“Yeah, and I’m not ready to fucking talk about it, alright?”
I shot him a death glare. That kind of shit was not going to fly with me. He softened, approaching me and crouching down to where I was still on the floor. He held my chin and looked deep into my eyes. “When I have the right words for it, I’ll tell you. Okay, hon?”
He kissed my cheek and stood to leave. “I’ll see you later.”
Chapter 32
Mikey
“So, you and Jessie seemed to have a lot of fun last night.” Guy watched me carefully as we got changed for practice.
“I guess,” I grumbled.
“Yikes,” Sorrento said. “Trouble in paradise.”
“What happened? You two were having a great time!” Guy said, sliding his pads over his head.
“Nothing.”
Guy cocked his head to the side. “Come on, man.”
“She’s just gonna leave anyway,” I said. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Oh?” Guy said. “Did she say she was going to leave?”
“Every time we fight, she starts packing a bag.” That was partially true. She did that the night that we first kissed. She really hadn’t done it since. A few guys laughed.
“The old bag trick,” Sorrento said knowingly.
I turned back to him, incredulous. “Wanna clue me in?”
“She wants you to beg her to stay, bro,” Sorrento said. “Give her a reason to stay. Don’t get all butt hurt. She wants to know you want her there.”
“She said she needs ‘space,’” I said. Another “ooh” rippled across the locker room.
“That’s more complicated,” Guy said. “Sometimes space means come closer, and sometimes it actually means space. But she’s kinda going through a lot, isn’t she?”
“Yeah, she ran into her ex’s not-so-new girl. He’d been cheating for a while,” I said. I didn’t mention her trauma with the storms coming up just a few nights before. That didn’t seem like locker room fodder.
“Oof,” Sorrento said.
“If her ex has been cheating, she’s probably pretty scared of getting burned again,” Obi said. “He probably wasn’t exactly tending to her emotional needs either. Maybe show her you can handle it with her.”
“What makes you the expert, Oberbeck? It’s not like you’ve had tons of experience,” I snapped.
“Actually, I do—”
“Cool it, Mike,” Stelle warned. “We’re trying to help.”
I closed my eyes, knowing they were right and I was reallyin the wrong, with them and with Jessie. “Fuck. I yelled at her earlier.”
Guy grimaced, and the other guys wouldn’t meet my eyes. “Then it’s time to grovel.”
* * *
On the ice, I was distracted. Guy had to pry me off a bike during warmups because I was so zoned out. My stomach hurt, threatening one of my episodes from the stress. All I could think about was getting home and apologizing to Jessie. Her question kept ringing through my head: what are you so afraid of?
Her leaving. Not being good enough for her. If I was asking her to be mine, I needed to be able to stick with her. I needed to not be like Cole and my dad. Could I trust myself to be like that?
