30. Brynn
brYNN
Lunch started out fantastic. Colton drove us out to the quieter edge of the valley, far enough from the Strip that the restaurants weren’t overrun with tourists.
The Italian place he found smelled of fresh noodles and searing meats when we entered through the front door, and for the life of me, I wondered how long this place had been here.
I mean, I grew up in Las Vegas, and I’d never once encountered this place.
I swear, being with Colton was a fever dream sometimes.
But when we sat down and I ordered myself a lemonade, I couldn’t help but notice that he ordered a bourbon.
After telling his team not to drink before the game tomorrow.
“So,” he said when our drinks came, “how did practice look from your angle?”
I watched him raise the glass to his lips and his throat bobbed once. Twice. Three times, before the glass moved away from his lips.
“I didn’t know teams made a habit out of drinking before the games,” I blurted out.
He paused, studying my face as he stretched out in his seat a bit. “The team, yes.”
That caught my attention. I tilted my head. “You don’t consider yourself part of the team?”
He shook his head. “Coaches are always separate and apart from teams. We rally the team, but sometimes we have to operate outside of it as well. Like a figurehead.”
“A figurehead that does what the team isn’t supposed to do before a game?”
His eyes darted in between mine. “If the drink bothers you—”
I shook my head and cut him off. “It’s not that it bothers me. It’s just…”
He leaned forward at my silence and placed his hand over mine. “It’s just… what?”
His squeeze of reassurance helped me to realize that maybe he wouldn’t be upset if I said something.
After all, this thing between us was new.
Hell, I still wasn’t sure if it was just a fleeting, passing fantasy, or something more than that.
I wanted it to be more, but the truth of the matter was we’d only had one date. Well, two.
Is this one three?
“Brynn,” Colton said.
His voice pulled me out of my mind, and I blurted out the question before I could think. “I just wonder if you’ve always felt this unimportant in your job, or if this is a new thing since… you know, everything that went down.”
“Would you like another?” the waitress asked as she walked up to us and pointed to his empty bourbon glass.
Colton stared at it for a while before nodding his head, and I hated how disappointed I felt. It wasn’t the drinking that was the problem. It was how he viewed it. Why he saw it that way.
Did he really not think he was part of his own team?
“Colton,” I said softly.
He cleared his throat and waited for his drink to come back before he took a long swig. “I’ll admit, I wasn’t this much of a drinker until my divorce.”
I wanted to comment and interject, but I didn’t. I bit down onto my tongue and gave him the space to process and talk like I knew he needed.
Much like what he’d done for me on our first date.
Second date?
Whatever.
“My wife and I… she…”
I waited. He set his glass down and looked at it for a second like he was deciding something.
“Her name was Claire,” he said. “We met when I was still playing. She liked hockey the way a lot of women liked hockey back then — the access, the lifestyle, the idea of it. I knew that going in and I married her anyway, because I was thirty-two and my mother kept asking and it seemed like the right time to make a responsible decision.” He shook his head slowly.
“That’s a hell of a reason to marry someone. ”
“How long were you married?” I asked softly.
“Eight years.” He picked up his glass and turned it in his hand.
“Eight years of two people being perfectly decent to each other and completely wrong for each other. We didn’t fight.
That was probably the problem. There was nothing bad enough to leave over and nothing good enough to stay for. We just sort of… ran out.”
Something about that landed quietly in my chest. Not sad, exactly. More like recognizing the shape of a particular kind of loneliness.
“She filed,” he continued. “I didn’t fight it.
By then the coaching had taken over everything anyway, and I think she’d figured out a long time before I did that hockey was always going to come first. That’s not something you can fix once someone’s already decided it’s true.
” He looked at his glass again. “She’s remarried now.
Has a couple of kids. Sends me a card at Christmas, which I think is generous, all things considered. ”
“Do you miss her?” I asked.
He thought about it for a moment. Which I liked, that he actually thought about it instead of just saying no. “I miss the idea of what I thought it was going to be,” he said. “Not her specifically. Just the version of my life I thought I was building when I said yes.”
I nodded slowly. “That makes sense.”
He looked at me then, for the first time since he’d started talking. Like he’d been looking at something else the whole time and just remembered I was there. “You’re very easy to talk to,” he said. Like it surprised him.
“English Lit degree,” I said. “We read a lot of sad things. Makes you good at sitting with them.”
I waited patiently. I didn’t even move for my fork as our plates touched down in front of us.
Now, I was a whore for a good chicken parmesan.
Crispy chicken? Noodles slathered in homemade tomato sauce?
Cheese!? Sign me the fuck up every single time.
But I didn’t touch my fork as Colton’s eyes grew faraway, like his memories ripped him back.
“I used to not drink at all,” he said with a snicker as he folded his arms over his broad chest. “Maybe a glass of wine here or there with dinner, if she wanted. But nothing like this.”
I studied his face. “When did you start drinking like this?”
He shrugged and heaved what was probably the heaviest sigh I’d ever heard come from a man. “The divorce put me in a bar a couple of times a week, but the scandal?”
He shook his head softly and I wanted to wrap him up in my arms and never let go. “It’s okay. Take your time.”
He looked off to the side and shook his head before he cleared his throat. “That’s when the harder stuff made its way into my place. At first, it was vodka. Then, tequila. But eventually, I settled on bourbon.”
“Why?”
“Hmmm?” he asked, turning his attention back to me.
“Why bourbon?” I asked softly.
He shrugged. “Makes me feel warm inside when I don’t. It lessens…” I held my breath as he finished his statement, “…the emptiness. Makes it warmer. Makes it feel…less empty.”
I never understood what people meant by a heart shattering until that moment.
Until that beautiful, strong, powerful man looked me in my eyes with the kind of look a man gets when he’s ashamed of himself.
I reached my hand out across the table, palm settled upward, and wiggled my fingers in a silent invitation.
He stared at it for a second before he uncrossed those gigantic arms of his and placed his hand on top of mine.
I did my best to curl my fingers around the girth of his palm so that I could give him a reassuring squeeze like he had done for me. “You’re a good man, Colton. Even if this world has convinced you that you aren’t.”
His jaw worked for a second before he looked at his glass for a moment. “Thanks for listening.”
I had so many questions, but if he was done, I sure as hell wouldn’t push him. “Anytime, Colton. I’m serious.” I paused and considered my last set of words before I decided to say them. “And for what it’s worth, I didn’t think you did anything wrong.”
His brow ticked, so I added clarification.
“The scandal that wasn’t really a scandal?
” I gave a soft shrug and squeezed his hand again.
“As far as I’m concerned, you were divorced, and things were consensual.
You got in trouble because of social norms, not because of anything you actively did.
I hope you realize that. And if you don’t, I hope the realization comes with time. ”
The look on his face was one I’d never seen before. Not just on him, but on anyone. I knew it meant something, but I wasn’t sure what. However, as quickly as it had appeared, it disappeared when the bell over the door tinkered.
A crew of familiar faces walked in.
“Shit,” Colton hissed as he snatched his hand from mine, picking up his bourbon, and downed it in two gulps.
He grimaced and growled softly with the burn and I pushed my lemonade toward him a bit.
He gave me a thankful look before taking a few deep gulps, and he set the almost-empty glass down just before Rhett, Jett, Moose, and Frank stepped around the corner.
“Hey, hey, hey!” Frank exclaimed with his arms open wide. “Look who decided to get out of town for a little bit!”
Rhett walked up to us, setting his forearm on Colton’s shoulder, and grinned. “Heeeeey, Bry.”
I giggled and shook my head as I mocked his tone of voice that he always used when saying ‘hello.’ “Heeeeeey, Rhett.”
Jett pulled up a chair, flipping it around, and straddled it as he sat. “So! Team meeting, Coach? Or, uh,” Jett wiggled his eyebrows, “team meeting?”
I couldn’t help the giggle that bubbled up the back of my throat, but it had nothing on the laughter throwing my head back when Colton shot daggers through his stare as the four men from the team pulled up chairs, gathering around us, and yelled their orders over our heads to the waitress who scrambled back to our table.
And while Colton didn’t look all too pleased at the intrusion, I didn’t mind.
The team was always Dad’s happy place, even though the team had since been switched over and turned out at least half a dozen times.
It didn’t matter who played for the team, though.
No matter who came in, they always seemed to carry a sliver of something that reminded me of my father. Something that made me smile.
Something that made this team feel like home.