Chapter 34
Landon
“Casco!” Coach’s voice is sharper than my skates, and with good reason. I really should have had that pass.
“Sorry!” I call out and scramble to retrieve the puck.
“Don’t be sorry, dude, just get your head out of your ass,” Conner says as she skates by.
“Yeah. Trying.” I can’t explain exactly why I’ve been playing like shit, in games and practices, for the last week.
I’m not being paid millions to let my personal life get so completely out of control that I can’t do my job.
I know this. But fuck. I have been able to concentrate on nothing other than the fact that I might be a dad since Angie showed up.
It’s messing with every part of my life.
I’m avoiding my parents' phone calls and texts, and my sibling group chat is being ignored. The most I do is thumbs up shit, Lola and Callan write. Thank God Winnie and Landon are away, they went to San Francisco to visit my Aunt Sadie, so they haven’t seen Angie yet and don’t know about this situation.
At least by the time they get back, we’ll have an answer on paternity and a plan on what to say and do.
“Garrison. Look alive!” Coach shouts, and I turn to see Grady sweeping a puck out of the back of his net angrily. He must be distracted, too.
Our eyes meet for a second, but I look away.
I’m still wounded from how quickly he jumped ship on our relationship.
He truly believes I should go back to dating Angie?
Like the chemistry between him and me will just magically disappear?
Or that I’ll be able to ignore it and not be fucking miserable?
Does he think that because he’ll be able to just push me and his feelings aside?
Maybe he doesn’t have any feelings, and this was the out he was hoping for?
“Casco!” Abbott snaps as the pass he just shot me in this drill sails right by my stick.
“Got it,” I call back and chase it down, managing to get it and shoot it to the next guy, albeit sloppily, before I ruin the whole sequence.
I manage to focus, moderately, for the rest of the practice. When Coach tells us we’re done for the day, Grady skates over to me. “Can you stick around a minute? I want someone to take a few more shots.”
“No.”
“But I really need the help.”
“Ask someone else.”
He pivots so he’s skating backwards right in front of me now. “Landon, you need the extra time, too. We both blew it this practice.”
“Don’t fucking care. Ask someone else.”
“You’re a fucking child,” he mutters, and it’s like his words are a match. They light the fuse on my very short temper.
As Grady stops and begins skating in the other direction, I turn and follow, using my stick to cross-check him in the shoulders, not hard, but hard enough that he almost crashes to the ice.
How he manages to save himself with all that equipment on is beyond me, but he does, and I’m kind of grateful. As soon as I do it, I regret it.
“Hey!” our assistant coach, Seb Deveau, yells at us. Luckily, not many other teammates and no other coaches are left on the ice.
Grady rights himself and spins and grabs the front of my jersey, yanking me into him like I’m made of Styrofoam. “This isn’t just happening to you, you fucking ass.”
“Really? Is the person you’ve developed feelings for acting like you meant nothing?” I snap back.
He uses his grip on my jersey to give me a good shake, and I grab his jersey back, dropping my stick and gloves. “Shut the fuck up.”
“Make me you fucking coward.”
“Stop!” Coach Deveau grabs Grady’s arm as it raises and firmly puts a hand on my chest and shoves me away. “You two want to be benched for the next several games? Fucking stop.”
I take a deep, ragged breath and skate away.
“Whatever this is, it ends here and now,” Coach Deveau calls out.
“Yes, Coach,” I call back. “It’s definitely over.”
I leave Grady and Coach on the ice and head for the locker room.
I take an ice bath and then a long shower.
Grady walks into the shower room as I stand there with my head under the water.
He doesn’t even look my way. He walks to the stall on the opposite side of the room.
It’s the farthest one from me that isn’t occupied, but it’s directly across from me.
He drops his towel, and his ass comes into view.
The ass I’ve been inside. The ass I think about owning every fucking night when I try and fall asleep.
Even with Angie and possibly my baby, in the same house. All I want is Grady.
It’s stupid, but for a brief, flicker of a second when Angie showed up and explained the baby situation, I thought, well, no matter whose it is, Grady and I can raise it together.
But then I looked over at him, and his face had gone cold, emotionless.
He had already seen this as a roadblock, not a fork in the road.
Fuck him, my brain seethes, but my eyes watch his every move in the shower.
The way the water slides over every muscle, ridges and plains my tongue remembers.
The way his hands tangle in his hair as he wets it, the way my hands still long to do…
even if I hate his guts now. He turns, and our eyes meet briefly before I watch his gaze glide down my own naked form.
I glance around. Some guys are wrapping towels around their waists and chatting as they head out.
Two others are lathering and shampooing with their eyes closed.
I let my hand curl around my cock, and I give it a quick tug.
My eyes dart up as my hand falls away, and I catch Grady’s expression.
It’s a raw mix of shock and awe. And lust. There is definitely still lust. The asshole still wants me the way I want him.
Somehow, that doesn’t bring me the solace I crave.
I turn off the water, grab my towel, and storm out of the showers.
I make a point of changing quickly and getting to my car without running into Grady again. At home, I call out for Angie when I get in the door. There’s no answer. I drop my keys on the table by the front door and start to take off my jacket.
“Your pregnant girlfriend is headed to Hannaford’s for ice cream and cheddar cheese. Apparently, she’s had her first pregnancy craving.”
I freeze, my mouth hanging open and my eyes bugging out of my head as my sister walks in from the kitchen holding a bag of dill pickle chips. She smiles as she crunches down on one. “I let her take my car because she was getting antsy waiting for you.”
I swallow and spit out the only thing I can think of. “Ex-girlfriend.”
Lola stops chewing and tilts her head. “What?”
“We broke up months ago.”
“I know, but I assumed that… dude, she’s pregnant,” Lola says, the last word like a hiss. “You guys aren’t going to try again? Does anyone know? Have you told Mom and Dad?”
No one knows yet because we're not sure it's mine. As I take off my coat, I feel shaky. Maybe it's just the shock of Lola knowing—now it's real.
Now, Lola’s the one with her mouth hanging open. “You don’t think it’s yours?”
“I think it is,” I reply. “But there’s a possibility it isn’t. So we’re making sure.”
“She told you she cheated on you? And you’re letting her live here?” Lola looks stunned. She drops the chip bag on the coffee table. I immediately go and pick it up. I don’t like mess. “Landon, that’s fucked. And I regret being nice to her when I got here. Fuck that. Cheaters are trash.”
“She didn’t cheat,” I say and walk toward the kitchen. Why is this so hard? My steps are awkward, and the floor is uneven.
“So she, what? Fucked a dude the night you broke up? The night after?” Lola asks, following me.
She got my dad’s dark hair, which she’s worn in a pixie cut for the last few years.
“Because I know how biology works, Landy. I’m getting a degree in it, remember?
So I can become a Doula? And I know that for there to be a parentage question, Angie would have had to have sex with two guys almost simultaneously. ”
“Or… entirely simultaneous…” The room rocks. Shifts like someone has tipped the entire cottage on its side.
I feel the wall slam into my shoulder. I try to right myself. I tip the other way, only my vision doesn’t go with me. Everything is spinning. My stomach lurches. I can hear Lola scream my name as I crash to the floor and puke into the chip bag I’m holding.
When I’m done hurling, I crawl toward the bathroom. I don’t even have to ask. Lola is already on the phone with 9-1-1.