Chapter 10
dirks
I’d tried texting Luna the last couple of days, but aside from a few one-word replies, I got nothing.
I knew she’d broken up with her boyfriend about a month ago, and ever since, I’d begged her to come back.
Things had shifted between us. I’d pushed too hard.
I knew it, but I didn’t know how to fix it.
A knock on the door pulled me off the couch. Probably one of the guys from the game this weekend, forgot something, needed something, whatever. I was ready to tell them to fuck off. I had one day off this week and zero desire to spend it dealing with their dumbass drama.
“Answer the door, fuck face,” someone with a familiar deep voice called from the other side.
I laughed and swung it open to find Ledger and Alex standing there. Alex was holding a tin of his wife’s infamous cookies and Ledger had a six-pack dangling from his fingers.
“We knew you had the day off—” Alex started.
“—And you were gonna sit here and mope like a little bitch,” Ledger finished for him as they brushed past me like they owned the place.
They made themselves at home like they always did. Alex set the cookies on the counter, and Ledger cracked open a beer like it was his name on the mortgage.
We immediately launched into yesterday’s game. Ledger couldn’t shut up about my setup in the third period.
“Tell me you didn’t peak yesterday,” he said, flopping onto my couch like a man who didn’t have cartilage in either knee. “Because if that was it, we’re screwed.”
“I peak every damn game,” I shot back.
Alex shrugged. “It was a decent pass. Maybe top five this season.”
“Oh, okay,” I said. “We grading on a Russian curve now?”
Alex smirked. “Russian curve is perfection. You don’t make the cut.”
Ledger raised his beer in salute. “To our fearless old man captain,” he said dramatically. “Leading us into battle with icy joints and a bad back.”
“I’m thirty-two,” I muttered.
“Exactly,” Ledger said. “Ancient. Practically dust.”
“You’re older than me,” I pointed out.
“Yeah, but I have youthful energy,” he said, then immediately groaned as he tried to cross his legs and failed. “Shit. My knee just locked.”
I didn’t bring up Luna. Not because I didn’t want to, but because Austin was back in town, and I didn’t want to stir up whatever the hell was going on there. That family drama was a full-contact sport, and I was too sore for that.
Alex kept side-eyeing me. Between sips of beer and stuffing cookies into his mouth, he shot me this look, part suspicion, part concern.
Finally, he tilted his head and asked, accent thick, “You okay, old man?”
“Fine,” I said.
We kept bullshitting for a while, Ledger talking trash about the rookie who skated out with his blade guards on.
Then he got up with a groan. “I gotta piss,” he muttered. “Old man bladder.”
“Projection,” I said under my breath.
He flipped me off as he headed down the hall.
The second the bathroom door shut, it was like a switch flipped.
“You’ve been playing different,” Alex said as he leaned back in the chair.
I shrugged. “Tired.”
He raised his eyebrows, not buying it for a second. “No. It’s not that.” He let the silence stretch between us before adding, “It’s been what, almost five years since Luna left?”
My jaw clenched before I could stop it. That was all the confirmation he needed.
“Did something happen?”
I didn’t answer.
He waited a beat, then nodded like he already knew. “She’s back, isn’t she?”
I rubbed the back of my neck, shaking my head.
“I begged her,” I admitted, barely above a whisper. “A month ago. I asked her to come back, and she broke up with her boyfriend, but . . . that’s it. Nothing since.”
Alex didn’t speak right away.
“You ever think maybe she’s scared?”
I gave him a look.
“You waited years. Gave her space. That was the right thing. But if you’re still hung up on her after all this time?” His voice dropped. “It’s time you stop waiting and start trying. For real.”
To everyone else, she was sunshine. Bubbly and warm and funny and easy to love.
But I knew her—the girl under all that light.
The one who’d flinch at sudden change, who overthought every move like it might blow up in her face.
The girl who second-guessed her own joy because she didn’t believe she deserved it.
Ledger came stomping back into the room, complaining that my bathroom didn’t have the “fancy-ass soap” his wife always buys me every Christmas.
Like that, the moment passed, but Alex’s words lingered.
Ledger drained the last of his beer with a groan, rolling his shoulders as he set the bottle down.
“Well, I gotta bounce before my wife sends a search party. We’re doing a candle-making class or some shit tonight.”
“Romantic,” I muttered.
“Please. I’ll be peeling wax out of my beard for a week.”
Alex stood, too, grabbing the empty cookie tin and shooting me a look I couldn’t quite read.
Ledger clapped a hand on my shoulder on his way out. “You know what you need, Dirks?”
“No,” I said flatly. “But I’m sure you’re about to tell me.”
He grinned. “To get laid. Maybe one of those hot farmers market ladies you pretend not to look at when we jog past the stands.”
Alex glanced at me, then at Ledger and shook his head like, Don’t push it.
They said their goodbyes, I thanked them for driving to the city, and the door shut behind them with a click.
Suddenly, the apartment was quiet again.
I stood there, drinking a warm beer, replaying Alex’s words on a loop—She’s scared.
I’d waited years, convinced she’d left because she didn’t want me.
I’d been so caught up in my own hurt that I didn’t see it for what it was.
I could’ve done something—texted her, gone for a run, buried myself in film—but instead, I sank back onto the couch and let the silence wrap around me. For once, I didn’t try to outrun it.