Chapter 24 Fish
FISH
Vegas is the worst place in the world to be heartbroken.
Everything is loud, bright, and designed to make you forget, which sounds great until you realize that forgetting requires you to feel something first, and I don’t feel anything.
I haven’t felt anything in eight days. Not since I stood in the bushes outside a hotel and told Collette St. Pierre I loved her and she told me she couldn’t.
The game helps, the ice is the one place where my brain shuts up, and my body takes over.
I play hard tonight, maybe too hard. I’m hitting everything that moves, taking the body every chance I get, skating with an edge that Coach has noticed, but hasn’t commented on because we’re winning, and you don’t question what’s working.
I pick up an assist in the first. Set up Bouch for a one-timer in the second.
Emmett scores the fourth goal in the third, and we win four-nothing, and the locker room is electric.
I sit in my stall and let the noise wash over me. Nelly is blasting something Swedish, and Bouch is spraying water at anyone stupid enough to walk past him. Pierre is actually smiling, which means he’s in a good mood. The boys are happy. The team is rolling. Everything is working. Except you.
Evan drops onto the bench beside me. He doesn’t say anything for a minute. Just sits there, unlacing his skates, letting the silence do the work.
“Good game,” he says finally.
“Yeah.”
“You’re hitting hard,” he notes.
“Yep, that’s the point.”
“You’re hitting angry,” he corrects, not looking at me. “There’s a difference.”
I don’t respond because he’s right and I don’t want to have this conversation. Not here. Not now. Not ever.
“We’re going out tonight,” Sully announces from across the room. “Non-negotiable.”
The boys cheer. We’re in Vegas after a four-nothing win with two days off. It’s a recipe for chaos. I should stay in. I should order room service, watch a movie, and be a responsible adult who is processing his emotions in a healthy way.
“Fish, you in?” Bouch calls out.
“Obviously.” Because being responsible isn’t really my thing. Plus, I’m sick of being sad.
The club is everything Vegas promises. Dark, loud, with a bass so heavy it vibrates in your sternum.
The VIP section is roped off for the team and bottles of champagne are already on ice.
It’s where everyone is beautiful, and nobody is real.
The boys settle into the VIP booths. Pierre and Felix are at a table with Sully and Emmett.
Bouch is already scanning the room. Nelly is doing his awkward European dance that somehow works on women.
Evan is beside me at the bar, nursing a whiskey, watching everything the way Evan always does, while I’m ordering shots for the table.
“You’re going to do something stupid tonight?” he asks without looking at me.
“Probably.”
He sighs. “Try to keep it manageable.”
“No promises,” I tell him as I throw back my whiskey.
Then the bunnies arrive, they always do.
They have a sixth sense for hockey players in VIP sections, appearing out of nowhere in tight dresses and glossy lips, smelling like perfume and bad decisions.
Two of them zero in on me within minutes.
A blonde in a silver dress slides into the booth beside me.
A brunette positions herself on my other side.
They’re beautiful. They’re available. They’re exactly the kind of distraction I used to welcome with open arms. The blonde puts her hand on my thigh.
“You played amazingly tonight,” she purrs.
“Thanks.” I take a sip of my drink and let her hand stay where it is because, what does it matter anymore?
The brunette leans in, whispers something in my ear about her hotel room and what she’d like to do to me in it.
Months ago, I would have taken her up on it without a second thought. Months ago, I was a different person.
I pour them both champagne. I smile and laugh at things that aren’t funny.
I let them touch my arm, my shoulder, my thigh.
I perform the version of Fish that everyone expects because this is what I do.
This is who I am. The playboy. The revolving door.
The fun one. The one who doesn’t care. The one who never gets hurt because he never lets anyone close enough.
Except you did. Once. And look what happened.
The brunette leans in again, and this time she kisses my cheek, lingering, her lips warm against my skin. I don’t flinch. I don’t pull away. I let it happen because feeling nothing is better than feeling what I’ve been feeling.
That’s when I see her.
Collette.
On the dance floor with the girls, wearing a tiny black dress that makes my chest constrict.
She’s dancing, head tilted back, arms in the air, laughing at something Marlowe is saying, and she looks free, happy, and beautiful.
For one second, I forget she’s the reason I can’t sleep.
For one second, she’s just the woman I love, moving through a crowd, lit up by Vegas lights, and the sight of her makes every other woman in this room disappear.
Then she looks at me.
Across the club, through the crowd, her eyes find mine, and the laughter dies on her face.
She sees the blonde pressed against my side.
She sees the brunette’s hand on my thigh.
She sees it all, and something passes across her face that I recognize because I wore the same expression, it’s the same one she gave me at the gala.
I miss her. It’s like I am missing part of me.
Collette looks away first, turns back to the girls, and dances harder, drinks faster, laughs louder. I watch her pretend she’s fine, and I know she’s pretending because I’m doing the same thing three meters away.
“You okay?” the blonde asks, running her finger along my jaw. “You seem distracted.”
“I’m good.” I drain my glass and pour another.
An hour later, the brunette pulls me off the dance floor toward a quieter corner of the club.
She’s pressed against me, her arms around my neck, her mouth close to my ear.
She’s been working up to this all night, and I’ve let her because I’m testing myself.
Testing whether I can still do this. Whether the old Fish is still in there somewhere.
“Come back to my room,” she murmurs against my neck.
Do it. Say yes. You’re single. “I …” My eyes drift across the club. Collette is gone from the dance floor. I scan the room, the bar, the booths. She’s not there. She must have gone. She left because she couldn’t watch you anymore.
The brunette kisses my neck, and I close my eyes and try to feel something. Anything. Her mouth is warm, she smells expensive, her body is pressed against mine, and I feel absolutely fucking nothing.
“I can’t.” The words come out before I decide to say them.
She pulls back, confused. “What?”
“I’m sorry. I can’t do this.” I untangle myself from her and take a step back. “You’re gorgeous, and I’m sure you’re incredible, but I just … I can’t.”
She looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. Maybe I have. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah. I’m sorry.” I shove my hands in my pockets because I don’t know what else to do with them. “Have a good night.”
I leave her standing there and push through the club toward the exit.
The air outside is warm, Vegas warm, and the strip is blazing with lights and noise and people who are having the time of their lives.
I stand on the sidewalk and breathe. I hate myself for not being the man I used to be.
The man who didn’t care. The man who took beautiful women home and didn’t think twice about it.
That man is gone. Collette St. Pierre killed him, and he’s not coming back.
My phone buzzes.
Evan: Where are you?
Fish: Outside. Needed air.
Evan: Alone?
Fish: Yeah.
Evan: Good. Stay there.
He appears two minutes later with two beers he liberated from somewhere.
We sit on a bench on the strip and watch the chaos of Vegas pass by.
Drunk tourists. Bachelorette parties. Street performers.
The whole ridiculous circus of a city built on the premise that you can outrun your problems if the lights are bright enough.
“Couldn’t do it,” I say after a while.
“The brunette?”
“Yeah.”
He nods, drinks his beer, and doesn’t push.
“She was right there. She was beautiful and she wanted me. But I felt nothing.” I stare at the beer bottle in my hands. “What the fuck is wrong with me?”
“Nothing is wrong with you.”
“Something is wrong. Because the old me would have gone back to that room without a second thought.”
“The old you didn’t know what real felt like.” He says it simply. Like it’s obvious. Like it’s the easiest diagnosis in the world. “Now you do. And everything else feels fake.”
I take a long pull of beer and let that settle in my chest where it sits like a stone.
“She spoke to me the other day,” Evan says after a minute.
I look at him. “Who?”
“Collette. After practice. She wanted to know why you won’t talk to her.” He pauses. “She knows you blocked her.”
My jaw tightens. “What did you say?”
“The truth, that you’re hurt, that she broke you. That if she can’t give you what you want, she needs to leave you alone.” He takes a sip. “She asked me if she made a mistake.”
The world goes very still. “What did you say?”
“I told her to figure that out before she goes near you again.”
Evan’s a good friend. I stare at the strip, all those lights blurring together.
She asked if she made a mistake. That means she’s not sure.
That means somewhere underneath all the reasons she said no, there’s a part of her that wanted to say yes.
Don’t do that. Don’t give yourself hope. She said no. She meant no.
“Don’t read into it,” Evan warns because he can read my mind.
“I’m not,” I snap back.
“You are. I can see it on your face.” He finishes his beer. “She hurt you. That’s real. Whatever she’s feeling right now doesn’t change that.”
He’s right. It doesn’t change anything. She said no. I need to accept that. I need to move on. I need to figure out how to be in the same room as her without wanting to either hold her or scream at her, and right now I can’t do either, so I’m choosing nothing.
“Let’s go back to the hotel,” I say.
“Yeah.”
We walk along the strip in silence. Vegas blazes around us, all that noise and light and excess, and I’ve never felt emptier.
I think about Collette in that black dress on the dance floor.
I think about the look on her face when she saw the bunnies pressed against me.
I think about what Evan said. I get to my room, close the door, and stand in the dark for a long moment.
The shower is hot, and I stay in it too long, letting the water beat down on my shoulders, trying to wash the night off me.
The brunette’s perfume, the blonde’s hand on my thigh.
All of it. None of it matters. None of them matter.
I climb into bed and close my eyes, and there she is in that fucking sinful black dress.
The way it clung to her hips when she moved on that dance floor.
Her head tipped back, throat exposed, laughing, arms above her head, body rolling to the bass.
The way the lights caught her skin. The way she looked at me across the club, and I saw everything she’s trying to hide behind those hazel eyes.
Don’t.
My hand slides under the sheets. You shouldn’t.
Because I’m weak and she’s the only thing that makes me feel anything anymore.
I think about her in that dress. I think about peeling it off her shoulders the way I’ve imagined a hundred times.
I think about her back against a wall, her legs around my waist, those hazel eyes looking up at me, her mouth open, my name on her lips.
I think about the sounds she’d make, the ones I’ve only heard in my imagination, but I know, I fucking know, they’d be better than anything I’ve dreamed up.
I think about her body underneath mine, warm and soft and finally, finally mine.
It doesn’t take long. It never does when it’s her. I come hard, her name stuck behind my teeth, biting down on it because saying it out loud in an empty hotel room would be the saddest thing I’ve ever done.
I clean up, stare at the ceiling, and hate myself a little.
This is what you’ve become. Jerking off alone in a Vegas hotel room, thinking about a woman who doesn’t want you.
I roll over and press my face into the pillow and wait for sleep to take me somewhere I don’t have to think about hazel eyes and black dresses.