Chapter 33
Chapter Thirty-Three
Bobby
Coach leans in, the fury behind his eyes enough to have me wincing. “I ought to call back every single team that had an interest in you. One more game even close to the absolute shit show of last night and your ass is done with the Storm Chasers. You got me?”
I nod, anger like I’ve never felt before coursing through me, along with an ache in the right side of my ribs. Sammie, a smartass young player on the Gold Rush, started rough housing me every time I took a shot and missed. By the third period, I saw that Molly was missing from the stands and I tripped my own fucking teammate, and Sammie stole the puck to sink it into our net. Coach was so pissed he couldn’t even look at me last night. Our assistant coach had to be the one to tell me to show up this morning at seven to have a meeting.
But what really has me pissed is that I didn’t resort to fighting like I so badly wanted to. And I’m still in deep shit. All that work, and I’m in the same fucking hot seat with my career on the line.
“Answer me when I talk to you,” Coach barks, making me wince yet again.
“Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir. It won’t happen again.”
Coach sneers. “Where have I heard that before?” He shakes his head and moves back around his desk to sit down. He folds his hands over his belly and leans back. “Frankly, Bobby, I feel sorry for you.”
Well, I don’t like that one fucking bit. My spine straightens, my whole body ready to defend itself. But Coach is on a roll.
“You have so much potential. You’re phenomenal out on the ice. And then you go and fuck it all up. Letting your emotions run wild.” He keeps shaking his head and it’s pissing me off. Then again, everything is pissing me off since Molly ruined everything between us. “I don’t know who hurt you, but you need to figure that shit out. For you, for this team, for everyone around you. Fix your shit and grow up, son. Now get out of here. I’m sick of looking at your face.”
I grit my teeth and offer a nod of acknowledgment, pushing up from the chair and hightailing it out of his office before I do any further damage to my career. My phone pings as I leave the practice arena. We have five whole days off in a row for Christmas. I planned to spend every single minute with Molly and Matthew, but it looks like my schedule is wide open again.
Ashley: Call in five minutes.
I give her message a thumbs up as I make my way back to my vehicle, trying to breathe out the anger that’s strangling me. I called Ashley last night and requested daily sessions for a few weeks. She obliged, but only if I also started seeing a certified psychologist alongside our anger management sessions. Probably should've been seeing a shrink all along. I’m more fucked up than any of us realized. I’m parked outside the practice rink sitting in Wolverine when Ashley calls right on time.
“Did you schedule with Dr. Barnhardt?”
“Yep. I’ll see him this afternoon.” I rest my head back and close my eyes. I’m going through the motions again, doing all the things Coach and Kaitlyn want me to do, but it seems pointless. It won’t get Molly back. It won’t make her see that we’re perfect together. She’s made up her mind that I couldn’t possibly love her for the long term. And after my kindergarten-level play out on the ice, I might actually agree that I shouldn’t be distracted dating someone.
“What are your holiday plans?” Ashley asks out of the blue. She normally gets right down to business, so this idle chit chat isn’t what I expect. Or want. I just want to fix whatever’s broken inside me. Maybe then I can turn my attention to getting over Molly.
“Um, not sure.”
“Why don’t you and Richie fly home and spend the holidays with your family?”
My eyes fling open. “The whole point of these sessions is so I quit getting in fights, Ashley.”
She sighs, probably not appreciating my sarcastic tone. “I know. The best way to do that is to go to the source. Your behaviors were learned in your home growing up. You need to go there and talk to the adults who should have given you and your brothers better coping mechanisms. You need to confront those memories and have those conversations. It’s easy to blow up and walk away. It’s not easy to confront the things that make you angry and choose to work it out. Your team. Molly. They want you long term, Bobby. You can’t blow up and walk away like you do with your family.”
“No, that’s what Molly does. Just walks away,” I grouse, feeling sorry for myself. I’m not sure what’s worse. Feeling angry or feeling devastatingly sad.
Ashley’s voice is so damn patient. “I’m sure Molly has her own past and her own reasons for what she did. But we’re talking about you, Bobby. You can’t make her do what you want. You can only work on yourself. So are you going to mope around the whole week you have off or will you take that time off to work on yourself?”
I scrub my hand over my face, knowing what my answer should be and yet not wanting to say it out loud where I’ll have to actually follow through with it. “Ugh!”
A giggle comes through my speakers.
“I’m glad my agony is entertainment for you,” I snap.
The giggle just gets louder. “Oh, Bobby. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be laughing, it’s just you are the cutest grump I’ve ever heard! You’re usually so funny and right now I’m picturing you wearing grumpy pants with your arms folded over your chest and a big ol’ frown.”
My lips twitch, the closest I’ve gotten to a smile in twenty-four hours. “Grumpy pants? Really, Ashley?”
That only sends her into another peal of laughter. I roll my eyes and check the time. If I leave now, I can work on Richie, convince him to fly home with me, pack, and then book our flights for tonight.
“Maybe when you’re done laughing, you can give me something useful to work on,” I say loudly, firing up the car to head home. Ashley composes herself and is thrilled to hear I’m going to talk to Richie.
“Tomorrow at ten?” Ashley confirms our call for tomorrow. “Hopefully you’ll be calling me from Georgia!”
“I can’t believe you’re voluntarily going home.” Richie toes off his tennis shoes the second he clicks his seatbelt on. I grimace at his airplane etiquette but decide I can’t focus on that right now. I have bigger issues to deal with. “I mean, I know you were just there, but it took Mom having a heart attack.”
“Well, it’s not exactly a warm and fuzzy place for me,” I tell him, glad I spent the extra money for first class so there isn’t anyone sitting next to us.
He gives me an exaggerated pout with his baby voice. “Ah, did Mommy’s favorite not have a fun childhood?”
I turn toward him, refusing to take the bait. “Actually, no. I didn’t, Richie. I had a traumatic childhood, probably similar to yours, except you had someone younger than you to bully. I had no one.”
Richie frowns, crossing his arms over his chest. “What do you mean, bully ?”
“Well, you four blamed everything that went wrong on me. You made me fetch you water and snacks and shit or you’d threaten to beat my face in. Will gave me my first shiner. You all gave me shit for how much hockey I played. Said I was wasting Mom and Dad’s money on all the equipment. You’re the only brother who showed up to congratulate me when I was drafted. What part of that sounds warm and fuzzy and loving?”
Richie’s head starts to bob up and down. “Hmm, you’re right. That sounds kind of awful. Though to be fair, the older ones beat my ass too. You’re not the only one who had to fetch them snacks or face an ass whooping.”
Richie points to the faint scar above his eyebrow that has been there for as long as I can remember. “This is from Will when I stole one of his T-shirts from his room and wore it on a date with Allie. Remember her? She let me kiss her, tongue and everything. Then I got home and Will saw me in his shirt. Dumbass punched me right in the face and ended up getting blood on it, ruining it.”
I put my hand on Richie’s arm. “Dude, that’s messed up. How come I don’t remember that?”
Richie shrugs. “I guess we were all just doing our best to survive. Grow up. Move out.”
I sit back in my cushy seat and mull all that over. I think of Molly and Matthew and how much they enjoy spending time together. That’s how families should be. My abused heart squeezes out a trickle of sympathy for Richie. For all of us boys.
“I don’t want to just survive our family, Rich. We’re all grown now. We should move past all that childish shit and support each other.”
He looks over at me and I brace myself for him to grab me in a headlock or burst out laughing at my ridiculous idea. Instead, he rolls his lips in like he’s choked up. He nods then sticks out his hand. We shake on it, and he pulls me into a backslapping hug before letting go. He turns to stare out the window, clearing his throat. And fuck if that doesn’t get me all up in my feels too. About my brothers, my career, my Molly.
The flight is uneventful and thankfully, Richie puts his shoes back on before we land. Richie drives the rental car while I text our brothers on the brother group chat that goes silent except when someone wants to give one of us shit.
Me: Family meeting at Mom and Dad’s house at eight tonight. Be there.
Will: Who the fuck made you king of this family?
Artie: Pretty sure just because you make a shit ton of money doesn’t mean you get to boss us around, Bobby-boy.
George: Wait. Are you back in town again?
Me: Just meet me at the house. Please? I have something I want to talk to everyone about.
Will: Really? Mom has more important things to worry about than your love life problems. Just because you and that woman are all over the news today doesn’t mean you can swoop in here and demand we all meet up, fuckhead.
Me: Wait, what? What news??
Artie: Like you don’t know you were the main topic for a full ten-minute segment on ESPN this morning.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” I blow off the rest of their bullshit comments to pull up a few websites, all of which have pictures of me and Molly from before last night’s game.
She looks so pretty in jeans, boots, and a sweater. My jaw clenches about her deciding not to wear my jersey. One shot shows her looking up at me, her beautiful hazel eyes searching for something from me that she clearly didn’t get or didn’t see because the next shot shows her walking away. The speculation on who she is didn’t last long. They’ve found out her name, her occupation, and have a running list of theories on what she means to me. Not a single one has the truth.
I’m so in love with this woman, not even her breaking up with me will make that love stop.
“We’re here,” Richie says calmly.
I put my phone away. I can only handle one thing at a time. Molly would hate having pictures of her on the internet, just like she’d loathe all the speculation about us, but it was inevitable dating a professional hockey player. If she wasn’t already done with me last night, I’m sure this latest invasion of her privacy isn’t going to help things.
“Ready to try something different?”
Richie barely gets out a yes before Will’s yanking the passenger side door open, nearly ripping it off its hinges.
“This better be good, jackass.”
I stand up, facing the brother who’s always been the worst of the bunch. The leader of the bullies. Instead of puffing up my chest or taunting him back, I force myself to relax. Will works hard as a general contractor here in the town we grew up in. It can’t be easy to watch his little brother making seven figures. Couldn’t have been easy to help raise all us boys. Ashley’s right. Will’s got his own past and his own reasons for being the way he is. I just need to see if we can see eye to eye as grownups.
“You couldn’t have had it easy being the big brother to all of us and dealing with Dad directly. I just wanted to tell you I love you, Will.”
His face remains stony for several long beats. Richie comes up to my side and claps him on the shoulder. “I love you too. Love both of you.” Then he throws his arms around us both and pulls us into a group hug. Not a precursor to a tackle. Just an honest-to-god hug.
Will lets out a belly laugh that gets us all laughing. He pats us on the back before pulling away. He looks confused, but also softer. Like maybe he isn’t planning our murder in his head. “You two are weird as fuck. Why don’t we do this inside, so the neighbors don’t think we’re drunk off our asses?”
We traipse inside where we have the first honest conversation we’ve ever had as a family. Mom cries happy tears, Dad apologizes for being too tough on us sometimes, and no one gets tackled to the ground. It’s not a fucking kumbaya song around a fire with linked arms, but it’s progress.