I watch them with tears burning in my eyes.
Two kids having fun. Learning to play a sport and love a game that has been humming in my blood for as long as I can remember.
Two kids pretending to be someone like me when all I want to do is go back and be like them. Innocent. Unjaded. With my brother back at my side.
Fucking fried.
What are you going to do, Maddox? Lie down and die? Walk away from the game?
Or win the Cup for Jonah with the club he told you to play for? Win the Cup he should have won in a game he was always so much better at?
My insides are a fucking jumbled mess. Shit stirred up I don’t want to acknowledge. Shit Dekker’s presence brought to light.
Fuck.
And thinking of her—hell, I feel like that’s all I’ve been doing is thinking of her—screws me up even more.
I scrub my hand over my face and breathe out a huge sigh as the boys’ laughter floats over to me.
“Nah-uh. Dad’s never going to let us be on the same team,” the taller of the two says.
“Why not?”
“Because then we can’t both be stars, silly.” He pushes his brother from behind so he’s shoved forward, and they both start giggling hysterically and look over to where their dad sits in his truck, engine running, heater probably on, as he eyes the crazy man sitting by himself in the bleachers to gauge if he’s a creeper.
I don’t care, because all I hear is what the big kid just said: because then we can’t both be stars.
Such a simple solution we never got the chance to figure out for ourselves.
The loneliness hits me even harder watching them, but so do the memories. The laughter. The secrets. The bond we shared on and off the ice.
It never mattered that he was the star and I was the second string. It only mattered that we were there together. It only mattered that we understood each other. It only mattered that I played the sport I loved with the brother I loved more.
I lift my head to the clear sky and close my eyes for a beat.
I’m so sorry, Jonah.
I’m going to win you that Cup you deserved.
I’m going to break every record in your name, because I know you already would have.
I’m trying to be the star for both of us before one or both of us burn out. “You can’t go yet, J. Don’t go until I finish the job you asked me to finish. Don’t leave me yet.”
When I rise from the bleachers half an hour later, I don’t have all the answers, but I have more determination and clarity.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
DEKKER
“HEY.”
Hunter stops midstride and glances over to my car where I’ve pulled up beside him. “Go away, Dekk.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I keep driving slowly beside him as he keeps walking.
“Just what it sounds like. I don’t want what you’re selling.”
“Lucky for you, I’m not offering anything,” I mutter. “We need to talk about the other night.”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” he says, still refusing to look my way.
“There’s not?” There’s a whole host of shit we need to talk about.
“Nope.”
Nope? What the hell? I slam the rental car into park, hop out, and jog up beside him, but he still refuses to look my way.
“Hunter? What the hell?” I grab his arm and he turns on me with confusion and anger etched in the lines of his face.
“You’re wasting my time, Kincade. I’ve got practice to get to. You know, my job. I haven’t been avoiding you, I’ve just been throwing myself into perfecting my game. As an agent, you should appreciate that in a client.”
His smile is tight and his words are cutting.
“I do, but I also know avoidance when I see it.”
“What am I avoiding?” he asks and takes a step back and crosses his arms over his chest, throwing the ball back in my court and of course now that he has, I just stare at him.
Answer the question honestly and sound like a needy female. Lie and sound like a flustering idiot.
“Me.” I choose honesty and feel so stupid saying it, but it’s true, and it’s better if we face this now rather than later.
“Bullshit,” he sneers.
“You’re not avoiding me?” I ask on the defensive.
“Nope. Don’t think so highly of yourself. I have a Cup to win. I have a team to lead. I have consequences if I let them all down.”
“You’ve always had a Cup to win.” I take a step toward him as he takes one back. “I don’t under—Hunter, talk to me.”
“About what? How we got drunk. How we had a laugh or two. Then how we fucked.” He throws his arms out to his sides and raises his voice. “Just like old times, huh? No harm, no foul—mistake made and realized until the next time.”
His words should hurt, but for some reason, they don’t. Maybe it’s because it’s been two days since we slept together and this is the first time I’ve been able to actually talk. It’s been two days of overthinking and wondering if the sex was just sex or blowing it out of proportion to second-guess every nuance of his and wonder if there could be more. But now that I’m standing here, he’s made it clear what the answer is, and I’m not exactly sure what to say.
“I—I just thought we should talk about it.”
His chuckle is raw and brutal. “About what? The snow angels? The shit I said in the bar? Or someone seeing us together?”
“Because it could affect my job.”
He chuckles and scrubs a hand over his jaw. “I expected more from you than that. I really did.” The disappointment in his voice is like a knife to my heart. Here he is handing me the key to the door I need. But I know the minute I unlock and open it, everything I want will fall out of reach.
“I can’t give you more.” It’s the only thing I can think to say as my professional world wars against my personal one.
“Why?” This time, he’s the one who takes a step closer to me. This time, he’s the one staring and demanding and wanting to know.
“Because I can’t,” I whisper.
“That’s what I thought,” he says and starts to stride off.
“Hunter. Wait.” He keeps walking. “Truth. Truth,” I shout, and this time he stops but doesn’t turn around. I stare at him, the bright lights of the arena he’s playing in tonight in the background. “I can’t admit to you why I’m here because the minute I do, whatever happened the other night can’t happen again. I can’t tell you what you want to hear, because there’s a blaring red line in the sand and once I cross it, all those things about you that made me want to come back to your room over and over once I left that night have to be buried and gone.” My breath hitches on what feels like a sob, but it’s really my fear in admitting the truth to both him and myself.
It’s the fear in admitting that I had fallen for Hunter Maddox before, and being here, sleeping with him, just reinforced that I never got over him. That I chose mediocre options in the interim who never dimmed his sparkle, but rather made it shine brighter.
He turns slowly and stares at me, eyes burning into mine in a way I’ve never seen or felt before. The muscle in his jaw feathers as if he’s trying to control any and all emotion from playing across his stoic face.