20. Hux
twenty
Hux
T he practice was a fucking nightmare. Not one thing went right. I was too in my head, too preoccupied with Roe and Cara that I fumbled every pass.
I’d fucked up on every front. First with Cara and Roe—I hadn’t been fair to them. Saying those things to Roe just to start a fight was agonizing. I’d hated every minute of it. Ignoring Cara was just as bad. But it was necessary. I’d needed to pretend she wasn’t even in the room. If I’d dared look at her for longer than a second, I would have broken. I would have thrown in the towel on my fucked-up act and begged for their forgiveness. But that was the whole problem. I literally had days left here. Once I was on that plane, leaving to go across the other side of the world, we were over. We could never work out. I needed to hate them. I needed to cleave them out of my chest so I could survive. They’d slipped in while I wasn’t looking, caught me off guard, and leaving them was going to destroy me.
But as if that wasn't all bad enough, then I managed to fuck up at practice. Even the most basic of drills were a disaster. I didn’t sink a single shot on the net, and it wasn’t even being defended. Thank fucking god it wasn’t a game.
I was my own worst enemy.
Our second and third lines were doing better than the first string, and Coach was pissed.
I was sitting in the locker room, stripped down to my underlayer. Coach’s face was red as he railed me for every one of my fuckups. It came with a warning not to repeat this shit during the game because although they didn’t count for anything points-wise, we were professional athletes. We had pride. We were supposed to be the best. Yet, I’d singlehandedly caused our entire forward line to collapse.
The locker room cleared out. No one else waited around to see if Coach would ream them a new one too. Most of the team headed to the gym to warm down.
When it was just the two of us left in the room, Gauthier sat down heavily beside me.
I steadfastly ignored him. My whole concentration was aimed at stripping off the rest of my padding.
“I liked seeing you happy again last night. You and Cara—”
“Are over,” I snapped.
“Ah,” Gauthier replied with a slow nod of his head, as if I’d explained everything in two words.
“Leave me alone, Cap. I don’t need another lecture from you. I know I played like shit.”
“You’re harder on yourself than I ever could be,” he responded.
“Well, I don’t want to hear the rest of it either. I’m not going to see Cara anymore. I’m not going to cause any more trouble. I just want to play my last game with the team before they trade me.”
Gauthier went rigid. “What the hell, Hux? Why would you think that?”
“What? That they’d trade me?” I stood up and paced the room, throwing my hands up in the air. “Why wouldn’t they? I’m nothing but a walking press disaster.”
Gauthier chuckled darkly and shook his head. “You’ve been unlucky, that’s all. The TMZ scoop was bullshit, and we both know it. If Minns or Kamirah had spoken up, it would have all gone away without more than a ripple. Hell, they didn’t even need to tell the truth. They could have made up any bullshit to keep the vultures off.”
I swallowed hard. Gauthier was talking like he knew what happened. My stomach instantly knotted. How did he know? I hadn’t breathed a word. I sucked in a choppy breath. Panic rose in me. My heart rate spiked and my hands turned clammy.
Gauthier stood up and grasped my shoulders, squeezing them hard enough to lift my gaze to his. “But you’re done with them. You’ve moved on. Everyone has their panties in a twist at the moment, but it’ll die down. I know that you didn't have an affair with Kam. More importantly, you do too. Others will figure it out soon enough, and if they don’t, fuck ’em.”
“Fuck ’em?” I huffed out a laugh that sounded more like a resigned sigh and shook my head. My shoulders fell as all the fight drained out of me, the weight of the last few weeks sitting heavy on my shoulders. I was tired of all the bullshit. Gauthier was right—I was happy last night. Having Cara in my arms was incredible. Having Monroe there with me would have been even better. But I took what I could, and it was the first time in literally years that I’d been able to hold someone without fear of being caught, without fear of judgement.
Except that both of those things had happened anyway.
We’d ended up social media fodder. I didn’t care what they said about me. But they’d trashed Cara. She’d borne the brunt of the hurtful words. I’d seen red. I was itching for a fight, hoping to beat the shit out of something. I was so fucking angry and scared. My reaction made me realize just how far I’d fallen for them. How was I going to survive leaving them? Pushing them away wasn’t healthy. It was downright awful. But no one ever said I was a genius, and Roe was right there. He bit back and gave as good as he got.
But I was so wrong, it hadn’t been funny.
I shouldn’t have lashed out at him. I should have wrapped him in my arms and held him tight. I’d lost my nan. I loved her more than anyone on this earth. My only consolation was that she’d lived a full life. She’d had so many great years and she’d died happy. But Monroe could never say that about his son. He was just a kid when he’d died, stolen from this world in a boating accident, the same one that had claimed his wife’s life too. His family had been ripped in half. His heart must have been shattered.
Then along came his daughter’s friend—or boyfriend, if I had it right— and published a podcast on how his wife’s company went bust. Every episode pulled apart her business and its collapse after she was gone. That was some cold-hearted shit.
I should have been there for Cara too. I should have checked on her and made sure she knew it was all bullshit. She was beautiful. I loved her curves. I loved everything about her. But instead of telling Cara that, I’d ripped into Roe, itching for a fight, and I’d ignored her.
They mattered more to me than was sane after such a short period of time and yet, I’d treated them worse than I’d ever treated anyone.
I’d spent the rest of the day regretting every one of my life decisions and I’d worked myself up so fucking much that I was a mess on the ice.
Gauthier spoke again, pulling me out of my spiral of self-recrimination. “Yes, fuck ’em. I know you well enough to know that you’d never do the dirty on Minns. He and Kam hurt you by not coming forward and telling the truth of what you were to them.”
I snapped my face up to look into his eyes. He really did know about us. I opened my mouth, knowing I should say something but unsure of what. Should I deny we were together? Should I say they hadn’t hurt me? I was sick of lying, but it wasn’t my secret to tell. I couldn’t break Minns’s confidence, and I was the one left picking up the pieces. Gauthier had either guessed or he’d been told what went down. Either way, he had nailed it. Every word he’d spoken was true. They had hurt me. They had done the wrong thing by me. But I’d known the score from the beginning. It was never serious for them. I was their piece on the side, the way to safely satisfy a kink that they shared without risking exposure. I outlived my usefulness when I was busted.
Gauthier continued while I was still trying to come up with something to say. “But Cara isn’t like that, and from what I’ve seen, neither is Monroe.”
I stumbled back, catching myself before I fell on my ass. “What about Roe?”
Gauthier’s smile was patient, but even though he was explaining things to me like I was a child, he wasn’t patronizing. “I’ve seen him with Cara. A blind man could see that he’s interested in her too,” he said gently. “Is that what’s happening?”
As much as I wanted to burst free of the closet keeping me constrained, I couldn’t do it. Not now, not when I’d already caused enough trouble for everyone, and especially not without speaking to Roe first. There was something between us—well, there had been before I ended it.
Instead, I muttered, “Yeah, exactly. Walking PR disaster.” I huffed and shook my head, turning away from Gauthier. I couldn’t look at him anymore.
“Hux, you aren’t going to get traded. I’ve spoken to Coach. He’s pissed because he hates any negative publicity. But he also knows you’re the glue holding this line together. Look at tonight. You had an off night and we sucked.”
He’d shocked me stupid twice in the space of as many minutes. “I’m not the glue, Gauthier. I’m anything but. That’s you and Hewitt.”
“Hewitt’s the solid one. He’s reliable and dependable. I’m fast. But you’re the risk taker. The one who sets up the plays. You’re three steps ahead of every play. You make sure the puck gets to where we need it to be. You have flair and this innate sense of what’s coming.” He smiled sadly at me. “They did a number on you, didn’t they? When I met you, you reminded me of me. We were cocky shits.” He huffed out a laugh and shook his head. “But you’re struggling with your confidence now, aren’t you?”
I nodded and slumped onto the hard timber bench, resting my elbows on my spread knees. “Everyone always walks away,” I whispered with a shrug of my shoulders. No matter how much I tried to play it down, it hurt.
“So you pushed first.” He didn’t need a response. Gauthier knew exactly what I’d done. He sat down next to me and nudged his shoulder into mine. “I won’t,” he promised. “Neither will the rest of the team.”
“You can’t promise that.” I sighed. “Even though we needed to end it, Cara ran out as soon as she heard the word cheater, and Roe looked like he wanted to break my face. A stupid part of me wishes that she’d given me the benefit of the doubt, you know? She jumped to exactly the same conclusion that the media did.”
“You hadn’t spoken about it with her?”
I shook my head and Gauthier hummed.
“I tried to tell her, but she brushed me off. She told me we could talk about it later. I should have insisted. Instead, I walked into her room and started shouting at them for not telling me about Roe’s family. What a fucking mess.”
“So the first she heard about it was when she saw her name going viral on social media with the hashtag cheater?”
“Yeah.” I nodded and exhaled heavily.
“Carina, her mum, told me that she separated from Cara’s dad. He cheated on her. Cara walked into his office and caught him in the act. It was recent too—only a month or so ago. I’d imagine that it’s a pretty sensitive topic for her, especially now.”
“Fuck,” I muttered, all the pieces falling into place. Cara had told us that her parents were splitting up, and I knew there were tensions with her dad, but I’d had no idea what happened. “Fuuuck,” I groaned again, carding my fingers through my sweaty hair and tugging on it until it stung.
“I know you wanted her to give you the benefit of the doubt, but Hux, by the sounds of it, you were an asshole and she’s hurting. She’d just woken up to thousands of comments about her looks and her motivations for being with you. She was already vulnerable, and then she found out that you were accused of cheating with your teammate’s wife within weeks of her dad doing the same to her mum. I can understand why she’s distancing herself from you.”
“Yeah,” I answered, my voice strangled. I owed her an apology—Roe too.
But how?