
I hated the way she said it, like she was choking on the word. That single word made me do things I’d never do, and I reached out, hesitantly taking my hoodie back, and threw it over my shoulder.
I wanted to say something else. I wanted to beg her, wanted to throw myself at her feet and say every single thing that came into my head and not put a filter on it, wanted to tell her things I’d never told anyone else.
But I couldn’t. I couldn’t, because I’d only hurt myself more.
So I left.
I walked out with my chest aching and hollow, my jaw locked, my eyes burning. I got into my car and didn’t take a breath until the engine started, didn’t let myself cry until I was back in our driveway.
I’d taken hits before. On the ice, and off it. But nothing, absolutely nothing, had ever hit as hard as her words had.