“Sex, I’m guessin’,” Theo mumbled, his mouth full of gingerbread cookie.
Reid ignored him. “We’re not compatible. She thinks everything can be fixed with a smile and a nice chat about our feelings. But nothing is that simple. There are personalities involved, conflicting personalities. I’m not the kind of guy who can make her happy.”
Or stay.
Gunnar frowned. “Did she say that?”
“Not in so many words.”
“So that’s what you think,” Remy said in a tone that said it wasn’t up for discussion. “Which is good because that’s half the battle right there. Knowing you have a problem.” He turned and pulled—ah, fuck—a bottle of tequila from a cupboard. “Grab the glasses from that cabinet over there, Vad. We’ve got work to do here.”
Reid had been on his way out. He had a flight to Toronto at 9 a.m. so he could see his mother and have her fuss over him and feed him something not in his diet and tell him he was her co-favorite son. He sent a longing glance at the kitchen door, which looked about as far away as his peace of mind right now.
Someone put a gingerbread cookie in one hand, a shot of liquor in the other, and one, two, three, bombs away …
Thirty-four minutes later …
Remy had trooped them all into his study, which was really just an office with comfortable leather sofas, a TV, and his many trophies. Over the last half hour, the guys had all offered their own takes on Reid’s situation. Bond was of the opinion that Reid might need to work on himself (no shit). Remy thought that Reid should make a grand gesture—apparently everything was solved with a grand fucking gesture. About ten minutes in, Jorgenson appeared, looking no happier than he had during that exchange with Casey. His solution: food. Always food.
“I think we need to look at this from Kennedy’s point of view.” Theo held up his empty shot glass as if he expected the tequila fairy to fill it. “Hockey is fucking dangerous, man. Maybe she’s freaked out by Duracell’s elbow-to-the-face action. We could have done with you on the ice last night, by the way.”
Reid didn’t have time to enjoy Kershaw’s compliment because Petrov was weighing in.
“You think that’s why she won’t fight for Durand? You don’t think that maybe she’s just doing it to make him suffer?”
Petrov’s Law said that women enjoyed making men miserable and it was men’s fate to endure until their women came around. Weirdly Russian and not helpful at all.
“Making him suffer, maybe for something he didn’t even realize he did,” Erik said morosely. “That could be the case here.”
Gunnar squinted at him. “Except Duracell knows what he did. Don’t you?”
Reid had done the opposite of what Edie had advised: You have to fight for her. He knew Kennedy was leaving and assumed that was all she wrote. Assumed that she wouldn’t upend her life for someone like him.
To hammer the point home and put a big red bow on his insecurities, he told her he was a bad bet, showed her he was one, and then pushed her out of his life. All so he could maintain control over an uncontrollable situation.
Theo grabbed the tequila bottle and filled his glass because no one was doing it for him.
“It sounds like Kennedy’s an independent sort. Kind of like my Ellie.”
Reid considered that. “Yeah, she’s lived this life where she doesn’t want to rely on anyone since her parents died when she was a kid. I guess she feels it’s … safer? I understand that.” Even though she had Edie, she had created a life that kept her detached from deeper connections.
“We all do,” Cal said. “Self-preservation is the default setting of every guy here. And every girl and guy out there.” He pointed behind him to the party that was going on without them. “She’s worried about losing someone she cares about.”
“Because she already did.” Hale “call me Fitz” Fitzgerald, the Rebels new GM, had wandered in five minutes ago, pieced it all together from several drunk and half-wrong updates, and was now weighing in with his own brand of Southern wisdom. “No wonder she’s jumpy as all get out.”
Cal nodded. “So she’s erected this wall with a big ass “No Trespassing” sign. Reid, you’re going to have to trample all over that sign. But first you have to accept you’re worthy of this woman.”
Trampling wasn’t really his style. As for being worthy, how the hell was he supposed to come around to that way of thinking? It was one thing to unravel years of knots in his relationship with Bast, it was quite another to apply the lessons learned to a love that had barely bloomed.
“I can’t force her to love me, Cal.”
“She already does, dummy.”
He sounded so sure and God almighty, Reid wanted to believe him. “You can’t know that.”
“Listen, Reid, you need someone to pull that hockey stick out of your ass and show you there’s more than that one track you’ve been stuck on forever. She needs someone to ground her and make her feel safe. These are the gaps you fill for each other, and you’ve already figured it out because we just fucking told you and we are right. So convince her you’re the man for the job.”
“Grand gesture, mon ami.” Remy puffed on his cigar and grinned like a wise old king. “Grand fucking gesture.”
36
There was a particular cruelty in visiting a familiar place and finding that it hadn’t changed one iota. That it had the audacity to carry on without you and didn’t miss your presence. As if you never existed.
Dramatic much?
“I’m getting wistful in my old age, Buck.” Her faithful companion for the two-hour drive to the past perked up at the mention of his name. Reid would probably have a fit if he knew she’d taken him across state lines—but as Reid had chosen not to visit his dog and leave custody in her hands, then his opinion on the matter shouldn’t register.
Except he was why she was here.
His accusation that he was merely an assignment for her and that she should just run back to Asia had cut deep. As if she was trying to escape. She was a traveler, a nomad, an embracer of new experiences. Avoidance wasn’t in her vocabulary. Reid Durand, who kept everything close to his chest, didn’t know the first thing about it.
She was here to prove him wrong.
Silver Springs, fifteen miles east of South Bend, Indiana, hadn’t changed a jot since she left. The drugstore on the corner of Central and Main was still there, with the slightly off-kilter sign. Her dad used to stop there on the way back from the university to pick up day-old donuts, Midwestern frugality at its finest. The bank, the post office, the florist, all the same. The coffee shop might be new—or that might be a fresh coat of paint. Driving through, she wondered about homes—and hearts—frozen in time.
Had she placed the past on a pedestal? Well, clearly she had. But so much so that she shut herself off to all possibilities? Over the last six years, she’d certainly had opportunities to open herself up. Start anew. Yet she even kept her distance from Edie because it would make it easier when her gran moved on to the great bingo hall in the sky.