Chapter 9 The Missing Pieces
THE MISSING PIECES
STELLA
From the craft shop, we walk across the street to the Granite Coffee Beanery. A chilly breeze whips by us, and he puts his hand on the small of my back protectively as we go. This was once the man I loved, and then spent years telling myself pushing him away had been the right thing to do.
We order coffee, and the barista recognizes him immediately, asking for an autograph. That catches the attention of other customers, and soon a small crowd forms around him. Who knew the place would be so busy on a weeknight?
Eli handles it all with ease, smiling, polite, signing Beanery napkins, and posing for selfies. I watch him, remembering how in college he used to duck attention and pretend he didn’t enjoy it.
I think he enjoys it now. Or maybe he just knows how to survive it, how to play the game.
“You handled that well,” I say as he returns to me.
“Even if I hate it.” Eli’s eyes warm.
“You don’t hate it.”
He opens his mouth to argue. He steps closer, just enough that I can smell his clean soap and musky cologne.
“I hate needing it. There’s a difference.
Because needing it means I get validation.
If fans still want my autographs and photos, then it means my hard work pays off. It justifies what I do.”
Makes sense, but still it must be hard to live in the public eye sometimes.
Our names are called, and we collect our mugs.
We sit at a small table by the window, across from each other.
Its compact and our knees touch, but he doesn’t move them.
Neither do I; the touch is enough for my heart to ache for more.
He quietly stares at me as I settle in, taking off my jacket and putting the extra sugar packets and cream in my cup.
My smile is quick. “Stop observing me,”
“Don’t think I’ll ever stop.” He says it like a fact, not a flirtation, and that’s somehow worse.
Eli wraps his hands around his mug. “I didn’t expect to run into you all these years later,” he admits.
“I didn’t expect to see you either.” The coffee must be a truth serum.
A pause stretches between us, thick with everything we haven’t said yet. Years’ worth of silence is so heavy, it could break the table.
Eli’s jaw tightens. “Admit it—you really ended things between us out of the blue.”
I swallow. “Yes. I did.”
“No warning,” he continues, the words tinged with sadness. “No discussion. You just… decided for us that it should be over. And I spent a long time wondering what I did wrong other than choose a profession that didn’t mesh with your vision of your future.”
My eyes suddenly burn, but I hold back the tears. “Eli, we were young.”
“We were,” he agrees. “But you meant everything to me. I don’t see why we couldn’t have made it work if we really wanted to try. Over time, I convinced myself that you really didn’t love me after all.”
“That’s not true.” I stare down at my coffee, the surface trembling slightly because my hands aren’t as steady as I want them to be. “Our lives were pulling us in different directions.”
His mouth twists. “You made that clear when you broke up with me. I’ve played it over in my head a million times over the years.
And guess what? The future is here and now, and look where we are, together in Boulder.
” He shakes his head. “I feel like there was something else, a missing puzzle piece I didn’t have.
Are you sure there wasn’t something you weren’t telling me back then?
Because I find it a little hard to believe that one day you’d say you love me, and then a week later break up with me and go running back into Jerrod’s arms.”
“It was more complicated than that.”
“Then explain it to me. Please. We’re adults now, and whatever it was, I guarantee you I’ll understand and not be mad. If there was something I did or didn’t do, I just need to know. Christ, put me out of my misery.”
I finally give in, a tear escaping the corner of my eye. I swipe it away and inhale. “You’re right, there was more. My dad, he—got arrested.” I watch his face, a blank slate, blinking as if I spoke in a code he couldn’t decipher. Then I broke down and explained it all.
“He worked with a dangerous group of men who had their hands in some criminal activities. The FBI built a case and soon made their arrests, breaking up the gang. In particular, they charged Dad with racketeering and a slew of other things.”
He reaches out and covers my hands around my mug. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You were celebrating winning the college hockey cup, with news every day of the pros scouting you, and great things coming for you in the world of hockey. While my family back home in Chicago was breaking apart. My mom was a basket case; the FBI seized cars and things in our home for evidence. Dad’s meager income came to a stop. ”
“Jesus. All this went on and I never had a clue?”
“You were basking in the sunshine, while I was dying inside, trying to be there for my parents, talking with lawyers, facing my dad’s trial down the line.
I talked to Jerrod about it, and he convinced me that if I really loved you, then I couldn’t weigh you down with it all. So I had to let you go.”
“What the fuck? I can’t believe you would listen to him.” His mouth agape, he stares at me in disbelief, eyes filled with rage. “Why him? You could tell him everything, but not me?”
“I knew him long before you. He and I had come from the same neighborhood in Chicago, remember? We were friends before we ever dated, and still friends after we broke up. I’d missed a couple of our classes, crying in my dorm room and constantly on the phone to Mom, when he showed up to check on me.
So I told him everything. He was there for me. ”
Eli withdraws his hands, elbows on the table, massaging his temples. “I would have been there for you. You should have given me the chance to prove it.”
“No. You would have been in another state playing hockey, dealing with your rookie year and practices and game schedules and all the notoriety… You didn’t deserve to have my family drama mess everything up for you. If you think about it, you’ll know that I was right to do what I did.”
His palms press to his eyes, and then scrub down his face. “I don’t even know what to say right now.”
My heart stumbles. “I know. It’s all complicated. But Dad’s in prison now, where he’ll be for a long time. Mom is in a prison of her own, still struggling physically and mentally. My present is… complicated.”
I take a few sips, letting it all sink in, giving him time to process. My gaze averts out the window and up to the second floor of the shop across the street. Aiden’s bedroom window is there, and I think I see the curtain move. Can he see us having coffee?
When I turn back, Eli’s expression softens. “Maybe you didn’t give me a chance to do much for you then, but I’m here now. Let me prove it to you. Single motherhood can’t be easy. What can I do to help?”
I let out a breath that sounds too much like a laugh and too much like surrender.
“You’re right. Raising a child on my own isn’t easy, but when I left Jerrod, I knew it wouldn’t be.
Mom is a little help, even with all her issues.
Honestly, what you’ve given us with your hockey program has probably brought the greatest joy to Aiden that I’ve seen in quite a while. ”
Eli nods once, his hands surrounding mine again. “I’m buying a house here. I can watch over Aiden whenever I’m in town, so you could study. Anything you need. Say the word.”
“Buying a house?” I tilt my head.
“Yeah. I have the rink, spending more time here in between my hockey schedule. It’d be easier to have a place to stay so I don’t have to drive back to Denver as much.”
The words strike deep into my heart and sets my stomach aflutter. He’s setting down roots. “I think you being here for us is enough for now. I really am sorry that I kept things from you back then.”
“You shouldn’t have listened to Jerrod when he told you to break up with me. Do you ever think of what might have been between us if we’d stayed together?”
“It only ever tortured me, so I learned to bury everything deep, which wasn’t hard between dealing with my parents, and Jerrod, and the baby. Keeping myself busy and moving forward was my only option to survive.”
He scoffs. “Jerrod… If he were here right now, I’d give him a piece of my mind or my fist—”
“Don’t go there. Remember, he’s Aiden’s father. I won’t have you putting him down at all in front of him.”
He leans back, nodding, breathing steadier after a few beats. “Understood. Where is good old Jerrod now?”
“Chicago.”
“He actually let you move Aiden away from him in the divorce?”
“He knew how much I wanted to be here in Colorado and support Mom, and to finish my degree. And… well, he cheated on me. He was involved with a woman, who is now his wife, and she has two little girls, so that made it easier for him to agree to the custody arrangement.”
He sucks in his lips, a sign he probably wants to say more about Jerrod, but refrains.
“I actually need to talk to Aiden about Christmas.”
Eli’s gaze sharpens. “Why?”
“Jerrod might not make it out here for his birthday.”
The muscles in Eli’s jaw go tight, just a fraction.
“He calls often,” I say quickly, because I don’t want this to sound like I’m trashing Jerrod. Even if I could. “He tries. But… his relationship with Aiden has been going downhill since he remarried. It’s not consistent enough.”
Eli stares at me, face unreadable.
I force a small smile, trying to soften it. “I know you’re probably thinking something.”
His mouth twitches. “You want me to say it?”
“I want you to stop looking like you’re about to throw your coffee across the room.”
He huffs a laugh, then shakes his head, leaning forward again. “I’m not getting a kick out of it, Stella.”
“Then why do you look like that?”
“Because,” he says carefully. “I’m trying to control my anger.”
My stomach dips. “At me?”
“At him,” he says, voice low. “At the situation. The fact that he talked you out of being with me. It should have been me there with you all these years; instead, you’ve been alone for some time.”
“I’m not alone; I have Mom and Aiden.” I shake my head, trying to keep my voice level. “Eli… there’s no going back. We’re adults now. Our decisions were what they were. We can’t change them.”
He’s quiet for a moment, until he takes my hands off my cup and threads our fingers together, branding me with a smoldering smile.
“Thank you for opening up to me and finally giving me the missing pieces. It really helps to explain a lot. Now, I just have one more question. Have you warmed up to the possibility of something more between us? Despite it all, I’d like to see you again, Stella. ”
A lump rises in my throat, no longer holding back the feeling that we belonged together, that I messed things up so badly. But can we really try again? “We’re seeing each other already. At the rink,” I croak.
“Not like that. I mean a date, a chance to have more real conversations.”
With half panic, half something dangerously close to hope, I wonder if it might work this time. “Eli—”
“Think about it,” he says softly. “No pressure.”
I nod because my voice won’t cooperate.
We finish our drinks and walk back across the street toward his car. When we reach it, Eli hesitates, then lifts a hand, his knuckles grazing my cheek.
“Goodnight, Stella.”
He leans in. His lips brush mine ever so softly for one brief, and devastatingly heart-melting kiss.
“Goodnight,” I manage, pulse racing so fast, I fly up the stairs. At the top, I wave as he drives away, my lips still tingling, my stomach flipping somersaults.
We survived the truth of the past. Maybe. Wanting more with him is the part that scares me.