Chapter 26
Theo
Seeing her for the first time in over a month was like having my heart opened with a rusty can opener.
She was just standing there, holding Randie and looking like my personal slice of heaven.
She could barely look at me, and I don’t blame her.
I’ve been avoiding her. It’s clear, and she’s a smart woman who doesn’t suffer fools, and I am most definitely a fool.
I wasn’t just calling that cute little girl “baby girl” when I left the friends and family room either, and Lola bristled, which means she caught onto that too.
My heart ached a little throughout the game, but I played better than usual because I knew she was watching.
We won, which makes me feel good, except that good feeling isn’t diluting the ache.
And then, I come out of the tunnel and glance toward the Friends and Family room, looking for my parents, but instead I see my name on the back of her shoulders.
I come to a complete, abrupt stop, and Callan bumps into me.
“Dude, why’d you…” His gaze follows mine, and he makes a face like he was just assaulted by something foul. “Lola?”
She turns, and her cheeks are red. Her eyes are closed as she sighs. “Someone spilled a drink on me, and I needed to change.”
“So you bought my jersey?”
“It was offered to me, and I thought it might be more suitable than going topless,” she replies coolly. “Although if I didn’t think I’d be arrested, I would have picked topless.”
Great. Now I’m thinking of her topless. She has the best tits I’ve ever seen, and I have seen a lot of tits.
Hers are full and perky, and her nipples are pink and so suckable, and…
she’s standing in front of me, glaring. In my jersey.
And now I’m gonna have to spend a stupid amount of time fumbling around in my gear because if I take these hockey pants off, my teammates will be greeted with a boner. Not at all okay.
“I should get…” I point with my stick toward the locker room.
“Yeah. Whatever,” Callan mutters and glances at his twin again. “You look weird.”
“Thanks, bro!” Lola snarks, then does something I definitely don't expect. She reaches for my arm and tugs on my sleeve. “You have to meet the person who owns this jersey. She’s a huge fan. She won’t even care that you’re a sweaty, smelly mess right now.”
“I just played a hockey game,” I mutter, but my body instantly fills with dread.
Lola turns, still holding my sleeve so I can’t escape, and she lifts her arm and waves down the hall.
I take the moment with her back turned to admire her hair, skimming my name across the back of her slim shoulders.
I’ve always liked the idea of women in my clothes.
I’ve had bed buddies throw on one of my dress shirts or a team hoodie, and I’ve liked the way it skims their thighs or swims on their frames.
But this… I never had a girl I know and like, other than my female relatives, wear my number.
It feels possessive, like she belongs to me, and I love that.
It’s stupid and, in this particular situation, almost offensive, because I’ve spent the last several weeks trying to distance myself from Lola Casco.
Suddenly, my teammate Tanner’s wife is in front of me—I forget her name—and she’s standing with another girl who is literally making heart eyes at me.
Lola smiles, but it’s hard, and I know her well enough now to know that means it’s forced.
“Theo, you know Melissa. Well, this is her friend Candice, who was kind enough to offer me her shirt. She’s your biggest fan. ”
“I don’t know about biggest…” Candice blushes and extends her hand. “And it was the least I could do because I’m the one who dropped soda on you.”
“It was still very sweet. I’m going to go see if my brother has a sweatshirt or something I can borrow for the ride home so I can give this back to you,” Lola says and takes a step.
I want to reach for her and stop her from leaving, but I can’t.
She wouldn’t want me to. So I just watch as she walks away.
“Theo, that was a great game. You were amazing,” Candice coos.
I make small talk with them for a few minutes, but then, thankfully, I see my family, and it’s the perfect reason to excuse myself. I walk over to where they’re standing, and Harlow immediately pinches her nose and takes a step back, like she’s been doing since she was six. “Stinky. Go shower.”
“I will I just… wanted to say hey…” I glance over my shoulder and run a hand through my sweat-soaked hair.
Candice and Melissa are where I left them, and Lola walks by, holding a sweatshirt and pointing to the co-ed washroom at the end of the hall before heading that way. Randie is nowhere to be found, so I’m guessing she’s with Landon or Grady.
“I have to head straight to the airport. We’re flying out to Toronto tonight.” My parents nod. My mom is smiling. “And I have some stuff to do, so I’ll be running out of here.”
“In other words, bye. Thanks for coming. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.” Dad chuckles and clasps my hand, pulling me in for a hug. He doesn’t worry about how bad I smell, probably because he spent half his life smelling equally as bad.
Mom motions for me to bend down to her level and gives me a quick peck on the cheek. “I met your friend Lola Casco.”
I straighten and find her grinning. “She’s a friend and my teammates’ sister. My linemate’s sister.”
“So what? I was the kid sister of the girls your dad vowed to treat like sisters.” Mom waves her hand as if clearing a stench from the air. “Those rules are all stupid and drenched in misogyny.”
“Go, Mom!” Harlow says.
“Do not encourage her,” I warn my sister. “Or I’ll tell her about your ice dance partner.”
Mom’s eyebrows shoot up. “What about him?”
“He’s a former hockey player. The one Harlow used to have posters of in her room,” I announce, and my sister takes a swing at me with an open hand. I dodge her artfully. “Love you both. Drive safe!”
I take off down the hall, and even though I’m still in skates and gear, I slip left into the bathroom instead of into the locker room. I really wish I were showered because Harlow is right, I stink, but she’ll be gone by the time I’m ready.
It’s the same small bathroom I saw her in the day before I signed with the team. And thankfully, the stalls are empty, and there’s no one in here but Lola, who is at the sink. Our eyes lock in the mirror. “Where’s your biggest fan?”
“I have no idea,” I say, and my eyes drift to the jersey in one of her hands. She’s in the hoodie now. I have no idea if it belongs to Callan or Landon, so I ask, “Whose hoodie?”
“Redov.”
It’s like she dropped an iceberg into the center of my chest. My heart and all the blood running through it go cold. “I could have given you a hoodie.”
She turns from the mirror to look me dead in the eye. Her chin is pushed up, her eyes narrowed, her arms crossed. She is pissed. “That would require forcing you to talk to me, and I didn’t want to do that.”
“I don’t need to be forced—”
“Why haven’t I heard from you since the West Coast road trip?”
“Because… I just thought maybe we should… take a step back,” I say. And then I step closer to her. On my stupid skates. Wobbling like an hour-old penguin or some shit.
“Oh, you did?” She glares harder. “Why?”
“Because… can you take off that sweatshirt?” Her eyes go wide. “I mean… just wear my jersey home.”
“It’s Candice’s jersey.”
“I’ll get her a new one. I’ll even sign it.”
“Do it with your phone number. She’ll love that.” Lola can be the snarkiest woman alive when she’s pissed, and it does nothing to turn me off.
I take one more tentative step. She looks me up and down. “You stink, and you’re ridiculously tall and unstable on those things. You’re probably ruining your blades.”
“Don’t give a single, solitary fuck,” I reply, my voice low and husky. “I saw you in my jersey and something in me…”
“Oh my God, what a stupid patriarchal, misogynistic, caveman response,” Lola huffs out, but what she doesn’t do is move away from me. “And let me guess, now that I’m in Redov’s jersey, you’re suddenly possessive.”
“Yeah. I hate it. Take it off, and I’ll give you something of mine to wear.”
“Are you mentally ten?”
“Maybe,” I reply.
“You ghosted me. You don’t get to dictate what I wear.” She puts her hands flat on the front of my sweat-soaked jersey, and I brace to be pushed away. But she doesn’t push. “And for the record, even if you were my fucking husband, you wouldn’t get a say in what I wear.”
“If I were your husband, you’d wear my jersey every game,” I blurt out. “And I would take you home and fuck you in it until you saw stars and couldn’t stand up.”
“Damnit, Theo Luc Richard. You may be a hockey prince, but you’re the king of mixed signals.” She finally pushes me, and I stumble back, almost losing the edge I’m teetering on and tipping over. I manage to stay upright. “I deserve better than that.”
She grabs the jersey off the counter next to the sink and steps around me toward the door. “You do. That’s why I stepped back.”
“What?” She pauses at the door and looks over at me.
“You deserve better. I’m in a precarious spot.
I could relapse,” I begin, and everything about this feels wrong, but I can’t offer her anything, and she needs to realize that.
“I can’t be good for anyone. I’ve got too much baggage and too many things that could fuck up my life.
I can’t bring you down too. I mean, I wouldn’t gaslight you like Ryan Fucking Cordon or ever purposely make you feel unwanted or—”
“You did, though,” she interrupts, and my mouth hangs open, mid-sentence, words evaporating on my tongue. “You just ghosted me. After you made it seem like you wanted more. After I told you… I can’t have kids.”
What? I open my mouth, but the words get clogged in my throat because how did I not think that’s how this would look to her?
I shake my head and take a step in her direction, but she puts out a hand to stop me.
“We were… it seemed like we were becoming more than a situationship, but then I… Look, I know, I get it. I’m not a good bet long term. I just thought… Never mind.”
She reaches for the door again and, even though I said I wouldn’t burden her with my pathetic problems, the words tumble out of me anyway.
Because I can’t just let her think this has anything to do with her fertility issues.
“My friend Mila. She relapsed. I was in rehab with her, and we ran into each other in Vegas, and… she overdosed and died. And then my teammates… my former teammates took me out and the stories they told… I didn’t even remember most of them, and it’s humiliating.
They didn’t mean it that way, but it’s how they made me feel.
I can’t… be someone’s boyfriend when the odds of me fucking it all up are so high. It wouldn’t be fair.”
“Life’s not fair,” she counters. Her eyes find mine, and we stare at each other for a long, painful moment. When she speaks again, her voice is soft. “You just disappeared, and that made me feel unwanted and… honestly, it made me feel as bad as Ryan used to.”
I stare at her while her words crush me. “I didn’t mean it that way. I was doing you a favor.”
“Bullshit,” Lola replies, her tone hard but somehow vulnerable. The tremble in it has me wanting to reach for her so badly my arms ache. “You were either being a coward or an idiot. Maybe both.”
She leaves. I stand there in the empty room trying to take some deep breaths, but it feels like there’s an anvil on my chest. These emotions—guilt, regret, shame, anger—they’ve got me pinned, and I fucking hate it. I need something to numb this. I want a fucking drink.
Getting air into my lungs doesn’t help, so I head out of the bathroom, past the locker room, and straight into Coach Larue’s office. He’s sitting on the corner of his desk, staring at his phone. He smiles at me after I knock, but it fades as I enter the room and close the door behind me.
“I need help.”