Chapter 43
Forty Three
Noah
Today is definitely going down as one of the worst days of my life.
And after the life I’ve led, that’s saying something.
We lost the Stanley Cup to the Colorado Icebreakers. The last game of the seven-series was the one that decided that we’re not lifting that cup this season.
I can blame no one but myself for this loss. My head was not in the game. I was so fucking off my game that Coach even considered benching me. Talk about a punch to a man’s already bruised ego.
The inside of the locker room was nothing short of a funeral home, solemn and distressed. Everyone on the team was upset and angry, rightly so. They put so much hard work, time, and peace of mind to win the cup, only for me to play like shit when we came so fucking close.
“I’m sorry,” I mutter an apology in the room, the guys halting their movements and lifting their eyes to me.
“It’s just a game, man. No need to sweat it,” Oliver shrugs as he unties his laces on the bench, giving me a tight smile that’s obviously taxing him.
Before I can say some bullshit, Seb pipes, removing his jersey over his head, “You can always make it up by giving us a treat of your home-cooked meal, Daddy.”
Everyone releases a light chuckle, shaking their heads at him.
“That’s right,” Ezra adds. “I’m not requesting my wife to cook for me after we go back home from a long series of games and an hours-long flight. You’ll have to do,” he sighs, shaking his head as if he’s doing me a solid by eating the meal I cook.
“She’s still not your wife, dude,” I pinch him right back, removing those pads on my legs.
Ezra jabs me in the shoulder, putting me off-balance as I grab the stall to keep myself steady. “Zip it. She might as well be.”
“God, Cap! You’re so pussy-whipped,” Levi scoffs for somewhere in the room.
Ezra’s eyes narrow at him as his head whips to him. “I proudly fucking am. And you don’t get to say the p-word in relation to Kaeli ever again. Got that, fucker?” he growls.
Levi’s smile drops, his face turning pale at the clear threat in his captain’s voice. God! Half the time, these guys dig their own grave, unnecessarily running their mouths.
Not like you’re any better by going behind his back and fucking his sister.
My mind deems it necessary to remind me of my own follies. The slow smile that the back and forth with guys brought on my face vanishes at the painful reminder of her.
I can’t keep her out of my mind for one second. She’s always there, haunting the space in my mind, drilling it into my brain that I lost the best thing that’s ever happened to me. All because I couldn’t get rid of the worst sooner.
Henry’s threats about revealing Andie or selling her out to the cheap thugs he owes still grip my soul in a vice.
I can’t even imagine the horror of the repercussions of such heinous acts.
And so I did what I could at the moment, I gave her a reason to hate me, so it would hurt just a little less to lose me.
She needed to believe that I didn’t want her in order to leave me. So that I can protect her. And the only way I could see to do that was to let her go, or at least let her think I did. She needed to act heartbroken so that the ones following her could believe it too.
I needed them to believe that she’s no one to me. That they couldn’t hurt me by harming her.
She shouldn’t have to bear the consequences of my actions or the way others choose to live. I’m not letting Henry or any of the low-life thugs get close to her.
Seeing the light dim from Andie’s eyes when I lied to her broke me. I’ve never cried as much as I did that night. Hurting her, even if to protect her, was hurting me, ripping my soul to shreds. It was crippling, the pain, more than she’ll ever know.
Losing her is like oxygen being snatched from my lungs as someone squeezes my heart right in the palm of their hands.
The thorns of her absence wrap around me at night when I’m lying awake, unable to sleep. Every time I close my eyes, all I can see is Andie hurting, her eyes bleeding of life, her smile falling—her flinching.
I’ve never wanted to end my life as much as I wanted to when I let Andie walk away from me that night, hurting her the same way I once did before. Hurting her using her insecurities, she trusted me with.
Even hell would be too good for a monster like me.
I intend to make it right.
I’ll grovel at her feet, rub my nose on the ground if that’s what it’ll take for her to forgive me. Or I’ll die trying to earn her forgiveness.
It’s either her or no one.
But first, I need to clear our path of the rodents that seem to think it’s okay for them to block it for us. The first thing I’m doing the second I get back to Boston is finding a way to put fucking Henry behind bars so that he can never threaten my people ever again.
The mere thought of him has my blood running hot, fuming, begging for his blood.
He signed his death warrant the second he thought he could hurt her.
His loss.
My fucking gain.
I don’t realize that I’m clutching my hockey stick so tight until Ezra’s voice cuts through my murderous haze. “You alright, man?” He glances at my grip, then at my clenched jaw with worry in his eyes.
I release my hold and my jaw. “I am,” I nod.
He opens his mouth to probe further, but luckily, one of the staff members calls Oliver, Ezra and me for the press conference.
Fuck, I hate it.
Especially since I still haven’t let go of the foreboding feeling since I saw Henry.
* * *
Facing the press after losing the Stanley Cup is nothing short of diving to your own demise.
They’re a pack of hungry vultures, ready to stir trouble and get a spicy scoop of news any way they can get. It doesn’t matter to most reporters in this room if their crass words hurt us.
So as Ezra, Oliver, and I take our seats at the table, the entire room filled with reporters to the brim, it doesn’t surprise me that the first question they ask is with the intent to injure.
“Ezra, my question is for you?” the reporter with the checkered shirt speaks into the mic. His eyes darting to me for a second before shifting back to Ezra.
Out of habit, Ezra leans closer to the mic, nodding for the reporter to go ahead.
“Were you aware that your teammate, Noah Miller, is in a scandalous relationship with your sister, Andie Moore?” The smirk on the reporter’s face makes me want to punch him right off this planet.
Something happens.
My heart stops.
I was blinded.
I never saw this coming.
“Keep her name out of your mouth,” I growl before I can second-guess myself. Fuck, media training. I’m never letting anyone stain her name.
My worried eyes flit to my best friend, only to find him frozen. Years of media couldn’t have trained either of us how to handle this if it ever came out like this.
He shouldn’t get to know something like this from a fucking stranger.
It should’ve been us. Not like there is an us right now.
Ezra wastes no time in getting up and leaving right out, the plastic chair flipping behind him.
Fuck.
This is not good.
I’m running after him in an instant. I don’t know what I’ll say, but I need to talk to him. Make him understand.
Understand what? That you broke his sister’s heart.
Goddamnit!
“Ezra, wait!” I call out, chasing after him in the corridor of the arena. “Wait!”
His angry stride doesn’t break as he keeps marching forward. Fuck, I need him to listen to me.
I bridge the gap between us and grasp his shoulder. “Ezra, let me explain!”
I don’t see it coming until it hits me square in my face, my head whipping to the side with force. I’m surprised my neck is still intact. The pain in my jaw flares with a vengeance as I stagger a few steps back.
But he doesn’t seem to care or stop as he punches me exactly at the same spot, this time splitting my lip. Fuck, it hurts.
“What will you explain?!” he roars, giving another punch to my gut, making me keel over in pain. “That you fucked my sister!” Distrust cuts through his voice, his features contorted with betrayal.
I stop his next hit right in the air, both our hands suspended between us, our eyes glaring at each other.
“Say what you will about me. I don’t give a flying fuck. But talk about her like that ever again, then God help you, I’ll forget that you have someone waiting for you at home,” I warn, the threat clear in my words as my teeth grind.
I don’t care if he’s her brother. No one talks about her like that.
Ezra’s eyes widen, not expecting me to fight back.
For Andie? I’ll face the fucking world.
Done with him being an angry, stupid bull, I grab his collar and haul him with me into the nearest room.
He shrugs off my hold the second we’re behind the closed doors of what looks to be a conference room.
I rake a hand through my hair, turning my back to him, my muscles pulled tight with pent-up adrenaline.
“How long?” Ezra’s question has me looking at him. He’s sitting on one of the chairs, his body slumped over the table.
“Sometime after Kaeli got hurt,” I sigh, taking a seat.
His eyes bulge out of their sockets, his hands fisting over the table. “That long?” I nod. He pinches the bridge of his nose, his eyes squeezing shut as he mutters a curse under his breath. “You betrayed me for that long?”
My stomach drops, hating that he’s hurting. His eyes look at me like I’m a stranger, and even just the idea of losing him is like losing a limb.
“Ezra—”
He cuts me off, his gaze flitting back to me. “What is she to you? Was she just a good time?” His icy tone, words and insinuation put me on edge.
My back straightens, hands clasping together. If we continue like this, we’re never going to get anywhere. I need him to see the truth. “Am I sorry that you found out like this? Yes. Am I sorry that we hid it from you? No. Not if it meant Andie felt safe enough to be with me.”
A frown mars his features. “She didn’t feel safe telling me?” I don’t miss the hurt in his tone. Why wouldn’t he be hurt? He’s worried about her. He has always been her safe place, her protector, her big brother.
“It’s not that. It was only because keeping it under wraps allowed us to explore what we have.
If what we have is worth putting our relationship with you in jeopardy.
Like how you and Kaeli hid it because you wanted to see where the two of you could go,” I try to explain him the best I can.
“And if not telling you about us is how she wanted to go, then even the Gods couldn’t make me confess to you. ”
He arches an eyebrow at my curt statement. But it is what it is.
There’s absolutely fucking nothing I won’t do for her.
“So was she?”
“Was she what?” I ask, massaging my jaw that hurts like bitch, my brows furrowing.
“Worth it?”
A smile blooms on my face at the thought of her despite the ache. “A thousand lifetimes over.”
Surprise flashes across his face at my confession. “You love her?” he asks as if he can’t quite imagine my grumpy ass doing so. Can’t say that I can blame him. I haven’t always shown how I feel, not when I keep everything bottled up so tight inside of me.
She changed that, though. My Rainbow changed that.
She makes me a better man.
“I’m not telling you anything I haven’t told her?” I remark, leaning back in the chair, my hand tapping the table as the tensed air between us seems to evaporate.
“When will you tell her?”
The question has me sitting straight back up. “About that…” I trail off, my hand gripping the back of my neck.
“What did you do?” he grunts, his body stiffening with anger.
How do I tell him without him attempting to kill me?