Chapter 33
Thirty-Three
Gray
“What’s it like to be a real-life hero?”
“Will you kiss me after rescuing me too, Roberts?”
“I hear he’s doing a fireman’s calendar too!” A beat. “Will you stroke my hose good and hard?”
Shit talk from the players on the other team.
It’s not unexpected.
Razzing is part of hockey, and it’s smart to do everything in your power as a player to try and get your opponent off their game.
It’s a sport of inches, of milliseconds, of grinding it out until the very end.
If you can fuck up someone’s game so they’re holding their stick a little too tight, so their shots are off, their passes don’t connect…
It can work.
But the heckling wasn’t why I played poorly.
Neither were the questions that continued to come up during media.
It was…
The disappointment in Faye’s eyes when I didn’t talk to her.
I spent the last couple of days remembering the flash of sadness through her brown eyes, the way she tucked it away and plastered on a smile as I deliberately moved the conversation on…and trying to ignore the sense that I’m seriously fucking this up.
No wonder my game was off.
Courtney wouldn’t have let it go.
She would have pushed.
I would have pushed back.
And we would have ended up in a knockdown, drag-out fight that had me playing mean.
Brutal hits and sharp passes. Fights to blow off steam.
Maybe that’s better instead of this guilt that’s been my constant companion, swiping out it’s talons to keep cutting me, over and over again, meaning that while I wasn’t a deficit to the team, I certainly wasn’t putting up points.
The guys noticed—of course they did.
But they thought it was the press, the attention, the shit the other team was giving me.
I didn’t bother to correct them, to tell them it’s because just when I was thinking I might be able to have something different, to truly make something different…
That phone call with Courtney smacked me back into reality.
And I froze.
And Faye had to deal with the fallout—I hadn’t even been able to end the call.
Like the guys at the shower had to deal with Courtney’s shit too—I didn’t shove her out the door, throw the lock, and call the police to deal with her shit.
Because I’m pathetic, fucking useless when it comes to dealing with my ex.
And so my nightmare is going to continue to bleed into Faye’s life, so much so, I might have to eventually let her go or risk my fucked-up world her turning into the one thing I can’t bear for her to become—
“Christ, Roberts,” I hiss, shoving out of my car and slamming the door. “Enough.”
I stride forward, push into the house, pausing to hit the button to close the garage, but when I start to swing the mudroom door closed…
It stops.
Of fucking course, it does.
Because nightmares in my head…and in real life.
A feminine hand grips the edge, pushes it open, nearly slamming the wooden door into me.
And…
Then I’m face to face with Courtney.
Her perfume wafts forward to fill the air, so forceful it almost chokes me. She’s wearing a slinky dress that reveals far more than it conceals. My favorite outfit of hers…aside from her naked.
Or it used to be, anyway.
Because tonight I don’t feel that burning need, the urge to rip it off or push it up or lay back and let her fuck me with the slender straps slipping from her shoulders, the material bunched up between us.
Tonight, it’s just a dress.
She reaches a hand out, trails a finger down my chest.
And maybe I should have stopped her from touching me, should have shoved her back, but some sick part of me wants to test myself, to see if that need will reignite, to discover if I’m truly so fucking messed up in my head that I’ll fall back into the same old shit. But…
To my surprise and relief, the contact does nothing for me.
That finger sliding over my partially unbuttoned shirt may as well belong to a teammate.
A stranger.
No, a really fucking annoying opponent.
There’s no desire, no urge to divest her of her clothes.
I feel…nothing.
But because I’m processing that feeling, sitting in the strange and sudden disconnect after the turmoil I’ve been in over the last few days, I’m not focused on the fact that she’s moving closer.
That she’s taking me standing still, me pausing to think as a green light.
To press her breasts to my chest.
To lift on tiptoe and try to kiss me.
“What the fuck, Courtney?” I growl, grabbing her by the shoulders and halting her before our mouths can connect.
“Kiss me, Gray,” she cajoles, her body arching against mine in a calculated move.
My name in her voice is wrong.
Nothing like my Faye who murmurs it like I’m that fantasy of hers, who forgets to be shy when I touch her, who’s earnest and sweet and turns me on with a mere glance, with a soft smile, with her gentle hands on my body.
Not nails biting into my flesh, trying to force me into action.
Not a palm sliding down my torso, heading for the waistband of my pants, hoping to manipulate me into something that is acid on my soul.
“Don’t,” I say, brushing away Courtney’s fingers, shoving her back a pace.
“You like it when I touch you,” she says coquettishly, her mouth curving into a smile as she reaches for me again.
“Don’t.” I stop her before she can make contact this time.
“Gray,” she whines.
I snag her hand and hold it up—it’s the left one, her ring glinting in the soft light Faye left on for me. Another piece of her. Another truth. Another way she cares. And another thing…Courtney never did for me. “You’re engaged,” I remind my ex. “Remember?”
She lifts a slender shoulder, lips tipping up. “My fiancée and I have an understanding.”
“An understanding to fuck around on him?” I ask.
The truth flickers through her eyes.
“He doesn’t know you’re here.”
“I—”
“Don’t lie to me, Courtney.”
“I’m not,” she says, the bullshit palpable, her bottom lip sliding out into a pout. “He doesn’t care what I do.”
I sigh. “Then why are you marrying him?”
She looks away.
And I can tell by the set of her shoulders, I won’t get the truth out of her. She has an agenda and she’ll do whatever she has to in order to achieve it.
“You need to go,” I tell her.
“I need you.” It’s a whine, that pout growing.
“Well, I’m not available. Not today. Not ever.”
“We’re good together.”
“No, Court. We’re not. We bring out the worst in each other and I’m done.” I’ve said those words to her before—dozens of times, maybe even hundreds. But tonight is the first time I’ve truly meant them. “I found something better. Someone better.”
Her eyes flash. “That dowdy little author who could barely even speak to you?” A sniff. “She’ll never be to you what I am.”
“God, I hope not.”
I mean to think the words, not say them out loud.
And fuck.
I can see it in her face, in the set of her jaw, the venom in her eyes—she’s going to snap. And I’m so worried about dealing with a Courtney-level drama after midnight while the woman who owns my heart is upstairs sleeping, I don’t realize what she’s said, what she’s revealed.
Don’t realize…until much, much later.
Yanking open the door to the garage, I grab Courtney’s arm and drag her through it. “You need to go.”
“Don’t say that!”
I wince at the shriek, but jab at the button mounted on the wall, sending the metal door rumbling up.
“Don’t say that!”
Fuck.
Her car is in the driveway, so I drag her over to it, pull open the door, and shove her into the driver’s seat.
“I’m not going,” she mutters, crossing her arms and making no move to buckle her seat belt.
And I just…can’t find a fuck to give.
Spinning on my heel, I start for the house, but before I can shut the garage, Courtney is running up the driveway.
“Don’t make me go,” she says, plastering herself to my back.
I mentally calculate if I’ll be able to get the garage door shut before she makes it inside, know that I won’t.
Gritting my teeth, I move quickly, wanting this over as quickly as possible.
I stride through the garage, hit the button to send it rumbling shut again.
All while Courtney clings to my back like a limpet, tits pressed tight to my spine, nails digging into my middle.
Into the house and through the hall, the kitchen.
She starts to relax, to loosen her grip.
At least until I turn away from the stairs and head for the front door. Then she clings tighter, dragging her heels, trying to slow my momentum.
I undo the lock, whip open the door.
“Gray!” she whines.
“Let go,” I grunt, reaching for her arm.
To my surprise, she does.
But she doesn’t go quietly into the good night.
She jumps up and mashes our lips together.
“What the fuck?” I growl, shoving her back.
“I won’t go!” she shrieks. “I won’t leave you.”
“You don’t want me,” I say as I plant a hand in the middle of her chest and push her out the front door. “You just want to be the one who decides we’re over. But Courtney”—I bend, fix her in place with a glare—“that’s done. We’re done. I’m never going back.”
Something’s unlocked in me—
Maybe it’s seeing her like this and feeling nothing but disgust and pity.
Maybe it’s the time I’ve had with Faye—the peace, the calm, the sense of actually being seen, of having something different.
Maybe it’s the tiny bud of hope in my heart that—no matter my part in the toxicity that was Courtney and me—this isn’t all I get to have.
Maybe…I can have more.
More that isn’t Courtney.
She opens her mouth, takes a step toward me.
And, proving I’m holding firm to my words, I shut the door and flick the lock.
My hands shake, but not from want. From what Courtney and I used to mean…and that it’s finally loosened its grip on me.
Then she starts pounding on the door and I grit my teeth, know it’s not going to be that simple.
But…tomorrow I’ll deal with that shit.
Tonight, I just need some fucking sleep.
Thrusting a hand through my hair, I sigh and turn for the stairs.
Then freeze, every cell in my body tightening as panic knots my insides.
Because in the soft illumination of the lights she left on for me…
Faye is standing on the bottom step.