Chapter 43
Forty-Three
Sawyer
“We could use a few volunteers for social media,” Tawny, our head of media, calls. “Sawyer, you in?”
“Sure!” I call back.
Leo, beside me as we head off the ice, snorts.
“What?” I ask.
“You tell me,” he counters, lifting his brows in question.
And fuck, I slept all of an hour last night—partly because it’s the first time I’ve slept in my own bed in weeks, and partly because I was lying there, staring at the ceiling, coming up with (and promptly discarding) all the ways to fix things with Lainey and Ollie.
And no closer to an answer by the time dawn broke and I had to hit the gym.
No answers were found amongst the dumbbells and resistance bands either.
Or in the locker room. Or on the ice during practice.
Or, apparently, after it.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I mutter as we step off the rink.
“Bullshit,” he says.
I grind my teeth together as I turn toward him. “What the fuck, man?”
“Oh wow, Cupcake. That might be the first time I’ve seen you wearing a scowl.” He smirks. “Don’t tell me that you fucked things up with Lainey already.”
I must wince because his face changes, the smirk sliding away, concern taking its place.
“Fuck,” he says. “I was joking, man. What happened?”
“It doesn’t matter. I’ll fix it.” I have to.
“I know you will. But”—he grabs my shoulder—“you don’t have to do it alone.” I start to shrug him off, but his fingers tighten as he calls to Tawny, “Yo, T! Do the other guys first, yeah?”
She raises her hand, silently telling us she heard him.
Then he turns back to me, orders, “Spill it.”
And hell, I should refuse purely on principle. But somehow, the words just…come out. So many of them, telling him about the lunch and the pictures and the swag bag and the tire blowing and about arriving late and missing fucking everything and finally, about the argument with Lainey.
“…and then she tells me that she needs me to think about what makes me happy.” I scoff. “What makes me happy is spending time with her and Ollie and taking care of them and…”
“Taking care of everyone else,” Leo says quietly.
I blink.
“But is that because it really makes you happy?” he asks. “Or because you have to in order for people to…” He trails off, sighs quietly.
“In order for people to what?”
His eyes hit mine. “To love you.”
My lungs inflate. “Dude, that’s not—”
“True?” He lifts a brow, crosses his arms. “Again. Bullshit. You’re so damned worried about disappointing anyone that you’re running around trying to please everyone. But you can’t sustain that, man. Something’s going to give at some point.”
“That’s not what’s happening.”
“No?”
“No.”
Smitty’s voice echoes down the hallway and I take a step back. “I need to get going.”
“When did you know about the scheduling conflict with the lunch?”
I freeze. “What?”
“When did you know that making both the lunch and concert would be tricky?”
“The night before, man.” I shake my head. “It was too late to cancel.”
“Maybe.” But his tone tells me he doesn’t believe that—and part of me knows he’s right. It wouldn’t have been ideal, but I could have rescheduled with Bri.
“So why didn’t you tell Lainey?”
Because I went downstairs and we had sex on her desk and my mind wasn’t thinking about schedules?
Only I don’t say that out loud.
Because…fuck.
I never had any intention of telling her that night. And I could have told her yesterday morning—but I had no intention of doing that either.
A sinking feeling grows in my stomach.
“You know,” he says quietly, “it’s okay if you make a mistake sometimes.” He drops his hand onto my shoulder, shakes me slightly. “You apologize and move on.”
“And what, just let them be disappointed?”
“Maybe.” A laugh. “Would that be so bad?”
It’d be fucking torture. A living nightmare. The past rearing its ugly head.
He studies me for a long moment.
“Don’t,” I growl.
“What happened with your mom wasn’t your fault,” he says quietly. “And Lainey isn’t going to stop loving you just because you’re human and fallible and shit goes wrong sometimes.”
“Leo—”
“You were practically a kid. You were allowed to go play a fucking hockey game. And just because Erin left you afterward—”
“That’s not what I’m worried about,” I grind out even though my insides are suddenly filled with shards of ice.
“It’s not?”
“No,” I mutter.
“Sure could have fooled me.”
I scowl.
“Look, just…you owe it to Lainey to think about what she said, okay?” His voice softens. “Mostly because you owe it to everyone you love—and yourself—to be happy.”
“Sawyer!” Tawny calls. “We’re ready for you.”
“You can spend your whole life trying to make sure everyone else gets what they need, but one day”—he shoves me toward Tawny—“you’re going to wake up and realize you never gave yourself a chance to have what you wanted.”
I’m still no closer to figuring out how to make things right with Lainey and Ollie by the time I finish up with Tawny’s social media challenge and hit the showers.
I don’t make it quick and am rewarded by an empty locker room when I come out.
Good.
I don’t want to talk to anyone else.
Especially not Leo.
And also definitely not my mom—who’s calling me.
My stomach twists as I reach for it, everything inside me telling me not to pick up.
But I do anyway.
“Hey, honey!” my mom chirps. “I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind bringing me one of those smoothies I like so much.”
Tension between my shoulder blades.
My jaw clenching tight.
My eyes sliding closed.
My lips parting to say, Of course.
Only that’s not what comes out.
Instead, I say, “No, Mom. I can’t.”
Silence falls, long and taut. “What was that, honey bun?”
“I can’t come by today.”
“Oh.”
“But I can probably—” I clamp my mouth closed for a moment. Then I open it again. “Why can’t you get your own smoothie?”
Another extended pause. “What are you talking about?”
“Why do you need me to bring you muffins and smoothies and fix a doorknob that already works? Why do you call and email Ally when I’m busy and on the road—and you know that I’ll call you as soon as I have a free moment?
” I close my eyes. “Why do you need me to manage your life? Half the time, I don’t even know if you actually need my help because I never fucking let you figure it out for yourself. ”
“Wh-what?”
I rub at the throb in my temple. “I’m tired,” I whisper. “It’s been more than a decade like this. Dad dying started it, and then what happened when I was seventeen—”
“Don’t,” she hisses.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t bring that up.”
“How can I not, Mom?” The question catches in the back of my throat. “I-it changed everything.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
“I think neither of us has talked about it for a fucking decade.”
Silence descends, and I clench my phone so tightly the case protests. Because I’m suddenly seventeen again, exhausted but full of excitement after my first pro game.
And then Coach comes into the locker room.
I know he’s there for me a heartbeat later.
Excitement turns to fear turns to panic—a terrified flight home, two days of searching for her…only to find her overdosed on sleeping pills and barely breathing.
Hospital stays. A psychiatric ward.
And Erin deciding—maybe rightfully—this shit was too much.
“I should’ve come home,” I say, so softly the words barely reach my ears.
My mom sucks in a breath. “Honey—”
“You needed me, and I wasn’t there.”
“You were exactly where you needed to be—starting your career.”
“I knew you weren’t okay when I left. You were a wreck after Dad died.”
“And I relied on you far too much, baby. You were my child. I should—”
My eyes burn. Because, fuck, how long have I waited to hear that?
“You needed me.”
“Yes, I did.”
And maybe that was the problem.
My mom needed me. Needed me to keep the pieces together, to fix everything, to make sure she ate and slept and drank and saw her doctors and didn’t completely fall apart.
Like she had when I left the first time.
Because she couldn’t care for herself then.
Because the one time I wasn’t there, everything fell apart.
Only…in a weird, twisted way, am I repeating the same pattern?
Making everyone else need me so they don’t fall apart, making everyone else rely on me so they won’t leave me.
Because if they need me, they have a reason to keep me around.
More quietly, she adds, “I still do, baby.”
“Mom.” I press the heels of my hands to my eyes. “You can order smoothies and call a handyman yourself.”
A blip of quiet then, “Sometimes I get overwhelmed.”
“I know,” I say, gripping tight to my patience. “That’s why I moved you out to California in the first place. So you wouldn’t have to be alone.”
“Except you hardly ever come over.”
Now my temper starts to rise. “I have a job and friends and charity work and a girlfriend—” Hell, I hope I still have one. “I have the team and contracts and practices and workouts. It’s a lot to balance even when I’m not playing eighty-four games.”
“I know. I just want to see you sometimes, okay?” Her voice breaks. “I miss you and I’m alone and—”
“Don’t you think I’d want to see you more if I wasn’t having to clean out your garbage disposal?”
“No,” she snaps. “Because now that you’ve gone and got yourself a girlfriend, you’re too busy for me.”
I open my mouth, an instinctive apology rumbling up the back of my throat.
Don’t make her mad. Don’t rock the boat.
But my apology doesn’t emerge.
Instead, the truth does:
“No, Mom. I’m telling you that I want you in my life, but I can’t be your whole life. Not any longer.”
“You’re hardly here as it is,” she grinds out. “How can I be your whole life?”
“Because even when I’m not at your house, I’m still managing it!
” The words explode out of me. “I’m thinking about whether or not your grocery delivery made it and hoping you remembered to go to your doctor’s appointment and wondering if you’re upset because I didn’t call enough.
I worry about you putting your ice cream in the freezer and cleaning the lint trap for your dryer and—” I sigh.
“I drop what I’m doing because if I don’t—”
I still, words stoppering up.
If I don’t…what?
She’ll fall apart? She’ll leave? She’ll hurt herself again?
My lungs hitch, but it’s like now that I’ve started I can’t stop. “Do you know what Ally sent me in her last email?” I say quietly, adding before she can reply, “Resources for senior communities, home-care aides, live-in nurses. People who can help you when I’m not around.”
“No, she did not!” she snaps. “How dare she?”
“Because you ask me for too much.”
My heart thuds hard against my ribs.
I hadn’t even realized that was the truth.
Not until I speak it aloud.
“I love you, Mom. So much. But I can’t keep putting my life on pause to help you live yours.”
“That’s not what—”
“Not what we’re doing?” I ask when she doesn’t go on. “Are you sure?”
Her breathing hitches and then she’s crying…and I almost break.
Almost apologize and tell her I’ll bring the smoothie, that I’ll stay as long as she wants.
Almost.
But I don’t let it free.
Instead…I let her be disappointed.
A long while later, she exhales shakily. “I thought you didn’t mind.”
“I did mind,” I whisper. “Sometimes. I just…never told you.”
Another moment of quiet, long and tense and sad.
Then she asks, “Why did you keep saying yes?”
“I—” I freeze again, Leo’s words rippling through my mind.
Because you have to in order for people…to love you.
Hell.
The asshole’s right.
Or maybe it’s that—
“I need to find a way for me to just be your son again, Mom.”
For long seconds, she doesn’t say anything.
Then, so quietly I almost miss it, she whispers, “I’m not sure how to do that.”
Neither do I.
But—
“We just…start here,” I murmur. “And take it one day at a time.”
I hold my breath as I wait for her to answer.
“I can do that.”
My exhale is shaky.
But for the first time in more than a decade, her words give me hope.
Because she adds, “I’d like my son back too.”