9. Dominic
Dominic
C harisse clears out of my house that evening, leaving it feeling emptier than it’s felt in a long time. That hollow feeling permeates my very soul, carving out chunks of my heart every time I glance around the condo.
There’s the sofa where I first claimed her, the kitchen where I spent a morning eating her out before breakfast, and the shower where I soaped us both, taking the opportunity to tickle her until she was breathless and helpless to defend against my probing fingers and wandering mouth.
Had that really been this one weekend together?
Not a lifetime of memories we’d created in the pockets of time we’d carved out for each other to maintain our connection despite our busy schedules and full lives?
Did we really cross over the lines and boundaries of friendship solely to uphold this promise to procreate?
Couldn’t it have been real ?
I tear open the care box from home, retrieve a cookie, and stuff it into my mouth. The peanut butter base crumbles to ash on my tongue the second I remember that these are Charisse’s favorite. They’re in the box because even my mom cannot remember where our tastes overlap and where they differ, and so when she bakes something for me, it’s also for her, the other half of me.
And I fucked it.
Maddox was right. My timing off the ice is shit.
I shouldn’t have said anything, because if I hadn’t, maybe I could’ve pretended for a while longer. Maybe it would’ve kept her here, in the circle of my arms, in the comfort of my home. Maybe she would’ve stayed long enough to come to the same realization I had—we belong together.
Instead, I scared her off by laying my heart bare.
Confessing all my longing, all my pent-up feelings, and expecting her to do what with them?
I toss the cookie into the trash and stomp upstairs. I remember why I spent most of my time out of the rink distracted by activity and noise or with the guys, haunting the darkened edges of the local watering holes with Diego or Gavin or Max by my side and a drink in my hand.
I don’t want to be alone anymore.
But I don’t feel like catching up with the guys, trawling the bars, or fighting off flirtatious advances.
It won’t do me any good. I know better.
No one else will satisfy this longing inside me. No one else will fit me the way Charisse does. No one else will light me up from the inside the way she does.
I’m ruined for everyone else.
This sharp, cutting ache of loneliness narrows to a fine point somewhere in my chest when my phone vibrates in the sequence I know to belong to Charisse.
Reece’s Pieces
I’m sorry.
My heart splinters, and I type and erase a message three times before I’m able to reply.
Me
It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have sprung it on you like that.
Reece’s Pieces
No, I’m the one who blurred the lines. I asked you for too much.
Me
You didn’t ask me for anything I wasn’t willing to give.
Long minutes pass when I see the three dots pop up and disappear. Then, finally, a question.
Reece’s Pieces
So, you’d still want to co-parent with me, even if I can’t give you what you want?
My answer is immediate.
Me
Yes.
She sends a heart emoji, and I run my thumb over the red symbol before turning off the screen. Maybe I haven’t screwed everything up.
Maybe with a little time and space, Charisse will find her way back to me.
After all, she’s got keys to my place and to my heart.
I roll over, inhale the lingering scent of her on the pillow next to me, and groan when my dick jumps. I resign myself to resuming life as it had been B.C.—before Charisse—but this time without the parties and the pointless hook-ups. From here on in, I’ll prove my love is steady and strong.
And I’ll wait for her. Like always.
Hockey keeps me busy, but not even the banter between the team is enough to lift my spirits and entice me to go out on the town.
That alone makes the team suspect something’s amiss, but no one says anything for a while. I go game to game, riding the pine with a Scorpions’ ball cap pulled low over my eyes, trying to look engaged in the developing play.
Honestly, I don’t have a clue what happened on the ice apart from the fact that we won three of the last four games.
After, as some of us jump on the stationary bikes in the Scorpions’ state-of-the-art gymnasium, I fight to break a sweat. My workouts have turned punishing as I work my body as a way to expel the many thoughts swirling in my brain. Which works in my favor anyway since I’m not getting much ice time these days and I have to increase my workouts to make sure I’m still in proper shape for the times I am called upon.
Gavin and Diego wander up trying to look nonchalant while exchanging concerned looks. Gavin grips the edges of the towel slung around his neck while Diego scrubs his face dry with one.
“Uh-oh. What’d I do?” I huff, pushing myself to go as hard as I can on the max resistance.
“No, nothing,” Gavin says.
“We wanted to check up on you,” Diego adds.
Gavin steps up and lowers his voice to avoid having it carry through the gym. “Look, I know Max is on point right now, but we need to know where your head’s at. You’re… Well, you’re off your game. We’ve noticed you’re disengaged. And if we notice, for sure Coach has. What’s going on?”
“Nothing, Cap. I’m fine.”
“You’re not upset about not getting the nod after your performance the other night?”
“No, I’ve had my time and I know my role on the team. I’m the guy you call…” My voice trails off, and I cycle my legs slower as the realization hits me. “I’m the guy you call when you need someone to step up.”
It’s a role I’ve fulfilled for work.
It’s the role I’ve been cast in as Charisse’s best friend and as a future co-parent.
The sun’s already set on my career as a number one netminder, but maybe that means I ought to be looking to step up into a greater role in other areas of my life.
I need to find ways to move in that direction.
After all, hockey has been my life for so long now, and I’d never given much thought to what I’d do when it was time to call it quits, but that’s also because I didn’t have a clue what could be next.
With Charisse, I know what would be next.
The answers are so clear, so vivid, that I start pedaling faster and harder. The burn in my thighs makes me shoot Gavin the biggest smile I’ve sported in days.
“You alright?” Gavin’s waving a hand in front of my face, and I swear he’s giving me that side-eye people always give goalies. Everyone says we’re weirdos for willingly putting ourselves between a gaping net and vulcanized rubber disks flying at us at ninety miles per hour.
“Never better, Cap.”
Diego inclines his head like he’s not sure he should leave me just yet, but he just glances at Gavin and then back at the clock and jerks his chin up. “Don’t work yourself too hard. We’re going to need you for that upcoming road trip.”
“I’m counting on it.”
When I exit the arena that night, I call the only people I trust to help me weigh the merits of my plan—my mom and my brother.
Three agonizing weeks pass without seeing Charisse.
I shouldn’t feel her absence so acutely, but her scent has evaporated from my condo and I miss her. All the previous times we’d been apart, it was because one or both of us were traveling for work.
Not because one of us needed space.
Oh, she still texts and drops me voice notes like she always has, but I’m trying hard to be respectful of the space she clearly needs.
It’s hell.
She’s just two hours south of here, busting her cute little ass in the recording studio and orchestrating her next major moves. So, when a ten-day grueling road trip comes up, it’s something of a relief to get out of town and focus on bonding with the boys.
After a sweep through Western Canada, we’re playing our way back south, and one night in Portland, Diego rounds us up and leads us into a nightclub. Between the flashing lights, blaring music, and free-flowing shots, I don’t expect Kristian Dahl to turn up, but there he is.
Tall, dark, and scowling.
“Heard you guys were here tonight.”
I lift my hands, palms out. “Not looking for any trouble.”
“You only need to look in the mirror to find it anyway,” he snorts, then extends a beer out to me.
I stare at it, the brown bottle held aloft like some kind of peace offering. “This mean you forgive me for that night?”
He shrugs.
“This means I accept that it’d never work between us.”
So, I take it and clink my bottle against his, giving him a brief nod and kicking out a chair for him to have a seat. If Dahl had been a teammate rather than a rival, I see that maybe we could’ve been friends.
“The distance and the scheduling would’ve been shit.”
He chuckles.
“Yeah. Plus, there’s a woman in your life.”
“There is that.” I sigh, flashing a wry smile. “You weren’t wrong, you know. About the singer in Nashville. I was feeling vulnerable and hurt, and maybe I… I needed a bit of comfort. I’m sorry. For how I acted both then and during that game.”
Dahl blinks at me slowly, then takes a long pull of his beer. “Well, that’s a first. Never had someone apologize to me for getting me off before.”
I stifle a laugh. “So, we’re good?”
“We’re good.”
“Uh-oh,” Gavin walks up and glances back and forth between us. “Have we got a problem, gentlemen?”
Dahl shakes his head. “Nah, we’re just catching up.”
“Oh, that’s a relief. I am not looking forward to another ugly game tomorrow night.” He spins a chair around and takes a seat backward. “What are we talking about?”
“Domino’s girl.”
Gavin abruptly stands, hands up, palms out, and I lift my brows at him. “I’m out. First, Pahlssy over there,”—he points at Diego’s defensive partner and best friend who’s back in the lineup after recovering from a concussion—“goes and hooks up with Diego’s sister, and now this guy gets all mopey about his best friend. It’s like you’ve all been drinking the same damn water. I don’t need all this drama, especially right at the end of a season.”
He stalks off to find better company, leaving me and Dahl to nurse our beers again.
“Damn. That guy ever been in love?” Dahl asks.
“He was married once.” I watch as Gavin snatches up a shot Diego offers him and swallows it down with a grimace. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say something was up with the good captain.
“What happened?”
“Didn’t work out. I don’t know the details,” I shrug. “I get the impression none of us are supposed to ask.”
A familiar vibration pattern pulses against my thigh, and I glance down to see a text from Charisse.
Dahl sees her picture pop up and arches a brow. “The singer’s still around, I see.”
“She’s always going to be around,” I say as I swipe up to read the message and freeze when I see the two words written in black text.
Reece’s Pieces
I’m late.
I leap up from my seat so fast that I knock the table and the drinks rattle.
“Whoa, what’s wrong?” Dahl pops up makes a grab for teetering half-filled glass of beer on the table.
“I gotta go.”
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah, fine. I think. See you on the ice tomorrow.” I don’t bother with goodbyes as I push through the crowd and burst out of the club. Jabbing the call button, I head back toward the hotel wishing I wasn’t on the road. Wishing I could be the one to make the trip to the drugstore for the tests. Wishing I could hold her hand while we wait for that magic little stick to tell us if we’re about to have a baby.
She doesn’t answer and I grind to a halt two blocks from the hotel.
What’s my role here?
To play support? To remain the ever-present, ever-patient best friend waiting in the wings? To be a proud papa?
Right now, I’m not even her boyfriend.
I’m just her best friend. Her sperm donor.
My jaw clenches.
No, I’m more than that. Even if I’m not her lover, I’m that child’s father, and I deserve to be as cautiously hopeful and excited about the prospect of becoming a parent as she is.
Reece’s Pieces
Sorry, practice is running late. It’s too loud to talk. Call you tomorrow?
Me
Did you take a test?
Reece’s Pieces
No, thought I better wait a few days to be sure. Didn’t want to get my hopes up.
Me
I’ve got a game in LA in three days.
Reece’s Pieces
I’ll wait for you. We can find out together.