Chapter 10 #2
Usually I do everything I can to offer him that reassurance he needs, but at the moment, my nerves are too raw. I can’t give him what he needs right now, and so I remain focused on Blake rather than my clearly agitated boyfriend.
“You were tapping this sweet bundle of goodness?” Blake says slowly.
I nod. “It was more of a friends-with-benefits thing.” I get the feeling that he doesn’t believe me. Or that if he does, he can’t make sense of it.
Worry pricks at my insides. I thought Wes and I had been doing a decent job keeping Blake Riley in the dark, but now I’m starting to wonder how successful we’ve actually been.
I finally find the courage to seek out Wes’s eyes, but he doesn’t meet my gaze. His jaw is twitching. And he’s white-knuckling the arms of the death chair. Fuck. Why is everything so hard right now? What if it’s always like this?
“We should head out,” Blake tells Wes.
My boyfriend rises from the chair, still avoiding my gaze. “I’ll grab my gear,” he mutters.
A few minutes later, Wes and Blake leave for pre-game warm-ups, and I’m almost relieved. The tension between Wes and me is unbearable. Of course, now the apartment is as quiet as a tomb. I’m left alone with my pessimistic thoughts.
It’s hard to say which is worse.
The next morning I’m out of the house while Wes is still snoring softly in our bed.
I’m not intentionally sneaking out like a thief in the night—well, morning.
I have an early staff meeting to get to, and I feel bad waking him up, even if it’s just with a quick goodbye kiss.
Or at least that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.
But I don’t have a good excuse for why I pretended to be asleep when he got home from the game last night. Cowardice, maybe? Exhaustion?
I’m sure Wes is as tired of the tension as I am.
I know he is. All those years we spent at hockey camp together, we had no problem talking to each other.
All we fucking did was talk. About music.
About where we grew up. Our thoughts on different brands of deodorant and the Superman/Batman schism and about which presidential nominees had the stupidest names.
And now we’re a couple, and we’ve forgotten how to have a conversation.
It’s like we’re two acquaintances making small talk about the weather.
Hell, the past couple days, it felt like we were just acquaintances, tiptoeing around each other in our condo, fearful of saying the wrong thing and upsetting the other person.
We haven’t even discussed the night at the pub, for Pete’s sake.
And sex? Forget it. We haven’t so much as kissed since our angry make-out sesh in the pub bathroom.
I don’t know how to make things better. I love this guy, I really do. But I didn’t anticipate how hard this would be.
I’m still agonizing about it during the coaches’ meeting, and I desperately hope my colleagues don’t notice how distracted I am as our boss, Bill Braddock, drones on about ordering new equipment and the summer clinic the organization will be running.
An hour later, the meeting blessedly comes to its conclusion, and I scrape back my chair, eager to get home.
It’s a bit ridiculous of me to go back to the condo right now, but practice isn’t for another three hours, and the last thing I feel like doing is hanging around the arena.
“Jamie.” Braddock’s voice stops me before I can dart out the door.
I swallow a sigh, and slowly turn around. “Yeah, Coach?”
“Everything all right?” His tone is light, but there’s concern in his eyes.
“Everything’s great,” I lie.
“You looked a bit distracted this morning.” Shit. I guess someone did notice. Bill’s gaze sharpens. “I know your goalie is struggling, but I wouldn’t want you to take it personally.”
I don’t. It’s just one more thing going sideways in my life. “He’ll pull through,” I tell Bill. “He has the skills, but the kid is just having a rough patch. Every goalie goes through ’em.”
Bill nods thoughtfully. “True. But maybe we need to offer him some more support. I could ask Hessey to spend some time with the kid. Try to help him find his confidence. We don’t just breed champions here.
We shape young men and women. Luckily, we have all the resources we need to shower on those who are struggling. ”
A zing of panic shoots up my spine. “Give me a couple of weeks with him,” I say more calmly than I feel. I can’t have Bill thinking that my coaching isn’t enough. What the hell am I here for, then? “If Dunlop gets the impression that he’s a problem child, that won’t do a thing for his confidence.”
Braddock rubs a hand over his chin. “If that’s how you want to play it. But your team’s morale is low, so the Dunlop kid’s psyche isn’t the only one that needs massaging. I think a little extra love and attention from the coaching staff might be just the thing they need to pull together.”
My heart sinks into my shoes. I don’t want a more senior coach to solve Dunlop’s problem when I can help him myself.
And Braddock is a smart man, but if there’s a coach on our team who needs some extra support, it’s Danton and his big fucking mouth.
I can’t believe he doesn’t see that. “I’ll check in with you next week,” I promise.
Bill claps a hand onto my shoulder. “We’ll talk soon. I look forward to it.” Then he leaves me there to stew in my own aggravation.
I feel like all I’ve done these past couple months is lose. Lose patience, lose the ability to talk to my boyfriend, lose that indescribable ease that always existed between me and Wes.
But have we really lost it, or just misplaced it?
I agonize about it some more as I hop on the subway and head home.
Wes has surely left for his morning skate, and I’m relieved at the timing.
Then I’m guilty for feeling relieved. And angry for feeling guilty.
And annoyed for feeling angry. My emotions don’t like me today.
The first thing I notice when I enter the living room is the chair. Or lack thereof. The death chair is gone.
My jaw falls open. I stalk toward the brand new chair that is taking the place of the armchair that’s haunted my nightmares for months.
Wes must have ordered this yesterday, because I’m now staring at a big, black, cushy contraption that seems to have more knobs and dials than any chair has a right to have.
There’s a post-it note stuck on one of the padded arms. I snatch it up and skim Wes’s familiar chicken-scratch scrawl.
Dude at the store said this one will be better for our backs. Ten different massage settings. We should use it on our balls and see if it doubles as a sex toy. Fingers crossed.
I read the note again. I look at the chair again. I’m torn between laughing and cursing.
My humor fades fast, though, because...damn it, this is classic Wes, thinking a piece of furniture will erase the tension between us.
I crumple the note between my fingers. Wes is fooling himself if he thinks bruised feelings and growing resentment can be smoothed over by a chair.