Chapter 14
fourteen
. . .
Aidan
The guilt swirling in my stomach hasn’t abated in the last four days. I’ve done my best to push through, but it’s always there, lingering. The acid in the pit of my stomach eats at my insides, making me nauseous and so overcome with shame I want to curl up in my bed and never face her again.
I stood her up. I couldn’t even bring myself to tell her I wasn’t showing up until she asked me. And aside from one momentary lapse in judgment, I haven’t logged onto our game since.
I’m a coward. And an asshole.
What do I say? How do I apologize? How do we come back from this? I honestly don’t know if we can.
The guilt eats at me all throughout our trip to Nashville, then our home game against Buffalo. I only manage to eke out one point between the two matches, and Coach isn’t pleased.
I’m not pleased either.
It’s a constant loop in my head as I do my day-off weightlifting circuit, and even though I increase the volume on my headphones to near-deafening decibels, I can’t drown it out. When I hit the showers, it’s louder than the showerhead above me, pelting me with lukewarm water.
I’m a piece of shit.
“You good?” Ryan asks as he falls into the shower stall beside mine.
“I’m fine,” I mutter, even though I know he won’t be able to hear me over the running water.
He cocks his head, dark eyes intent on my face. After a lifetime of showering with other men, our mutual nakedness doesn’t bother me. Nobody is trying to make anyone uncomfortable or proposition anybody. Our locker room is open and inclusive, accepting of everyone.
Except homophobes. That kind of talk isn’t allowed in our dressing room. Period.
The fact he has nail marks down his back? Yeah, that makes me uncomfortable. But that’s more to do with it being my little sister he’s sleeping with than anything else.
I want him to be happy. I want both of them to be happy. As long as I don’t have to see any residual marks or hear any public displays, I’m good. After their famous interlude in the equipment closet a few years back, I’m scarred for life.
Ryan shuts off his water and reaches for his towel, so I do the same. Showers at the rink are perfunctory, not for luxuriating. I’m not the only weirdo who brings their own soap instead of using the foul-smelling one provided by the team, but I am the only one who brings a towel from home.
I like to wrap myself in a giant bath sheet until I’m encased in a terrycloth burrito.
The team-provided linens just aren’t big enough for that.
I have to deal with it on the road, because traveling with wet towels isn’t ideal, especially on a multicity road trip.
Been there, tried that, had to throw out the suitcase because the stench of damp polyester never went away no matter how many deodorizer balls I threw in there.
“Really, Aid,” Ryan continues. His attention is on his clothes, but I know he’s not going to let this drop. “You’ve been down the last few days. Is everything okay?”
“I’m fine,” I repeat.
He rolls his eyes. “That’s not what I’m asking.”
Nobody knows about my friendship with Annie. Sure, the guys know I’m a gamer and that I regularly join parties online. But they don’t know the details. They don’t know I’ve spent the last seven years talking to a woman who could blow up my entire life.
I’ve kept it from Hailey. I’ve kept it from Ryan. And now…
I don’t want to be the kind of person who disappears when the going gets tough. I show up for my friends and family. So why can’t I show up for myself?
“I’m just working some stuff out,” I finally say. “When I’m ready to talk about it, I will.”
My best friend raises his eyebrows. “You sure?”
“Fuck off. Yes. I’m sure. Hounding me isn’t about to make me change my mind.” I snort, then shake my head. “All I need is some time.”
“As much as you need.” My future brother-in-law reaches out and squeezes my shoulder. “I’m here for you, Aid. We both are. All of us.”
“I know. I appreciate that.”
But I don’t need their help. Not for this. Nothing will change the fact that I’m a piece of shit who hurt someone who means the world to me.
After grabbing lunch in the lounge with the guys, it’s time for my helmet prototype fitting. I have no idea what it will entail, only when and where I show up.
Dr. Whitney moved offices at the start of the season when she transitioned from being our away-game concussion spotter to researching her helmets and consulting with the team.
The new concussion spotter is fine enough.
I hope to never catch his attention. But it was nice having her on the road with us. She’s fun.
She’s also engaged to Mitchell, so even if I were interested—which I’m definitely not—she’s completely off-limits.
It helps to have boundaries. Clear delineations between what’s okay and what’s not. What’s expected and what’s inappropriate.
The new office is deep in the administrative maze. It’s easily three times the size of the last one, with three desks that I can see, plus other tables and equipment. There’s only one person inside.
I can do this. It’s not scary. It won’t hurt.
I think.
Blowing out a breath, I knock on the open door. Dr. Whitney sits at her desk, doing something on her computer.
“Come in,” she calls, not looking up from her three massive computer screens.
She types for a few moments, her movements deliberate and forceful, before she sighs, pushes her keyboard away, and swivels in her seat to face me.
“MacGregor. Hi. How are you? Close the door.”
I swallow my hesitation. Is she genuinely asking, or is she making small talk?
“I’m fine. And you?”
“Let’s make this as painless as possible,” she says with a grin.
Small talk it is, then.
Still, I’m caught on one thing.
“Pain?”
“Existential pain. This won’t actually hurt,” she assures me. She rises from her seat and beckons me deeper into the office, where a laboratory bench covered in silicone molds awaits.
I squint at them, trying to figure out how this will work. If the end goal is to make a sensor for a helmet… What will they do, lop off my head and glue stuff to it?
“What are we doing?” My voice comes out rough, nerves audible, and I clear my throat.
“We’re going to start by taking a 3D scan and then life cast the contours of your head.”
A small black box sits on a stand, and she flicks a button on the side. I’m nearly blinded by a bright red light.
“Whoops. Sorry about that.”
She adjusts one of the knobs, and the light fades. Spots dance in my vision, and I blink a few times to clear it.
“Go ahead and stand on that mark,” she says, pointing to a taped X on the floor. “On my count, the camera will circle you twice, and all you have to do is stand still. And then when we’re ready, we’ll move on to the next step.”
“Got it.”
After a little more fiddling, she brings the camera closer, then sets it down and backs away. With the click of a button, a bright red light fills the room again, and the wheeled camera revolves around me. I keep my eyes squeezed shut, not wanting to look.
“They were out of hazelnut, so I brought you—oh!” A woman’s voice cuts off abruptly. “I didn’t realize you were with a player.”
“We’re almost done,” Dr. Whitney says.
“Well, I won’t bother you.”
There’s something familiar about her voice, but I can’t place it.
It’s rich and husky, with a twinge of a Midwestern twang mostly overwritten by a Boston accent.
It almost reminds me of Annie, but that doesn’t make sense.
Why would she be here? It must be my guilt talking, once again reminding me that I’m a worthless piece of shit.
Have I met Dr. Whitney’s colleague before? The voice doesn’t belong to Dr. Palmer, our neurologist, or Vanessa Larsson, the logistics coordinator. I’ve seen Dr. Whitney having lunch with both of them before.
“You’re not a bother, Ceci. You know that.”
Ah. Ceci Ramos. She’s on the board of the Grizzlies Foundation, and she’s friends with my sister. She’s also some sort of tech billionaire. In the back of my mind, I vaguely knew she was related to this project, but I didn’t know the details—still don’t. The less I know about this, the better.
I’ve met her once and made an idiot of myself. I thought I grew out of the whole spontaneous erection thing after puberty, but one minute with the dark-haired bombshell was enough to make my pants situation very uncomfortable.
And at a charity gala, of all places. Talk about bad timing. The bolt of lust that raced through me was foreign and unexpected, and I spent the entire night hiding from her—and my sister, who wasn’t subtle about wanting to set us up.
But that’s in the past. It’s not like I’m going to suddenly get hard again simply because she’s close by. She’s not even talking to me. I can totally survive this.
Footsteps sound as Ceci moves closer, and then the subtly smoky scent of bourbon and caramel floods my nose.
That scent has haunted me. Taunted me. Blood rushes through my veins so fast I’m nearly dizzy, that familiar pull of want deep in my gut.
My cock twitches against my thigh, my body reacting psychosomatically to the memory of what happened after.
I glance over my shoulder and freeze.
Because Ceci Ramos is the woman I’ve been salivating over from the bistro. I haven’t seen her in years, and she’s lost a lot of weight, but that fire in her eyes is as appealing as ever.
She’s even more gorgeous than I remember, the dark chocolate-brown strands of her hair falling in a subtle wave halfway down her back. A full face of makeup accentuates her features, her lips painted a deep berry-red color.
Fuck. A pang of need ricochets through me, and I swallow, hard, as my head starts to go all floaty. She’s pretty. She’s really pretty.
“We’re going to put a cap over your hair, then take some silicone molds of the contours of your head,” Dr. Whitney says.
Right. The helmet.
I take the stocking cap she hands me, shoving it unceremoniously over my head.
Ceci giggles, the sound rich and husky, an intrusive thought pinging around in my brain. Her laugh sounds familiar.
Dr. Whitney adjusts the cap, then applies a layer of something cold and squishy to my head. I flinch, and she curses under her breath.
“Sorry, the texture is a little uncomfortable,” she says.
“Not your fault,” I mutter, folding my hands over my lap. I don’t like this. I don’t like this one bit. The ick pulsing through me is an effective damper on my libido, my cock wilting.
She moves quickly, spreading the substance with a brush. I can feel the smooth stroke of the bristles through the cap. Is this gunk going to get stuck in my hair? Great. Just great.
“Did you ever hear back from that dude?” Dr. Whitney asks, and it takes me a second to realize she’s not talking to me.
“What dude?”
“The guy who stood you up and pissed you off for the last four days.”
Alarm bells go off in my head. Ceci was stood up? But she’s absolutely gorgeous. What could possibly be better than a date with her? I’d give my left nut for a chance with her.
That’s not going to happen, though. Not with all my issues. I can’t trust anyone for one night only, and from what I’ve heard from Hailey, she’s a once-and-done type. That’s why she was trying to set us up—to “cure” both of us.
There’s nothing wrong with not wanting a relationship or even a fling. It doesn’t make us sick or weak or broken. We have our own reasons for not wanting that, and they’re perfectly valid.
“I’m not pissy,” Ceci snaps.
I may be an oblivious idiot most of the time, but she’s definitely pissy. I don’t blame her. Getting stood up fucking sucks.
The shame over not showing up for Annie rolls over me again, and I wince. Why the hell am I such a whiny little baby? Can’t even show up to meet my best friend in person.
But it’s because she’s my best friend. There’s so much pressure on it. What if we didn’t get along in real life? What if she wants more than friendship, more than I can give? Or she figured out who I am?
There was too much riding on it. I crumbled under the pressure.
And I’ll never forgive myself for that.
“You’ve been stomping around here like Miranda Priestly. You scared away the intern.”
“I’m fine. It’s fine. We don’t need an intern.”
“Go home, pour a bottle of wine, and take a bubble bath,” Dr. Whitney suggests.
Ceci mutters something under her breath. It almost sounds like I wish.
“I’ll do better,” she finally says.
“Don’t be sorry on my account.”
“Did you hear me apologize?” Ceci says with a laugh.
Something about her voice still seems so familiar. I can’t place it.
Until suddenly, I can.
My blood runs cold, and my stomach twists into knots. Dr. Whitney replies, but I can’t hear her. Not over the pounding of my heart.
Because I’m pretty goddamn sure Ceci is Statistical Anomaly. Annie.
My Annie.
Oh, fuck.