On the line, p.23
On the Line, page 23
Despite his kind, supportive words, I keep crying and he keeps holding me.
Chapter 32
Avery
I get out of the car and walk around the house instead of walking in my back door. It’s late. Really stupid late. Almost five in the morning. I should have been home an hour ago, but the flight left half an hour late and then there was traffic—yeah, fucking traffic. Only in California would the freeway be backed up at four-thirty in the morning. I’m exhausted and all I want to do is sleep—with Stephanie. And I mean sleep. But with her in my arms. With things settled.
I look up at our attached houses. Both are dark. She must have given up and gone to sleep. I was hoping she would wait up, but I don’t blame her for falling asleep. In fact, I realize because I never called her back she’s probably not even sure I’m coming over. The thought makes me feel sick. I don’t want her to think that I would blow her off.
I climb the stairs to my door, but once on the porch I jump the low railing and fiddle with my keys until I find the spare one to her house that she gave me when I moved in. I unlock the door and I let myself in.
The downstairs is quiet and dark. As I make my way up the stairs, I cringe at every creak. I’m trying to be quiet, but the old wood and my two-hundred-pound frame make it impossible. At the top of the stairs, to the right, her bedroom door is open just a crack. I head straight for it. The only light is the moon filtering in from the window behind her bed. She’s neglected to close the curtains.
My eyes, having already adjusted to the dim light, roam to her bed as I take a step into the room. I see her tiny frame is twisted away from the door, her quilt pulled up over her. At first all I see is her hair fanned out on the pillow and then I realize…her body is curled into someone else’s body. I step closer.
Alex.
She’s got her head on my teammate’s chest and her right leg is draped over his thighs; I can tell by the position of the bumps and lumps under the quilt. It’s how she likes to sleep on me. His thick arm is curled around her shoulders holding her in place and his fat head is tipped down like he fell asleep with his lips buried in her hair. Just the way I do.
Everything inside my body turns cold—my blood, my limbs, my heart. It’s like I’ve been injected with liquid nitrogen. She’s sleeping with Larue. She slept with Larue.
I turn and walk out of the room, down the stairs and out the front door. By the time my feet hit the porch I’m shaking with rage and I’m flushed with humiliation. I was falling in love with her. She was…she was supposed to be the one. I blindly threw my hard-earned reputation on the line for her because I felt things for her I never thought I would feel. And…she just fucked my buddy?
How could she do that? Why would Alex? I mean, sure, he chirps about it, but I didn’t think even he would break the code. I honestly thought he was not just a teammate but also a friend. And she…she would do this?
My father’s cautious words, the ones that seemed to sting more than the others, float back into my head. “How well do you really know her, Avery, if you didn’t know this? I mean, what else isn’t she telling you? If she lied about this, then what else is she lying about?”
Is Don right? Is she really not who I thought she was? What the fuck is wrong with me that I didn’t know this? Why would I ever let myself have feelings like this for someone who would…Christ.
I take a deep breath and storm off the porch and back to my car. I’m done with her. I’m done with these stupid feelings. I’m sticking with what I know. What I’m good with. What doesn’t hurt. Hockey. Being alone. Maintaining my fucking image.
I storm around the house again and jump back into my car. I don’t know where I’m going, but I know I’m not sticking around here.
Chapter 33
Stephanie
The first thing I notice as I wake up, even before the hangover drum session taking place in my skull, is the heavy, comforting warmth of the male limbs I’m tangled up in. Instead of opening my eyes, I pinch them shut tighter because I know the pounding will only get worse with light, and I don’t want to leave the comfort of the bed or of the body holding me close.
I stretch a little, and his arms circle my waist a little tighter, his palms flat against my stomach. My shirt is lifted and his skin on mine is rough and delightful. I take a heavy, deep breath and feel his face curl into my neck and his breath tickle my ear right before his lips graze that spot behind my lobe.
“Avery…”
His fingers spread, tickling my abdomen. “Try again, princess,” he whispers softly.
I freeze for a second and then my body goes into flight mode. I grab his wrists and yank his hands away from me and kick at the covers, crawling toward the edge of the bed and jumping out at lightning speed. I stumble as my feet hit the floor and almost topple over. My eyes dart down with my hands that are moving to cover what I think is my naked body, but, luckily, I am fully clothed. Thank God.
“Relax, Steph. It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay! What are you doing in my bed?!”
“Absolutely nothing, and that’s the first time in my life I’ve said that in a woman’s bed,” he snarks, and then turns serious for a second. “But last night I was just cuddling a very sad, very beautiful girl while she slept a fitful sleep.”
“Cuddling?” I echo, and rub my temples where the hangover drums are beating.
“Yes, honey. Cuddling. That’s all. I swear on my Stanley Cup ring.”
I stare at him, unblinking, unmoving. He stares back, relaxed, smirking. My head pounds even harder.
“Oh, God, I regret this so much,” I mutter, and yank the blankets off him. “Get up. Go home. Before someone sees you.”
“You regret what? Letting a friend comfort you in your drunken time of need?” He rolls his eyes as he slowly pulls his hulking frame to a sitting position and swings his feet around to the floor. “If it makes you feel better, I didn’t intend to spend the night. I was just going to stay until Avery showed up and he could take care of you. But I’m on pain meds for the shoulder and we were drinking, and when you passed out, I passed out.”
“Oh, my God, Alex…Avery.” I moan.
“He didn’t show. I’m sorry, Steph.” He says it quietly and with so much sympathy it actually hurts. I can’t deny Avery rejected me when I see it on someone else’s face. So I grab his hands, tugging him to his feet with all the strength I can muster. “Go home.”
“They have practice in an hour and a half,” he replies, glancing at my alarm clock. “I’m supposed to join and test out my shoulder. I’ll just wander next door and hitch a ride.”
“And tell Avery what? I was in the neighborhood spooning Steph and need a lift to practice?” I retort.
He smiles down at me and lets out a short, healthy laugh. “Okay I’ll wander over to Parsons’s instead.”
“Good call.” I march out of my room, down the hall and to the front door with Alex lumbering along behind me. As we reach the front hall, I grab the door handle and Alex grabs my shoulders, turning me around to face him. He’s not wearing his usual jovial, slightly smartass expression.
“You okay?”
“Yes. I mean I’m incredibly hungover, but I’ll be fine.”
“I’m not talking about that,” he says pointedly.
I move my eyes away from his. “I’ll let you know after I talk to Avery,” I say, and he hugs me.
“Okay, well, if you need to talk, I’m actually good for that, too, not just for drunk cuddling,” he says with a friendly smile, which looks weird on his face because I’m so used to seeing it with a more lecherous smile.
“Thanks,” I reply, and can’t help but add, “You’re a lot less of a slimeball than you let on.”
“If you tell anyone, I’ll deny it,” Alex quips with a wink.
I open the front door, and he walks out onto my porch and down the steps to the empty street. I watch him stroll west until he’s almost out of sight and then close the door. I’m about to head back up the stairs when something in the living room catches my eye. It’s Maddie. She’s holding a cup of coffee and curled up in the corner of the couch like a cat. A very disapproving, judgmental cat. I blush under her blue eyes and that makes the disapproval turn to disappointment.
“Why would you sleep with Alex?”
“I didn’t!” I walk into the living room and plop down beside her. My stomach, which is completely empty after the puke-fest last night, rumbles. I run my hands through my bed head. “I was so drunk.”
“I know.”
“I threw up.”
“I thought you might.”
“Alex took care of me while I waited for Avery.”
“Of course he did.” Her voice holds a sarcastic note.
“I’m an emotional drunk and I just started to bawl and Alex comforted me and I guess I passed out and he fell asleep.” I ignore her tone and keep confessing. “I swear, Maddie, it was platonic.”
“I don’t think Avery knows that.”
“Avery doesn’t know anything,” I reply, and sigh.
She shakes her head, her eyes clouded with concern. “He saw you. Last night. He showed up at Ty’s at like seven this morning and he was completely screwed up. Kind of like a quiet rage thing. Ty took him out to breakfast to talk.”
Oh, my God, Avery came over last night? He saw Alex in my bed? With me? No. It can’t be. No. No. No. I grab my tangled hair in my hands, pressing my palms against my temples, trying to quell the pounding and the horrible thoughts running through my head.
“I don’t know what’s going on,” I murmur, confused and still dealing with the throbbing in my head. “How does this keep going from bad to worse?”
“You should call him,” Maddie suggests.
I stand up and start walking toward the front hall and stairs.
Upstairs I grab my phone and turn it on. It takes a second to boot up and then a bunch of alerts start to beep and buzz. I’m instantly overwhelmed, so I ignore them all and dial his number. It goes straight to voice mail.
“Avery. Call me. I did NOT sleep with Alex. I know what it seems like, but just ask him.”
I hang up and feel a little spark of anger start to catch inside me. Does he really think I would sleep with his teammate? Honestly? Shouldn’t he know I wouldn’t? If he thinks I would cheat on him, we have much bigger problems than my past.
Chapter 34
Avery
About three-quarters of the way through the practice, my curiosity starts to outweigh my rage. Now when I look at Larue I don’t wonder about how good it would feel to put his face through the glass and instead wonder how the fuck he’s just standing there looking innocent. He must know I know what they did. The fact that we drove right by him as he walked toward Ty’s house this morning, ignoring him as he waved and yelled, probably tipped him off. But he’s been acting like his normal self all practice. He’s joking with Furry, yakking about baseball with Drew. He’s even talking to Ty. The fucking asshole even had the nerve to talk to me. Said something like “Great shot, Westie!” when I scored in a drill. I promptly skated away and focused my rage on my next shot, which broke my stick.
Coach Meisner calls an end to practice and tells us to head home and rest up. Warns us no one is to have a late night. He wants us rested and focused for our game tomorrow night. I watch my teammates filter off the ice, but I don’t join them. I start taking shots on net until Coach comes up and insists I head out.
“Your scoring touch isn’t going anywhere. At least not on the ice. Relax. Go home and rest,” Coach jokes, and chuckles to himself. Normally the humor would make me chuckle, too, but it makes me feel sick today.
Even after getting kicked off the ice, I don’t head to the locker room. I go into the equipment room and fake some issue with my left skate to buy time. I don’t want to see Larue when I finally go in there. Without the distractions of practice or the watchful eyes of the coaches I will, without a doubt, beat the living shit out of him. When I finally make it back to the locker room it’s empty.
I strip and take a long shower. I have no one to go home and see, so I’m not in a rush. Eventually I’ll have to talk to Stephanie. I just don’t have the energy to do it now. I need to focus on hockey and only hockey. This game—winning—is all I can control in my life right now. It’s all I’ve ever been able to control.
I take my time drying off and changing. When I wander outside to the parking lot, even the small gaggle of autograph seekers that usually gathers there is gone. I walk along the edge of the building scrolling through my emails on my phone. My father has sent me three, but I only open the one titled “Motion is pulling out.” Motion is the name of the fitness company backing my clothing line. Don doesn’t add anything; he just forwards the email from the company president. Apparently they’ve decided that we have creative differences on the direction of the line and they’ve decided it’s not a good time to move forward with my line. They wish me well if I decide to pursue it elsewhere.
The whole thing is complete bullshit. Sure, I changed the women’s line to be less…slutty from what they originally proposed, but they hadn’t balked about that. Not until now…now that I’m making headlines for my love life.
I take a deep breath and let it out with a sigh. I’m more mad at myself than anyone else in this situation when I really think about it. I’m mad that I’d let my feelings cloud my judgment and influence my decisions. My life might have been lonely and isolated when I stuck to Don’s rules—no parties, no public drunkenness, no girlfriends—but at least I felt like I was in control. This…this thing with Stephanie was completely out of control. Even before she slept with Alex.
I am mad at myself for wanting more than a soaring career. For wanting a relationship—and not with a safe, predictable bet like Lizzie. I wanted these things with Stephanie. I couldn’t not want them with Stephanie. I complicated everything myself. I shove my phone back in my pocket and glance up. Ty is leaning against the back of his SUV.
“Hey. Sorry I took so long.”
“It’s fine,” he says, and pushes himself off the SUV. As I get closer, I realize he’s not moving from his position leaning against the trunk. So I stop a foot away from him.
“Are we going or…?”
“He didn’t sleep with her,” Ty says flatly. “Says she was drunk and throwing up so he was taking care of her. Then they fell asleep.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“But isn’t that kind of exactly what she said to you this morning?” Ty counters, lifting his baseball cap to scratch his head. “You think they’d both lie to you?”
“Yeah. Maybe,” I reply quietly. “I saw them.”
He folds his arms across his chest. “Did you see them doing it? Were they naked?”
“Parsons, if I’d walked in on it, he’d be dead,” I blurt, then take a calming breath. “They were all curled up together. If he was just keeping an eye on her, why wasn’t he asleep on the floor or the guest room or the…”
“Because she was crying, dude.”
I hear him before I see him. He comes around the car a second later. He must have been sitting in Ty’s passenger seat listening to everything. Ty takes a subtle step to his left, to block my direct path to Larue.
“You should have waited in the car, Larue,” Ty turns and says. “Just hear him out, Avery.”
Larue ignores him and keeps his focus on me. Tension rolls up my limbs and through my body. I’m taut and ready to fight.
“Avery, she was crying. Over you,” Alex continues, and raises his hands like he’s surrendering. “She was drunk and emotional, and she just burst into tears and didn’t stop until she fell asleep. And she fell asleep on me. Not because she wanted to but because she was a drunk mess.”
I don’t say anything at first. I glance at Ty, who is staring back at me with no readable expression. He’s clearly the ref here, not taking sides, just keeping an eye out for illegal hits or unsportsmanlike conduct.
“You’ve been crowing for weeks you want her,” I spit out.
“Yeah. And I do,” Alex replies easily and with confidence. His light eyes become softer, though, and the hard edge to his words fades. “But she wants you, buddy. Even though neither of you seems to know how to be in a relationship, she wants one with you. Not me. And last night she felt like she was rejected. And she was beyond drunk, so I was a friend to her—and to you. If I’d left her, she’d probably have choked on her own vomit.”
“Gross,” Ty groans.
I just stare at Larue wordlessly. The realization that I think he’s telling the truth starts to create a swirling cauldron of regret in my stomach.
“But you’re actually second-guessing this, aren’t you? That’s why you were so quick to believe she’d screw me behind your back. Because you’re still thinking about your goddamn image, aren’t you?” Larue questions. “You’re looking for reasons to leave her.”
I move my sunglasses from on top of my head to my face to hide my guilty eyes. Ty glances from Larue to me. I turn to Ty and mumble, “I need to get home.”
I walk by Alex, and he reaches out and puts a hand on my shoulder, stopping me. “I’m not going to touch her,” he promises quietly.
“Doesn’t matter. I don’t think we’ll work it out,” I mutter, and the realization is like touching a frozen metal pole with your tongue. It’s a mistake and now I’m stuck and I can’t fix this without more damage.
Alex nods and shrugs. “I’m still not going to touch her.”
He reaches out and claps me on the back as he gives me a hug and I give him one back. I’m still not happy at what I saw last night in her bedroom, but once again the real person I’m angry with is myself.
