Chapter 37
Gunnar
I was so tired of the endless questions and needs from everyone around me. The only time I’d felt whole in years—decades, really—was with Zaila, but I’d been so busy second-guessing myself that I made her doubt what was between us.
I went to the parking area, only to find my car blocked in by the happy couple’s limo, so I found a corner near the catering tent, braced my hands on the table, and bowed my head. My chest ached like I’d taken a puck straight to the ribs.
I did this. I’d broken the best thing to ever happen to me because…
what? My feelings were hurt when she said she wanted to keep things professional when we returned from Sweden?
I hadn’t been forthcoming, hadn’t admitted that her uncertainty fed mine, so I’d hesitated to send out that press release about our relationship.
“There you are, Gunnar,” Ida Jane said as she marched across the tent like she owned the place, flanked by Keelie, Paloma, Vivian, and Millie. The squadron of hockey wives carried...holy crap. Were those cucumbers and face masks? Where did they get those? This was Lennon’s wedding.
Naomi and even tiny Hana narrowed their eyes at me, giving off a serious and terrifying we’re-not-asking energy.
“What?” I asked, raising my hands, palms out. “I can’t take another round with you right now. I’m strategizing how to get Zaila to forgive me.”
“Good.” Hana nodded.
“That’s an excellent first step in any intervention,” Naomi said.
Keelie placed her hands on her hips. “And he finally traded the slimy little suck up.”
“That’s nicer than what I would have called him,” Ida Jane said, her eyes flashing.
“Really?” Millie shoved her glasses up her nose. “What would you have called him?”
“A shit bag,” Ida Jane noted.
“Well, he was a snot-nosed whiner when security escorted him out,” Paloma said. “I cheered when he left the building.”
“Me, too,” Hana said. “He called Paxton old and slow.”
“Jerk,” Keelie snapped.
All the eyes returned to rest on me.
“What?” I scrubbed my hands down my face as the women continued to eye me with pity. “Who died?”
“Your common sense.” Paloma sighed. “And hopefully you’re willing to relinquish your dignity.”
Keelie dumped a spa kit on the smooth, formerly clean surface of the table. “You need soothing, and then you need to listen to everything we tell you so you can get your woman back before she does something exceedingly stupid.”
I glared, but Ida Jane sat me down and slapped a cucumber slice over each of my eyes. “Hold still. You have bags for days. You don’t want to go to Zaila looking every one of your twenty years age difference.”
“Of course I’m going to Zaila. Has Lennon’s limo moved? I’ll go right now.” I tried to sit up, but multiple sets of hands held me to the chair while the pressure on my cucumber slices increased.
“Look, Gunnar, I know you’re the team owner, so don’t let this blow back on Luka, but I need to tell you that you’re acting like a damn fool.” That was Millie.
“Zaila’s terrified, Gunnar,” Ida Jane said. I could tell because of her thick, sweet accent. “Not of you—of being left. Again. Just like always.”
“And you’ve reinforced that she isn’t a priority by not keeping your word about going public,” Naomi said.
“Yesterday you did the presser, but didn’t mention your relationship to Zaila at all,” Hana said.
At least I thought it was Hana because her voice tended to be the softest.
“Not cool, my dude,” Naomi added.
“Definitely not helping your cause with a woman who was adopted,” Paloma said. “I talked to her, you know. Her parents tried therapy, in case Zaila had abandonment issues, but she was fine as long as she felt secure in her relationship with them.”
“Dying parents really screw things up,” Hana said on a sigh.
That smacked me like a cheap shot. I yanked off a cucumber. “She’s my top priority.”
Millie shook her head. “No. If she were your top priority, you would have insisted that security return her work badge and told the press corps that she’s your partner.”
“You didn’t do that,” Naomi pointed out, rather unhelpfully.
“She’s protecting herself. Her mom just died, and you…” Millie’s voice dropped. “You didn’t even take her out on actual dates.”
“Which made it easy for her to think she wasn’t important to you,” Keelie added. “Though that clearly isn’t the case.”
I blinked at the women surrounding me as I gradually processed their words, my blood running cold.
By swallowing my feelings instead of airing them, I’d created the space between Zaila and me.
At the time, I’d thought it best to focus on the team, but I’d failed Zaila—failed to show my grieving woman that she was the center of my existence.
She needed that reassurance right now, after losing her parents.
She’d been reeling before we left for Sweden and all those fears rushed back when we returned to Houston—with good reason.
I hadn’t made Zaila feel like she belonged with me—to me—as I’d said I would.
She’d been able to doubt that I loved her because I hadn’t told people I did.
I didn’t just love her, though. I needed her. But I hadn’t shown her how much—not in the ways she needed to see and feel it.
Swallowing the lump of frustration and self-directed anger proved difficult, but I managed—barely.
I’d made a point to talk to Ida Jane about how Zaila’s early years of abandonment had affected her, and yet, I’d let my concern for a business, for public appearances, take precedence.
At least that’s how Zaila took it, from what she’d said earlier.
My priorities were skewed, and I hadn’t pushed firmly enough for what I knew was right.
I’d let fear when she questioned us, even a little, take hold.
When Zaila asked for us to remain professional in public, I’d failed to realize that she was as afraid of us, of our future, of me leaving her, as it seemed I was of her leaving and hurting me.
I pursed my lips as I flipped back through all our interactions.
I’d never told her that I considered her my equal, that I wanted her by my side during meetings, downtime, and kayak rides, as well as complex negotiations, not just in my bed.
I’d never once told her that every time she smiled at me, her eyes bright, I felt whole.
Like I deserved a family—like she was my family.
While I’d waffled, other people had planted doubt in her head. I’d let her worry she was temporary, dispensable, when she was the one person I couldn’t imagine losing.
Now, I worried I had.
The thought scraped my insides raw. The minute I could get out of here, I was heading to Zaila’s house, and I wouldn’t hold back. I’d fight for her—with every word, every gesture, every damn thing I had.
Because the truth was simple: the Wildcatters, the franchise, the wins—they were pieces of my life. But Zaila? She was what made me feel whole. And I wanted to do—be—the same for her.
Ida Jane sank into a crouch beside my chair, her manicure of team-colored polish noticeable as she wrapped her fingers around the armrest. “We’ve all been there.
You think you’re prepared, you think you have it all together, but then you get hit with the biggest board slam of them all: a love that means you have to go all in or lose everything. ”
Paloma shuddered. “That’s terrifying—giving someone else control over your happiness.
After my boys grew up, I was afraid to love again.
Even once I met Trix—that’s Silas’s, and now my, daughter—I struggled with letting myself love her.
” Her smile warmed. “Thankfully, that girl is simply too lovable to hold back. By the end of the first day with them, I was a goner.”
“You’re doing a version of what Pax did,” Hana said. “You decided the solution for her without actually talking it out.” She seemed to be the most emotionally lethal of the group, which wasn’t fair.
Why was it always the quiet ones?
“I wouldn’t have ever walked away from her,” I exclaimed.
“You did yesterday,” Naomi said.
“And you’ve been really aloof at the wedding,” Keelie added.
I opened my mouth, then shut it.
“I’m going to make an educated guess here, since I’m the licensed therapist,” Ida Jane began.
“You work with kids,” I mumbled.
“And since you’re acting like one, you’re within my wheelhouse,” she shot back.
No wonder Maxim was so enamored with his wife; she had a backbone of steel.
“Now, as I was saying, my hypothesis is that you believe you deserve to be alone just as much as Zaila’s afraid of being left all alone.”
I stared at her for a long minute. No one moved, no one seemed to breathe.
“I was sure I deserved to suffer when I was hurt in that car accident,” Hana offered. “That I was being punished for not being the woman Pax needed or deserved.”
“Not unlike you losing your parents, who were on the way to your hockey game,” Paloma said. She patted my clenched fist.
“And I have to assume losing your brother, Karl, a few years later made it easy to ice people out,” Millie said. “I thought that’s what you were doing with me until I realized that’s just how you move through life.”
I remained silent, digesting what they’d said, how I’d let my coping mechanisms lead me to loneliness, regret, and heartbreak.
This emotional place sucked, and I’d figured most of that out myself, but having these wise women shove it in my face as they empathized with me and Zaila made it all click: I had to tell Zaila the whole ugly truth.
She had to understand why I ran from such an involved, loving relationship to one that was so careful and controlled, meticulously managed.
It wasn’t her; it had never been her—I was protecting myself, though he would hate that.
Hate it. And yet…I continued to do so. Either I’d have to suck it up and deal with my past, or I’d have to let Zaila go.
The second option wasn’t happening.
“Are you all always this good at the emotions?” I asked them.
“Yes.” They all nodded.
“That’s why we have such a cohesive team,” Paloma said with a smile. “We keep the guys emotionally healthy.”
“Sorry, Gunnar, but you’re messing up the juju we’ve worked so hard to establish,” Millie said.
“Now that Jeff, the real problem, is gone, we need you out of your funk and all-in with Zaila so we can redirect to keeping our men happy and focused on the game,” Keelie said.
“I…”
Hana gave my shoulder a soft pat. “You don’t have to thank us.”
I stared at her, mystified.
“But you need to show Zaila that you want her in your life and that she can trust you to be there for her in all situations,” Naomi said.
They all smiled before Keelie added, “And we have just the plan.”