Chapter 7
Jeremiah
Charlie had barely stayed awake long enough for Wes to make it to our house after his post-game ice bath.
She’d been so exhausted that he’d carried her to her bedroom to tuck her in.
Meanwhile, I prepped his favorite protein shake for him.
I was working on my own when he joined me in the kitchen, a pleased smile on his face.
“God, I don’t know how you handle her cuteness on a daily basis.”
I handed him his shake with a chuckle. “She is pretty damn cute.”
“She fell asleep on my chest, and I thought for sure I was stuck there when she started snoring. I didn’t even know snoring could be so adorable.” He took a long drink of his shake and then smiled around the straw at me. “Peanut butter and banana? You know me so well.”
I turned off the blender and retrieved a reusable straw for my own—much smaller—shake, shrugging. “I always have it on hand.”
“God, if you were queer, I’d marry you in a heartbeat.”
A laugh burst out of me unexpectedly at that, and I slapped my hand over my mouth, glancing back toward the hall.
We both waited to see if any sound came from Charlie’s room, although I highly doubted she would wake up even if a bulldozer drove through the house.
She was a deep sleeper to begin with, and it had been quite an exciting evening after an already long day at school.
Coast clear, we moved to the couch in the living room. I claimed a spot on one end while Wes sprawled out on the other, taking up two cushions as he lounged back on the throw pillows.
“I’m sure there are plenty of men and women who would happily marry you and have your favorite post-game shake waiting for you,” I said.
Wes’s eyebrows pulled together, and he scrunched his nose in disgust as he continued to slurp down his shake, the liquid already halfway gone.
Love and relationships were areas in which Wes and I were vastly different.
He never kept anyone around longer than a few weeks.
Somehow, he’d only gotten worse with age.
Where other players were beginning to settle down and start families, Wes just seemed to jump from one person to another at a faster rate.
By the time I learned their name, he’d already moved on to the next.
It’d gotten to the point where I just stopped asking.
To say his dating habits surprised me would be an understatement. Wes constantly talked about wanting to be a dad. I’d expected him to be married and have an entire gaggle of children by now. How much he loved Charlie just showed how great of a father he would be.
“Speaking of women. Who was the blonde babe you got put on the Kiss Cam with?” Wes wiggled his eyebrows at me, not-so-subtly changing the focus of our conversation. “I saw the three of you chatting it up all night.”
I ignored the surge of protectiveness that rose up when he referred to Zoe as a ‘babe’.
“That’s Charlie’s new hockey coach,” I answered, trying to keep my voice and expression nonchalant.
His eyes widened. “That’s Coach Zo? Why didn’t you kiss her, then?”
“Did you miss the part where I said she’s my daughter’s coach? That’s highly inappropriate.”
Wes leveled me with a look.
“Dude. This isn’t like in the NHL where you can’t date team staff. She’s your daughter’s youth hockey coach.”
Now it was my turn to avoid eye contact and sip silently on my shake. He wasn’t wrong.
But that still didn’t negate the fact that a relationship was not in the cards for me. Zoe or not. I needed to be there for Charlie. A relationship would take precious time away from her, and I’d already missed out on too much time when I’d been in the league.
Wes adjusted on the couch so he was sitting up now, his elbows resting on his thighs as he tried to get me to look at him. “You know you don’t have to live like a monk, right? If someone makes you happy, you’re allowed to move on.”
His voice was soft, but he might as well have yelled it. The words hit hard.
It’d been four years. Four years and nine months to be exact.
God, had it really been almost five years without Sadie?
It suddenly felt as if someone had shoved a chunk of dry ice in my chest, and my free hand instinctively moved for my back pocket, searching for the small sketchbook I kept on me. Wes hurried to place his now-empty glass on the coffee table while simultaneously moving closer.
“Jay.”
His voice sounded far away even though I knew he was right there. He pressed his hand firmly against my chest. I sucked in a breath.
“Tell me three things you can feel,” he instructed.
“Your hand. It’s cold from the shake,” I said.
He nodded encouragingly.
“The couch,” I continued. I stroked my thumb along the smooth cover of the sketchbook. “My book.”
“Good.”
It wasn’t a full-blown panic attack, but it easily could have been had Wes not been with me.
I’d had more than my fair share of them after the accident.
It seemed like anything could trigger them, from Sadie’s hairbrush on the bathroom counter to a car engine revving.
Sometimes, just the sight of Charlie had sent me into a spiral as I worried about what her life would be like growing up without her mother.
Worried that I wouldn’t be enough for her.
“Sorry,” I breathed out, feeling my heart rate slowly return to normal. “I just realized it’s almost been five years since…”
Wes pressed his lips together as he removed his hand from my chest. We both sat there quietly, acknowledging our shared grief.
“There’s no rulebook on how you’re supposed to navigate life after. I’m sorry if I was too pushy.”
I reached over to pat his leg. “It’s okay. I need a good push every now and then,” I assured him. “And I know you have the best of intentions. For me and Charlie.”
He smiled even if it was small.
“You’re my favorite people in the world. Of course, I want the best for you. But you get to decide what that is.”