Chapter 3
It’s been four months since the end of year barbecue, and Avery has haunted my dreams every night since.
No matter how much meditation I do before bed, I can’t seem to keep her out of my head.
We’ve barely seen each other since the season started.
Her commentating job keeps her up in the booth, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t trying to bump into her.
We’ve seen each other in passing, but that’s about it. And yet, she won’t leave my brain.
This isn’t the first time she’s invaded my dreams. She was a regular in them for years.
But ever since that dreaded day at the church, I’ve somehow blocked her out.
Call it self-preservation. Call it avoidance.
I don’t care what you call it. I’ve done a fine job of keeping her beautiful face out of my dreams, until now.
Until she walked into that party and turned my world upside down.
Avery Chamberlin is the new play-by-play announcer for my team. She’s also the one who got away.
That I pushed away.
Fuck.
I turn the speed on the treadmill up to the highest level and attempt to lose myself in the pounding of my feet as I sprint. But it’s no use. All I see is her.
My groin begins to protest. I was only supposed to be warming up. Jumping right into sprints was a stupid move, so I slow it down to a brisk walk.
Once I’m done loosening up, I head to one of the benches to start my upper body workout for the day. Moving the bench so I’m at an incline, I take the towel off my neck and lay it down. I walk toward the weight rack and grab the forty-pound dumbbells for a warm-up set.
I settle myself at the front of the bench, and just as I’m about to lean back and start my set, the door to the team gym opens up behind me, halting my movements. Looking at the mirror in front of me, I watch as Niko walks into the gym.
“What the hell are you doing here? The gym is supposed to be empty.”
Niko ignores me and grabs a band off the far wall. I track his movements in the mirror and wait for him to respond. He doesn’t. Instead, he wraps the band around one of the squat racks adjacent to me, prepping for what I’m guessing is a circuit workout.
“Are you ignoring me, Cap Daddy?” I use the nickname the team gave him because it’s definitely not his favorite so I know it’ll get his attention.
Niko freezes and slowly turns his head to me. He looks ready to murder me, which causes me to bark out a laugh.
“Cap Daddy is mad. You know if you just answer my question I’ll stop calling you that.”
He turns and loops the band on his foot, beginning a set of resistance lunges.
“I wouldn’t be here if you would’ve just picked up your phone this morning. I went to your apartment but you weren’t there, so here I am.”
He waits for me to respond, but instead I lean back and finally start my warm-up set. Unfortunately for me, my best friend is persistent as fuck and cares about his people hard so he continues as I push the dumbbells above my chest.
“Sadie is worried about you. And quite frankly, so am I. We barely saw you all summer, and now I only see you at the rink. Even Sophia keeps asking where Uncle Connor is.”
Niko and Sophia are the closest thing I have to family here in Wisconsin. And now that Sadie and Niko are together, that makes Sadie family, too.
My younger sister plays professional hockey for the Minnesota Freeze and my grandparents moved to Florida a few years ago.
They used to spend their winters down there, but they got sick of going back and forth so moved there permanently.
And my parents, well, they’re like Bruno. We don’t talk about them.
The thought of Encanto, one of Sophia’s favorite movies, combined with what Niko just said consumes me with guilt. I finish my warm-up and stand to swap out my dumbbells for something heavier.
“I’m fine.”
Usually, my clipped responses would be enough for my teammates to leave me alone. I should’ve known better than to try it with Niko.
“Bullshit. You missed movie night last week, and I’m assuming you have no plans of attending tonight. Plus, your one-word texts are getting fucking old.”
I grumble something under my breath and get started on another set of bench presses.
A shadow looms over me, and when I look up, I see Niko above me. He places his hands under my elbows as I struggle with my last couple of reps. I’m able to finish without his help and set the weights on the floor next to me. Grabbing the towel, I wipe the sweat from my forehead.
“Thanks for the spot.”
He ignores me again and takes a seat on the bench next to me. When I finally move my gaze to him, he’s scowling.
“What?” I bark out.
Niko pinches the bridge of his nose and then levels me with a serious look. “Are you really going to make me pry it out of you?”
Reaching down for my water bottle, I squirt some water into my mouth and shrug my shoulders.
“Pry what out of me?”
He launches his towel at my face. “The story between you and Avery. I know she’s the same girl from the bar during the playoffs last season.
The one whose picture you were staring at as you guzzled whiskey like water.
You’ve been fucked up since you saw her.
And that’s a problem because the season has started and you’re playing like shit. ”
I glare at him. Damn this man and his ability to read people like a book. He’s the best captain I’ve ever had, but he can be pretty annoying when he Jedi mind tricks me and basically reads my thoughts.
“There’s no story. We went to prep school together. That’s it.”
Niko crosses his arms over his chest and gives me his best dad look that never fails to get Sophia to confess to stealing an extra cookie before dinner.
I throw my hands up in defeat. “Fine! We dated, okay? Mystery solved.”
Far more agitated now than I was when I got here, I grab the weights and start another set of bench presses. Hoping that will signal the end of this conversation, I channel all of my frustration into my workout.
Niko’s body appears above me once again. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”
I continue my set, finding peace in the repetition of presses.
“It’s none of your business,” I grunt out between reps.
When I struggle to get through my last rep, Niko pushes up under my triceps, and I’m able to complete it. I lower my arms and drop the dumbbells to the ground, a loud thud echoing off the walls of the near-empty weight room.
Niko places a hand on my shoulder and gives it a squeeze.
“You don’t have to tell me the story, but you do need to figure out how to get your head on straight.
Avery is part of the Bobcats now. She and Sadie are becoming close…
you’re bound to see each other from time to time.
And the last thing she needs is a grumpy ex-boyfriend hanging around with everything else going on. ”
My head whips toward him.
“What other stuff does she have going on?”
Niko smirks and it takes everything in me not to punch him in the face. “It’s none of your business,” he echoes my earlier words.
“Fuck if it isn’t.”
He quirks an eyebrow at me and I run a hand through my hair.
“Something’s off with her, Cap. She nearly fainted at that barbecue and then disappeared with Sadie. I never saw her after that. I barely see her now. You know something.”
Niko turns and heads toward the speaker system. He powers it on but before turning on the music, he turns back to me.
“I don’t. You know Sadie and their girl group. Circle of trust and all that, just like the locker room. All she said was that we had to make Avery feel at home here and she’s worried you’re going to scare her off with all of…that.” He moves his hand up and down at me.
I don’t need to ask him what he means.
I’m an asshole. At least on the ice. I’m what the media and fans like to call an “enforcer.” As a defenseman, it’s my job to protect the net, especially my goalie.
I also took it upon myself to protect all of my teammates.
At a young age, I learned how to channel all of my anger and frustration into my game and it’s shaped me into the player I am today.
Don’t fuck with my teammates, and I won’t fuck with you. It’s pretty simple.
But sometimes, I tend to take my on-ice attitude off the ice with me.
I closed myself off to people a long time ago, and sometimes when I think I’m just protecting my peace, I can come off as a total grump.
The only person I care to soften up to is Niko’s daughter, Sophia.
She’s a ray of sunshine and my favorite person on the planet. She’s the only girl I need.
“Trust me. I won’t scare her off. That’s the last thing I want to do.”
Niko eyes me skeptically, but doesn’t call bullshit this time. He nods and pushes play, the sounds of Waka Flocka Flame and Roscoe Dash filling the room.
We workout together but separately for the next forty-five minutes and don’t say another word to each other. I see him observing me in the mirror throughout our workouts, but he keeps his thoughts to himself.
Me, on the other hand…my thoughts are a tangled mess.
Why would Sadie be afraid that I’d scare Avery off? Did Avery tell her about us? But why would she? She moved on and married someone else. I’m just a blip of her past and she’s just a blip of mine.
Except, I’m a fucking liar.
Avery is my past, but for so long I thought she was going to be my future. I may have fooled myself and everyone around me by acting unaffected when I saw her throughout the years, but like a scar that never quite faded, she never went away.