Chapter 15
Chapter
Fifteen
Bodi
I’m unconsciously holding my breath as I wait for her to answer. But she surprises me.
“It has to be your decision,” she says without hesitation.
“He could ruin your career, but what’s he going to do to me?
Kick me out? Ground me? I’m twenty-three years old.
I mean, good luck with that. I’d be broke, but I’d figure it out.
He could really hurt you, though. And from what I read online… you can’t risk that.”
I sigh. “You read about my disaster of a season?”
“It wasn’t a disaster,” she says patiently. “You just didn’t produce the way you did in the playoffs. But the regular season is long. It’s a totally different animal and it was your first time playing a full season in the big leagues. Anyone who knows hockey understands that.”
I smile at her astuteness. “Maybe, but I still have a lot to prove to your dad.”
“That’s why I’m leaving it up to you to decide if we see each other again. I want to, but again, he has less control over me than you.”
She’s right.
West already warned me that this is a bad idea.
Simon and Felix agree with him.
I should head home and forget all about this.
And her.
But I can’t.
Or maybe the truth is—I don’t want to.
There’s something between us. I don’t know what it is, but I feel it. The air is electric when we’re together. I like her and she liked me before she knew who I was. She likes Broderick, the man, not Bodi the NHL player.
And I can’t think of any woman I’ve ever dated who falls into that category.
“I don’t think we can ignore the pull between us,” I say thoughtfully. “Or the way fate threw us together again, even after we both assumed we were going to meet up with someone different today.”
“So we’re going to… what? Start dating?”
“If you want to. I mean, we can take things slow. Training camp starts tomorrow, so I’m going to be busy. Even busier when the season officially starts. You have school and your internship and Lindy.”
“What about your friends? We can’t spend every moment out in public, which means we’d need to be at your house sometimes. Don’t you live with them?”
I nod. “Yeah, but they’ll keep their mouths shut. Just because they don’t agree with my decision doesn’t mean they’ll rat me out.”
“Are you sure about that? Your career could be on the line.”
“Don’t worry about the guys—leave that to me. As long as you and I are on the same page, we’re good.”
“Okay.”
Okay?
Could any of this possibly be that simple? Just a mutual desire and an agreement to keep things on the down low? Does anything ever work out that easily? I guess there’s no way to know the answer to that question, and the only other option in this case is one I’ve already discarded.
I like being with her, having her hand in mine, watching her profile in my peripheral vision as we drive.
The way she’s quiet, thoughtful, and doesn’t push herself on me.
How smart and kind she is. The touch of sass that comes out every so often.
And I’d be a fucking liar if I didn’t admit that I’d kill to see some of that sass in bed.
“Tell me about Cal,” I say as I merge onto the highway.
“Ugh.” She shudders. “What a terrible way to start a new relationship.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Eh, we might as well get it over with. I was a sophomore in college and over Christmas break I was at home. Dad was coaching and the team only got a few days off because of practice and a New Year’s Day tournament, which Lourdes, Lindy, and I attended since it was only two hours from home.”
“That’s where you met?”
“Yeah. He was… handsome. Charming. Interesting. Only a year older, twenty to my nineteen.” I flush but there’s no point in lying.
“He was my first everything. Other than some insignificant high school group dates and whatever. I fell hard and fast. We did long distance for the rest of the school year and then spent a lot of time together in the summer. He only lived an hour from me so he would drive to see me. We were pretty inseparable.”
“And then?”
“Then junior year started. Senior year for him. He’d turned twenty-one over the summer and could drink legally.
He started partying with his friends and teammates.
My dad caught him—and a group of others—having sex in Cal’s hotel room.
There was a girl riding him, on his lap, and my dad got pictures because he threatened to tell all their parents.
It was horrible all around. Me finding out my boyfriend was cheating from my dad.
With pictures, no less. My dad getting in a fist fight with him and then blackmailing some of his players to keep them in line.
Cal begging me to forgive him so my dad would forgive him too. It was a cluster.”
“Oh, shit, honey. That sucks.”
“Yeah.” I sigh, staring straight ahead. “And Dad made a firm no-dating-my-players rule.”
I’m quiet for a beat. “But the thing is, it’s none of his business who I date.
Yes, Cal treated me badly, but do you know many women who haven’t been treated badly by someone over the years?
Maybe not people who marry their high school sweetheart, but I have to believe that’s the exception, not the norm. ”
“Oh, I agree. We’ve all been in shitty relationships. I think most people have had a broken heart or two.”
Do I admit I never have? Not really. High school doesn’t count, in my opinion.
“I dated a nerdy biology major senior year for about four months and he broke my heart too. And he’s the furthest thing from an athlete.”
“I haven’t had a broken heart since high school,” I admit, opting to be honest. “But I’ve seen it with my friends.”
“So…are you a player?” she asks. “The kind of guy who sleeps around and never gets emotionally attached?”
“That’s been my mantra,” I admit, “but I’m trying to be better. Like I told you in our chats, I’ve been in therapy all summer.”
“Because of your sister.”
“Yeah.” This is tough to talk about but she needs to know who I really am if we have any chance of being together.
“Her name is Billie and she’s twenty-three?”
“Actually, she turned twenty-four a couple of weeks ago.”
“And her boyfriend? The one you don’t like?”
I snort. “It’s not that I don’t like him. I didn’t like him for her. Thirty-five to her twenty-three. I felt like he was taking advantage of her.”
“But he’s not?”
“No. At least, not that I can tell. She’s the happiest she’s been since our parents died and doing really well. The two of them are going to buy a restaurant franchise that she’s going to run, but that’s another story. As far as what I did, he was one of my teammates. Rome Castellano. He—”
“Wait, what? His name is Rome Castellano?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Oh, my God. Lourdes’s last name when she met my dad was Castellano.”
“Oh, yeah, we haven’t had a chance to talk about this.” I hesitate, but there’s no point in trying to hide anything so I tell her about the conversation I had with my friends at the cookout.
“The plot thickens,” she says, chuckling. “That’s crazy.”
“Honestly, it makes me feel better to know that one of his divorces wasn’t his fault.”
“He has more than one?” she asks.
“Yeah. That was another thing I didn’t like—twice divorced and broke as fuck. Also basically at the end of his career, so how the hell is he going to take care of my sister, you know?”
“We’ll go back to the Lourdes thing in a minute but tell me the rest of the story.”
“It was ugly. I was a complete ass. When I found out about them, I went after him in the locker room, something I’m not proud of.”
“You mean… a fist fight?”
I cringe but I need her to know the good, the bad, and the ugly.
“Yeah. But I’ve been working on my overprotectiveness.
I know it was wrong. And honestly, he played well for a guy at this stage of his career.
So much so that when the team owner called us in to talk to us about the altercation, she basically said if she had to choose between us, it would be him because I hadn’t had a good year. ”
“Ouch.” She squeezes my hand. “I’m so sorry that happened.”
At least she’s not asking me to drop her off immediately.
“Rome loves her,” I say quietly. “I know that now. It was a whole big clusterfuck of my own making. Luckily, I realized the error of my ways, and she forgave me, as long as I promised to get therapy to deal with my overprotectiveness.”
“Your grief manifested itself in unexpected ways. I get that. Like I told you when we talked about it before I knew who you were, you took on a huge responsibility. That you would make mistakes was a given.”
“Yeah, but I want to be better going forward.”
“You’re already better just by virtue of opening up about what happened.”
“Thank you for saying that.”
We smile at each other and I’m reminded why we’re here, together.
Somehow, some way, we fit—and it feels like I can talk to her about almost anything.
What more could I ask for at this stage of a relationship?