Chapter Twenty-Four #2
“The only person lying here is you. And if you fuck with Winter any more than you already have, I will make sure your entire season is fucked. And if you try to get in my way, I’ll break my contract and leave before you even come close to a championship.
Because, inevitably, that’s what you want more than a healthy relationship with your daughter. ”
He stares at me. “You would break your legally binding contract for her?”
Winter. Not Emaly. “I would.”
His jaw moves back and forth, the vein in his forehead pulsing. “You disgust me.”
“The feeling is mutual,” I inform him bitterly.
A throat clears beside me. “Everything okay?” Clarkson asks hesitantly, looking between the team owner and me.
I’m about to say “no” when my father-in-law offers the captain of his team a smile. “Yes. We were discussing future plans and where Moskins sees himself on the team.”
Clarkson seems a little tense, which means he must hear the slime in his tone the same way I do.
“Come on,” my captain says quietly, tugging on my elbow. “Let’s go back. We have a few more people to see.”
I start to shake my head, but Mikhail pins me with a stare that halts me from arguing. My stomach dips when he says, “If you don’t want me to drag her into this, I suggest you go back and make your fans happy. There is very little you can do to get out of the contract you signed.”
I want to point out that there’s always a way, but I don’t. I also don’t bother saying the fans won’t be happy watching me sit on a bench, but I don’t waste my breath. Because as much as I want to shove those words down his throat, I know they won’t help.
Not when he’s threatening Winter.
He knows he has me right where he wants me, and that smile spreads on his face.
“How does it feel?” I ask him as Clarkson starts pulling me back to the meet-and-greet table.
Mikhail looks at me dubiously. “How does what feel?”
This time, I smile. But it’s empty. Void of any emotion, even hatred. “To know that you’re going to lose everything because of this? You think you’re in control, but you’re not.”
Clarkson’s grip tightens. “Let’s go,” he warns under his breath.
My father-in-law’s eyes flash with rage, but he doesn’t get a chance to respond before my captain is yanking me away.
“Care to explain what the hell that was about?” Clarkson asks once we’re back at the table, where Dawson is entertaining a group of kids with some cheesy magic trick he tried showing us at practice one day.
I finally meet my captain’s eyes. “No. Not particularly. Can we just get this whole fucking thing over so I can go?”
Clarkson studies me. “Who was he talking about?”
I swallow. “Somebody who doesn’t deserve what’s about to happen to her. All because I was dumb enough to fall in love.”
His eyes soften for a moment. “If you need to leave, I’ll cover for you.”
As much as I want to bolt out the door, I know Mikhail will stick true to his word. He will find a way to screw Winter over, and I refuse to allow it.
“After,” is all I say.
After, I’ll make this right.
I’ll find a way to fix it.
I will burn the world down for the blonde who I should have never flirted with to begin with, but now don’t know if I can live without.
I like her banter too much. Her sass.
I like the way she’s blunt. She doesn’t tell me what she thinks I want to hear. She tells me the truth, even if I don’t want to listen.
Even though I wish I didn’t, I’m gone for this girl.
*
By the time I look at my phone hours later, there are hundreds of notifications littering my screen.
Missed calls, texts, social media messages, emails, and news alerts all cover the image of Emaly on my home screen.
But I don’t pay any attention to them. Not to the twenty missed calls from Ashton, or the five from my agent, Scott, or the three from Emaly.
I also don’t answer any text messages, especially not the ones with images attached, because I don’t have the energy to see what bullshit is being plastered about me now. I’ve never cared that deeply before. Not until Winter became involved in the whirlwind that is my life.
When I finally find the name that’s sunk toward the bottom of my text threads, I click on it and wait as it rings.
And rings.
And rings.
And rings. Until the voicemail picks up and I’m greeted with a generic automated voice that isn’t the one I want to hear. “You’ve reached Winter Bronte. Please leave a—”
I hang up and toss the phone into the passenger seat, unbuttoning my suit jacket and loosening my tie so I can fucking breathe for the first time all night.
When I see the light on my screen flash, I bolt to pick it up and narrowly miss side-swiping a parked vehicle.
I’m sure that would be another twisted headline.
Hockey star side swipes car while drunk driving after charity gala.
It wouldn’t matter to people that I didn’t touch a drop of alcohol tonight. I’m sure it would be widely believed solely because I would be the asshole to do something like that.
“Winter,” I say, straightening out the car and slowing down as I approach a red light.
“No,” Emaly says, voice sounding heavy. “I saw the pictures, and I’ve been getting calls again.”
She means from the media wanting commentary. The fact that they have her number, after the third time she changed it, isn’t surprising to me one bit. They have weird ways to get the information they need, and it makes me want to punch something. Ideally, one of them.
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “I’ll get in touch with the phone provider and see about getting you a new—”
“No,” she cuts me off. I’m really starting to hate that word. “Forget about that. I can field calls. I want to make sure you two are okay.”
For a moment, I’m quiet. She’s not just calling to inquire about me and my dumbass mistake. She’s asking about Winter.
I swallow. “I’m not sure,” I admit, hating the uncertainty. “Your father approached her tonight. He’s been following her too. And me, obviously. I don’t know what he said to her, but it was enough to spook her.”
This is all my fault.
My fault.
My fault.
My fault.
“I ruin everything,” I whisper aloud, forgetting she’s on the phone still. “This is my fault.”
“It’s not,” she disagrees. When I don’t reply, she says, “It isn’t, Little Bear.” Her tone is firmer than before. Not allowing me to argue.
Maybe my father was right. I get in the way. Of myself. Of everyone. I’m a cancer. Everything I touch is poisoned. Ruined.
I should have known the second I stepped into Winter’s life—the moment I realized I wanted to know more—it wasn’t going to end well. Because that’s what happens when people get close to me.
“Listen to me, Thomas Xavier Moskins,” my wife all but growls at me. “You are not responsible for this. I am. We both know it. And I think it’s time I stop letting you take the brunt of the consequences because all it’s doing is hurting us. Seeing you like this is killing me.”
It’s hard to swallow as I take in her words.
“You care about her,” she states. It’s not a question. “I think you may even love her. And don’t try to argue because I won’t have it.”
I nod, driving when the light turns green and hoping Winter is at her apartment when I get there. “I know,” I finally reply, getting closer to the turnoff that leads to the shitty apartment building Winter loves so much.
“I’m sorry,” she offers softly. “I’m sorry for letting this go on for so long. It shouldn’t have. Not for you. Not for Ronnie. Not for Winter. We all deserve to be happy.”
I want to tell her she shouldn’t be sorry.
That it’s me who should be sorry.
Sorry for her.
Sorry for Winter.
But not sorry for myself.
I’m the creator of my own downfall.
A cancer to society.
Sickness to everyone who comes into my life.
“You fuck everything up,” my father says before backhanding me until I’m lying on the dirty tile floor of the kitchen. He looms over me, reeking of alcohol and cigarette smoke. “You always fuck up everything.”
I was six, and it was the first vivid memory I have of the man who looked twice his age because of the pills and booze.
Since then, his hand had been a common occurrence against some part of my body when he’d get mad.
If I were in his way, which was too often, he’d make sure I knew what an inconvenience I was in his life.
I did my best not to come out of my room unless it was an emergency. Usually, that left me nearly having accidents in my bedroom because I was terrified of going to the bathroom. It wasn’t until some of the bruises from my father’s anger became more visible that the school stepped in.
Some people were terrified of foster homes and the experiences they had in them. Mine brought me relief, even when I had nothing but a garbage bag full of clothes and a thin mattress to call my own. At least there was peace from the monsters with whom I shared my blood.
And, eventually, my time away from my parents brought me next door to Emaly.
The woman who took me in didn’t care where I was as long as I behaved myself and didn’t bring trouble to her door, so I made sure to keep my head down.
I spent time at the local skating rink in the summer and the frozen pond in the winter, and learned my passion for skating thanks to the young dark-haired girl.
Emaly was my salvation from the harsh words that had always been locked in my mind.
You fuck everything up.
It’s a cruel thing to believe your entire life, and Emaly made me wonder if they were wrong. Until, inevitably, I realized that maybe they weren’t.
“Little Bear?” Emaly asks quietly. “Are you still there?”
I wet my lips and turn onto Winter’s street. I know now where her apartment is and don’t see any lights on through the far window. But she could still be there, sitting in the darkness and worried that someone with a long camera is waiting for her out here.
I grip the steering wheel, hating that I brought that into her life. “Yes,” I say through gritted teeth. “I’m still here.”
She takes a deep breath. “I think it’s time.”
I’m still staring at the window when I register those words and frown. “Time for what?”
“Time to end this.”
I sit back against my seat. “There’s no point.”
“When it comes to love,” she counters, “there is always a point.”
And then she tells me she loves me and hangs up the phone.
I don’t call her back.
Because I don’t want to. Not right now.
I try the front door.
Locked.
I tap on the window.
No response.
I sit on the stoop outside, wondering what to do now. I call her. I text. Nothing.
And then I think about what she told me that day at her apartment.
And I get back in my car and call Ashton.
“Where are they buried?” is the question out of my mouth before he can cuss me out for ignoring him.
“What the fuck are you talking about? We have a serious problem on our hands. We need to—”
“You need to tell me where Winter’s parents are buried,” I cut him off firmly. “I know you know. There’s no way you don’t after years of keeping an eye on the girls.”
Ashton is quiet, likely trying to figure out if he can win an argument with me right now. He realizes he can’t and tells me the cemetery’s location so I can put it into my GPS.
“We still need to talk,” he tells me, but there’s a difference in his tone of voice. “Tomorrow.”
He’s giving me the night to figure this out.
To finally be the cure, for once, instead of the disease.
So, I hang up my phone and follow the directions until I find myself parking along the driveway of a cemetery.
In the near distance, a blond-haired girl is sitting on the ground in front of two graves.
I don’t say anything to her as I approach.
I’m quiet.
Careful not to scare her.
Then I kneel, peeling my suit jacket off and draping it over her shoulders.
I don’t care about the stains that will wind up on my gray pants or the dirt that will probably get on my white button-down.
I sit beside her and stare at the names on the polished granite with moss growing over the tops of each.
Winter and I stay like that for a long, long time. In silence. Simply breathing. Letting the wind rustle our hair.
It feels like forever before she whispers, “I miss them.”
I say, “I know, sweetheart.”
She takes a deep breath, and I think she’s about to say something when she chooses to hold it back.
Then she leans against me, her head resting on my shoulder, and stays like that.
I don’t move my arm around her as much as I want to. I don’t apologize as much as I need to. I let my body heat warm her, comfort her.
She doesn’t tell me to leave, so I stay.
I’ll be whatever she needs right now.
I’ll be whatever she needs for as long as she’ll let me.
Because Emaly was my salvation as a child. She brought me everything I needed when I needed it most.
But Winter…she’s the salvation I need now.
The person who makes the pain go away.
“I would have loved to meet them.”
Winter doesn’t reply. Not right away. But then she says, “My dad hated hockey. He said it was too violent.”
My lips twitch into a smile. “That’s a shame.” I press my mouth to the top of her head in a chaste kiss. “I would give it up.”
Her body tenses beside me.
“If it means you can be happy,” I tell her, taking a deep breath. “I’d give it up.”
She draws her knees up and rests her chin on them. “I would never ask that of you. The game means too much to you. So does Emaly. I get it, Thomas. This is—”
“You do too.” I stop her. “Don’t mistake this, Winter. You’re not the other woman. You’re not disposable. What did I tell you before?”
She doesn’t answer right away. Slowly, she turns to look at me curiously.
“You’re capable of love and being loved.”
I don’t say the words.
The three words I have no right to say to her yet. But one day…
One day, I’ll be able to tell her.
When I deserve her.