Chapter 51
FIFTY-ONE
CONNOR
I miss you.
I type out the message three times before I finally decide to delete it for good and shut my phone off. It’s the only way I can keep myself from texting her. I set the device down on the dining table and rest my hands in my head, sighing.
“That’s it.” I startle at the deep grumble. When I glance up, Aiden is scowling at me from across the table, his fork abandoned on his plate, the big slice of lasagna I dished up twenty minutes ago now long gone. “Who the fuck pissed in your cereal?”
The guys all stare at him with wide-open mouths around the table, like he just waltzed in here naked. I can’t blame them. Aiden likes to keep to himself and out of everyone’s business, so the fact that he’s getting involved in mine must mean that I look worse than I feel.
“No one.”
He crosses his arms over his chest and leans back in his chair, looking more imposing than I’ve seen him off the ice in a while. “It sure as shit doesn’t seem like it.”
“I liked it better when you didn’t care.” I scowl at him.
“Tough luck. I liked it better when you weren’t sulking on our couch,” he snaps back. “Whatever happened between the two of you, it’s been a fucking week. Pull yourself together and apologize.”
“Hold up, what have I missed?” Finn asks, eyes bouncing between us.
“No clue,” Luke grumbles, eyes narrowed on us while he too crosses his arms over his chest.
“What makes you think I did something?” I ask him, ignoring the others.
Aiden rolls his eyes like I’m the densest person in the world. “She bolted out of there in the middle of the night while you looked like a lost puppy staring after her. Something happened.”
Finn leans across the table, trying to get our attention. “Will someone explain what’s going on?”
To his credit, Aiden stays silent, never once looking away from me.
“I’m giving Daisy some space.” It’s the one excuse I’ve been clinging on to all week, because I’m too scared to go home and face her for fear that she’ll push me away again.
“What did you do?” he grumbles again, clearly not taking no for an answer.
I hesitate for a second, considering just walking away, but judging from the way he’s glaring at me I have a feeling he’s not going to let this conversation go so easily. “I told her I love her.”
Ollie groans. “Is that why you look like you got run over by a Zamboni? Love hit you that hard?”
“Fuck off,” I snap, not feeling an ounce of remorse when he flinches back in his seat at the rough tone to my voice.
“Can’t really blame a guy for asking. It seems like you should be riding off into the sunset with her instead of moping around on our couch.”
“She doesn’t want anything to do with me,” I admit, letting my words hang between us before adding, “She’s leaving.”
Finn furrows his brows, looking confused. “So? They still fly planes to Colorado, right?”
I sigh. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell her.”
“So that’s it? You’re just going to give up and hide out here until she leaves?”
“It’s not like that.”
“Seems exactly like that to me.”
I fidget with the label on my beer, feeling about ready to crawl right out of my skin.
I need a distraction, need to steer this conversation somewhere else that doesn’t feel so crushing, so I go for the next best thing. “They’re not going to save the rink. I had to tell the kids yesterday. It was fucking brutal.”
Finn groans, rising from his seat. “I need a drink. This is too fucking depressing.”
I nod and take a sip of my own beer, desperate to get rid of some of the tension in my throat.
“Maybe they won’t even miss it,” Luke adds, quieter than before.
I raise a brow. “Would you have stopped thinking about hockey for a second if someone had dragged you off the ice?”
He stares at me, eyes somber, when he says, “Not for a minute.”
“There’s got to be some other way,” Tanner exclaims from down the table.
“I tried. They’re set on tearing it down.”
“That doesn’t have to mean the end of the team. There’s plenty of other rinks out there.”
I shake my head. “All of them are at least an hour’s drive out of the city.”
“Not all of them,” Finn says, appearing in the doorway with two fresh beers. He sets one of them down in front of me.
“Are you suggesting I sneak them into our rink out of hours?” I snort a laugh.
“Why not?”
I balk. “Are you serious? Coach would kill me if he found out.” Plus, there’s something about the idea of sneaking kids onto campus out of hours that has me feeling a bit icky.
“You could always ask him first.” He shrugs.
I roll my eyes, scoffing at the idea. “Sure, I’m going to ask Coach if I can train little league on our twelve million dollar NHL certified training rink.”
“Why not?”
“Have you lost your mind? There’s no way he’ll agree to let a bunch of kids loose on his ice. He barely allows Ollie on it as it is.” And even if he did, there’s no way I could convince the school board to let me train kids on their priceless ice.
“Have you met that man?” he retorts. “He puts up a tough front, but he would bend over backward if it meant keeping his players happy.”
I snort as if to say in your dreams, because there’s no way I can see him ever agreeing to that.
“He’s right,” Luke says, rising from his chair just as I’m about to argue again. “Get the fuck up; you’re done wallowing.”
When I don’t move, he grabs a hold of the backrest on my chair and starts tipping it until I stumble out of it.
“Where are we going?” I ask, barely managing to keep up when he storms out of the dining room, leaving all of us to follow.
“To do the one thing you should’ve done weeks ago,” Luke calls over his shoulder, already halfway out the door.