Chapter Forty-Nine
Leo
I was pretty sure I understood how people died of a broken heart.
I didn’t feel capable of breathing and the fist around my heart made me think it could just stop completely at any moment.
I’d spent the last two weeks sitting in my parents’ condo, drinking, playing video games, and generally being a miserable ass.
Jace had tried to get me to go out with him, Aunt Sloane and Aunt Lavi had tried to cheer me up, Dad kept trying to give me space, and Mom was circling me like a vulture, cleaning up my beer bottles like she wanted to say something but was biding her time.
I’d read the two books Sophia’s father had written just to feel close to her, and all that had done was made me yearn for her even more. After reading their family story told through his eyes, I only wanted to fly after her and never let her go.
The Bruins were trying to get me to do a few promotional events before training camp started.
Lucky for me the events weren’t in my contract, and I told my agent to leave me alone unless it was a contractual obligation.
It probably wouldn’t win me any friends, but I doubted they wanted a clearly hungover rookie representing the team right now, and I was pretty much always hungover—or drunk.
“No!” Aunt Sloane yelled, marching into my room. She yanked the plug on my Bluetooth speaker and chucked it into the hallway. “I’m not listening to this shit for another minute,” she said.
I’d been listening to “End of the Road” by Boys II Men for the hundredth time. She’d been complaining about it for days. She’d tolerated the M?neskin binge for the first week—and had even marveled at how perfectly “Timezone” fit my situation—but apparently, this was her breaking point.
I sighed and turned my head to face her. Rolling my entire body would take more energy than I had and the pounding in my head made movement nauseating.
“I get that you’re depressed as shit, so I’ve tolerated the endless litany of whiney pop songs about broken hearts. But no more. Every time I come over here, I get a little depressed. Do you know how hard that is for someone as sunshiny as me?” she yelled.
I groaned and threw a pillow at her. “Get out.”
I heard Aunt Lavi laugh from the other room and Mom appeared in my doorway behind Aunt Sloane.
“How much longer are you going to mope around here?” Aunt Sloane asked.
“Forever.” I glared at her. “Get out.”
“Nope.” She sat down on the bed.
“Aunt Sloane, just leave me alone.”
“I will not,” she said. “Get off your ass and go to Hawaii and tell that girl how much you love her.”
“She knows I love her,” I said.
“Then tell her you want her to move here.”
“No.”
“Adrian!” she yelled “You need to talk some sense into your idiot of a son because I cannot listen to this music anymore.” She looked at my mother, still standing in the doorway with a frown on her face.
Mom had tried everything to help me and had basically started treating me like I was sick.
Which worked for me because I was obviously dying, and the comforting Mom-vibe was nice no matter how old I was.
“You two realize this looks very familiar?” Aunt Sloane said, gesturing at me as Dad came to stand next to Mom.
She turned back toward me. “Except Adrian was smart enough to tell the girl he’d do anything to be with her and have a goddamn conversation about their options.
I’d blame it on your age, but I made fantastic decisions when I was twenty-two. ”
Aunt Lavi snorted loudly. “Okay, baby.”
“I would do anything to be with her, including break my contract and walk away from hockey,” I said.
“Did you tell her that?” Aunt Sloane asked.
“Yes, but she’d never let me do it.”
“Idiot.” Aunt Sloane shook her head and stood up. “Go fire up the jet, little dude. You’re both looking at this like there are only two options. There is a world of options. Go take a shower and then discuss them with the woman you love because you’re making the entire condo smell like shit.”
I sniffed my pits.
Is that terrible smell coming from me?
“I strongly agree with the shower suggestion, but I think when you go, you should fly commercial,” Aunt Lavi yelled. “You don’t need to kill the environment by abusing a private jet that no one in this family needs just because you’ve finally come to your senses.”
Mom poked her head into the hallway to look at her. “Do you know how much of a hassle it is to sell a private jet?”
“That is, by far, the most privileged thing I have ever heard your billionaire-Barbie ass say, Princess,” Aunt Sloane said with a chuckle. In Mom’s defense, she had tried to sell the jet. Turns out, most people who can afford a private jet don’t want a used one.
Mom sighed and sat down on the edge of the bed. “Leo, as much as it pains me to agree with Sloane on this one, you need to at least call Sophia so the two of you can get creative with your solutions. If you don’t, you’re going to lose her forever because you both decided not to try.”
“I don’t want her to resent me,” I said.
“Let her decide if that’s something to worry about. Sloane’s right, your father was smart enough to include me in the discussion. So go pick up a damn phone and talk it out with the woman you love. And if you won’t do that, then at least take a shower and let me wash these sheets.”
I looked down at the T-shirt and sweats I was in. How long have I been in these clothes? Did I put these on last weekend?
“I’ll shower and think about it,” I agreed, tossing off the covers. They all filed out of my room and left me alone.
When I stepped out of the shower an hour later, Dad was the only one left in the condo.
“Where did they go?” I asked, running a hand through my wet hair, heading to the kitchen for food.
Dad pulled a salad out of the fridge and set it on the kitchen counter for me. “Mom made you this,” he said. “They went to a shelter to visit a dog that Aunt Lavi wants Mom and me to adopt. I met him yesterday. He’s a cute Shepard mix named Thor. I’m confident your mom will bring him home.”
I smiled. Mom had missed having a dog around since our family dog passed away a few years ago. I was glad she was finally ready for another one and wondered if me planning to move out for good in a few months had anything to do with that.
I picked up the salad and sat at the dining room table. Dad pulled out the chair next to me and faced me. “Leo, you’re miserable,” he said.
“Thanks. I hadn’t noticed,” I groaned, stabbing at the lettuce.
“Why didn’t you and Sophia try to make it work?”
“Because her home is a continent and an ocean away while my hockey career is right here. Because everything I’ve worked for my whole life is here and everything she loves is there.”
“Did you ask her to stay?”
I shook my head. “I promised her I wouldn’t. We knew what we were getting into when we made it official over Christmas.”
“And you think that after everything you shared since then that she wanted you to let her go still?” Dad asked.
I looked down at my salad through tears as I swallowed the food in my mouth. “No. I think she wanted me to ask her to stay. But you know what the life of a professional hockey player looks like,” I said.
I looked up at him and he sighed. “I know what the schedule of a hockey player looks like. I also know that many NHL players are married with families. I have no idea if that’s easy or hard for them, but I know it’s possible to have both.”
“I can’t ask her to live a life like that. She’d never see her family. She’d be alone here when I’m traveling or following me around. She’d have no life of her own.”
“First of all, we’d never let her be alone, Leo. When you’re not here, we’ll be here for her. Second, did she express dissatisfaction at that prospect?”
“You know how she feels about her family—”
“I also know how she feels about you,” Dad cut me off and rubbed his jaw. “Leo, if I told you that right now I could guarantee you Sophia for the rest of your life or a full, Hall-of-Fame-worthy career with the Bruins, what would you say?”
“I’d ask you how to get her back here,” I said, dropping my fork and letting the tears spill out.
He nodded. “You love hockey, Leo. I’ve watched you excel at it, love it, and focus on getting better at it your whole life.
You’re amazing on the ice, you’re happy and free and you really were born with a natural gift.
But I’ve seen the way you look at Sophia.
I’ve never seen you that happy, not even on the ice.
The way you love her? That kind of love doesn’t fade with time.
” He pointed to the tattoo on my bicep. “You made yourself a promise a long time ago. You chose that tattoo as a reminder not to settle for anything other than once-in-a-lifetime love. So, stop settling, Leo. Never settle for a life without her.”
“You think I should choose her over hockey?” I asked.
“I don’t think you have to choose at all.
But if you do, I want you to think about the choice that’s going to be the most satisfying for your life,” Dad said.
He leaned forward and put a hand on my knee.
“You need to get creative. You’re talking about giving Sophia up for the rest of your life for a career that you’ll only have for the next fifteen years, tops.
When you’re done with hockey and you’re in your midthirties, what do you want your life to look like?
I’m not saying it’ll always be easy. But I think what you feel for her is worth it, and I think if you talk about this, you’ll find a way to make it work.
You’ve been so focused on why it can’t work that you’ve failed to see a whole host of possibilities. ”
He’s right. My mind started turning with possibility rather than despair for the first time.
Maybe if we’d talked about the future instead of pretending it didn’t exist, we wouldn’t have gotten here to begin with.
We could still do this. We could find a way to make this work.
I had eleven hours on a plane to start figuring it out.
“Can I take the jet?” I asked, perking up.
“It’s already prepped.” Dad smiled. “Go get her.”