Chapter 24
24
Three Weeks Later
Wyatt
I swung the axe over my head and brought it down on the log with a satisfying crack. I’d been doing this for weeks on an endless loop. Swing and crack, all so I could destroy something.
I heard the truck before I saw it. I knew one of them would come, but Liam had his own shit still happening in Calico Cove, so I probably should have expected Dad.
The truck pulled up into its usual spot, but I didn’t stop chopping the wood. I needed the physical labor. I told myself I was just getting back into hockey shape, but it was a lie. If I wasn’t doing something physical, then it left me with too much time to think.
And thinking was bad. Thinking led me to thinking about her, and I wasn’t going to do that anymore.
Not because it hurt my feelings, but because it made me so mad I couldn’t see straight.
The way she’d fallen on the sword for both of us. Taken responsibility for both our actions…it was unforgivable.
I wanted to tell her that.
Only, she wasn’t taking my calls or returning my texts. She’d cut me out of her life completely.
Dad got out of the truck and I shielded the sun from my eyes with my hands, watching him walk over to me. With a long-suffering sigh he plunked himself down on a log next to me. But was silent.
So I kept chopping.
Finally, after another thirty minutes, my arms started to shake with exhaustion, and I knew I’d reached my limit.
It was late August and hotter than hell even in Telluride, where the mountain air usually kept the temperature moderate. I reached for the shirt I’d ditched because it smelled like Sydney.
“Long drive just to watch me chop wood,” I said, finally breaking the silence. I wiped the sweat from my face.
Maybe he was someone I could take my anger out on. All my righteous outrage. Only it wouldn’t be a fair fight. I really needed Liam here. Liam would give me the knock down, drag out fight I needed and then he’d get me drunk.
Dad was too old for me to hit. Too old to hit me.
“Didn’t have anything better to do,” he said and I glared at him.
“Don’t give me that face,” he said. “I didn’t fuck this up.”
“I didn’t fuck it up either,” I snapped.
“Yes, you did. You let a girl who loves you get away, and that, my son, is the biggest fuck up of them all.”
If she loved me, then why did she kick me out of her life so completely? Why wouldn’t she answer my calls? Return a fucking text so I would know she’s alright?
Why did she blow up her own life just to clear an escape path for me?
“Dad, I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Yes, you do. Texting me to remind me to pay my cell phone bill was your way of reaching out. I know that.”
“Sometimes you forget to pay that bill and it cuts off your service. I told you to automate that payment but you refuse to listen.”
He nodded. “Yep. Also, you were trying to reach out. Here I am. Talk to me.”
“There’s nothing to talk about. You’re wrong about the text.”
I stomped across the yard toward the cabin, climbed the steps and walked inside, always prepared for the gut punch when I did.
This cabin was filled with her. Her toothpaste. Her blanket. Her art. Her scent, her ghost, her smile, her laughter. Her goddamn virginity.
I never should have brought her here.
Except, it was too late for that. Too late for all of that. I walked over to the sink and poured myself a glass of water, chugging it so I wouldn’t have to turn around and face my dad.
“And what about this? Is this something to talk about?”
I turned around to find him holding up a big manilla envelope that had been on the corner of the counter for a week. The return address was some law office in New York. I hadn’t opened it. I knew what was inside.
“My guess is they’re divorce papers for me to sign.”
My dad looked at the envelope. “Funny you wouldn’t have just opened it.”
“I just want to talk to her before I sign. That’s all.”
“Hmm. That’s all.” Dad tossed aside the envelope and sat on our sofa.
Our sofa.
There was no help for it, I was going to have to throw the whole damn thing out.
“Why don’t you tell me what happened, son? What blew it all up?”
I still wasn’t totally sure. I’d played it over in my head a million times. Yes, I’d been a bit of an ass, but I’d been a bit of an ass plenty of times. What was different?
The only thing I could think was truly different – was her. I told her I wanted more and she didn’t want me the same way?
“We were at the award show. I told her that I was changing my mind about certain things and she got angry. Like really angry, and left with one of her exes. You saw what she said the next morning.”
He nodded. “You don’t think she still had a thing for the ex?”
I shook my head and took another sip of water. Axil’s secret wasn’t mine to share.
“No, I don’t. All that shit they say about Sydney being a cheater, or flakey, is bullshit.”
“What were you changing your mind about?”
“Huh?”
“You said you told her you were changing your mind about some things,” Dad said. “Like what, for instance?”
“Splitting up. Going our separate ways.”
“So you said, Sydney, I love you. I’ve changed my mind about splitting up and I want us to have a real relationship.”
“Not…exactly.”
I told my dad the conversation as best I could remember, and when I got to the natural conclusion line my dad put his head in his hands and groaned.
“What?” I asked.
“Does that seem romantic to you?”
“No!” I shouted. “Of course it doesn’t. But I don’t know what I’m doing, Dad! If this was a game, I’d being seeing every move, all the ice, but she’s got me feeling like I’m skating blind.”
“How is it that Liam got all the charm and you got nothing but my stubbornness?”
“Not stubborn, steadfast. Because someone had to make sure there was food on the table!” I shouted. Suddenly I was uncorked. All the things I never said, pouring out of my mouth. “You and Liam took care of Mom, so I had to take care of everything else.”
Dad blinked at me and I knew I’d wounded him, but fuck.
I knew I was an idiot when it came to feelings, but it’s not like I wanted to be.
“I arranged car pools for me and Liam when you couldn’t leave Mom alone on the weekends. I got us registered for school and made sure Liam’s grades stayed up so he could keep playing. I went grocery shopping and made sure the taxes were paid-”
“Okay, son,” Dad said quietly.
“I don’t know how to be soft. Or gentle. Or charming. I know how to protect the people I love and get shit done. That’s it.”
Then Dad did something he hadn’t done since Mom died. Even after the Stanley Cup Finals. He stood up, crossed the room and hugged me. It took a second to fight off the urge to push him away, but I calmed myself down and hugged him back.
“I’m sorry, Wyatt,” he whispered. “I knew you were doing all of that for us. I knew and was just so grateful, that I never stopped and wondered if you should be doing that.”
“It’s okay, Dad.”
“It’s not. It’s not at all. But I was wrong. You are not totally without charm or gentleness. I saw you with Syd and it was like seeing the man you’re supposed to be.”
I stepped away, pulled myself free of his arms. “She doesn’t want me. She served me with divorce papers.”
Dad crossed his arms over his chest and I braced myself for the epic dad lecture that was coming my way. “I told you the story of how your mother and I got together. For a year, I went to the diner for breakfast. A year, I sat in her section at the counter just to exchange a couple of words. Time. Patience. That’s what it means to love.”
“She’s still going to want to make music, make albums, go to fucking award shows.”
“Oh, poor Wyatt. Married to an independent and talented woman. Such a hardship for you to get all fancied up a few nights a year, if she’s lucky enough to be nominated.”
“And what about hockey?” I asked.
“What about it?”
“How does she fit into that life?”
“How do you?” he asked, and I felt my body sag. Exhausted before preseason even started. “I know it weighs on you. I know your body is tired. You know retirement isn’t giving up, or quitting or failing,” he said. “It’s just retirement.”
“I’m not ready Dad,” I said. “I don’t know who I am if I’m not Wyatt Locke, defenseman of the Colorado Peaks.”
“You’re still Wyatt Locke. Only you chop more wood. You raise some kids. You go to music award ceremonies.”
Honestly, that sounded pretty good.
A Few Days Later
New York
I felt like a stalker.
I was in a Peaks t-shirt and khaki shorts, a baseball cap pulled down low over my forehead. I stood across the street from her building, near the subway entrance that was busy, so hopefully I wouldn’t stand out.
It had taken some effort, but finally, finally, Liam had dug up Sydney’s address. She lived in a loft on the upper West Side of New York. She preferred the neighborhood around Columbus Circle that was also close to Central Park. Her building had a doorman, so there was no getting inside unless she decided to let me up, and given that she still wouldn’t return my calls, that seemed unlikely.
My only shot was to time it right and wait for her to come out, which I hadn’t done in the three days I’d been here. So either she knew I was here and was doing an excellent job of avoiding me, or maybe there was a special secret exit for her to avoid people.
I got that it probably wasn’t the easiest thing for her to walk around on the streets by herself. People probably recognized her, but this was New York. Someone was always being recognized.
Dad said I needed patience, but it was starting to grow thin. Preseason would be starting in the next few weeks. I was running out of time and all I wanted was a chance to talk to her.
She had to know I hadn’t signed the damn divorce papers. That had to make her wonder.
I was considering trying to scam my way past the doorman, after all, she was still my wife, when I spotted a woman leaving her building, with a small white dog on a leash. The woman was wearing, of all things…a Peaks baseball cap.
The Peaks baseball cap that used to be at my cabin.
Was she shitting me?
I crossed the street, lucky that the light was with me, and picked up her tail about ten feet back. The dog was pulling on the leash, but fortunately wasn’t strong enough to get away. It was a puppy. She was talking to it like it could understand her and people were giving her funny looks as she passed.
I stayed about three rows of people behind her and together we all crossed at the light, heading towards Central Park.
My heart was beating like crazy against my ribs. I had a thousand questions I wanted to ask. Had she forgotten about me? Was she missing me? Did she really want to end it this way? Would she give me a chance to explain myself?
The second she hit the park, the dog, a Westie terrier by the looks of it, started sniffing around in the grass off the path. It was clear, the dog was in charge of Syd and not the other way around.
“Predator, no. Don’t chew the poop. Bad Predator, bad. Come here. Treat? Treat?”
I stood on the path and watched her completely mis-train her dog.
Predator? Had she really named that dog Predator?
“Now sit,” she said, giving the dog the treat before it even sat down for her.
“That’s not how you do it.” I said, coming up behind her.
She whirled around at the sound of my voice, her hand flying up to her mouth. The look of her gutted me. She was beautiful. I didn’t know if she’d missed me, but now I knew for certain how much I’d missed her.
“You wait until the dog sits, then you give it a treat as a reward,” I said.
“Wyatt,” she breathed out. “What are you doing here?”
“You wouldn’t talk to me,” I said.
“So you flew to New York?”
I shrugged.
The dog came over to sniff at my feet. He barked a few times, but then settled down over my flip flops when I gave him a stern down command.
“Predator?” I asked, looking down at the dog.
“Don’t judge me, I’m sad.”
“You are?” I asked, looking up at her. I knew I wasn’t hiding the hope in my face. It was all I could do not to touch her.
“Of course I’m sad,” she said.
“Well, I’m pissed,” I said, my hands on my hips.
“Of course you are,” she said. “All your emotions come out as anger first.”
I wanted to argue with her, but it was true. That seemed…shitty. Like I was making my feelings her problem.
“Is that why you came to New York? To tell me how mad you are?” she asked.
“No,” I said, softening my anger because it wasn’t going to do me any good. This wasn’t my brother, I couldn’t bully her into talking to me. “Are you writing? How is the new album coming?”
She laughed. “It’s actually going really well. Relationship drama really gets the creative juices flowing.”
“Do I come off as a jerk in all these songs?”
“Only half,” she said, smiling her evil fairy smile. God, I’d missed that expression. “How is hockey?”
Just the word made my ankle and shoulder ache.
“Good,” I said. “I had a meeting with the GM and preseason starts next week.”
“Wow,” she said. “Time flies, huh?”
“It did this summer, yeah.” We were making small talk like pros. Saying nothing, while everything we wanted to say filled the air between us like smoke.
“You haven’t signed the divorce papers,” she said. “I check with my attorney every day.”
“I didn’t want to sign them without talking to you first.”
She nodded. “Okay. Say what you need to say.”
I took a deep breath and launched into the speech I’d written in my head on the long drive off the mountain. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for the way that whole conversation happened. I did it all wrong. I was just so amazed by you in your natural element…”
“The America’s Choice Award isn’t my natural habitat,” she said. “I visit there. I don’t live there. If that makes any sense. I know that about myself now.”
“Yeah, I can see that,” I said, thinking of her at the cabin and in her beach house. The guitar on her lap, sunshine in her hair. “You’re right. But you handled it all really well. And I just wasn’t ready to say good bye.”
Predator got up off my feet and started to pull away on the leash.
“Predator,” Sydney said, and handed the dog another treat.
“You’re going to spoil that dog-” she glared at me and I shut my mouth.
“Remember,” she said, not looking at me. “When I said I didn’t want to have sex because it would complicate things?”
I nodded.
“You said that sex could make things simple.”
“We were both right,” I said.
“We were both right,” she agreed. “At the cabin it was simple. But here in the real world it’s complicated.”
“Do you want this marriage to end?”
“It’s not a choice. It has to end. We were drunk and stupid and we got carried away. I don’t think any marriage should start like that. Do you?”
I shook my head. “No, I don’t. I brought the papers with me to New York. I’ll sign them and send them back to your lawyers.”
She nodded and swallowed. “So that’s it, I guess. We’re officially done now.”
“Yeah,” I said. My father, before he left my cabin, reminded me that I wasn’t just good at hockey and getting shit done. He reminded me that I was tricky. Conniving. I was good at getting what I wanted. So I decided to push my luck. “Want to have breakup sex?”
Her expression picked up. “Is that a thing we can do?”
“It’s almost a requirement,” I said with a shrug. “It’s how you get closure on an actual relationship.”
She nodded. “Hookay. Do we do that now?”
“No, first we finish walking your dog,” I said. I took the leash from her hand. “Come on, Predator. You’ve got to take a shit before we can go back.”
“I call him Torry, for short,” she said, and came up next to me. I reached for her hand, and she didn’t hesitate. Our fingers interlocked and I turned my head so she wouldn’t see me smile.
She was right.
A marriage. A real marriage, shouldn’t begin with a drunken mistake.