My head about whips off of my shoulders as I turn to look at him. The name I didn’t let myself say in the last three months. The name I would say in my dreams every fucking night. The woman who I would go to bed thinking about and then wake up thinking about, but then force her out of my mind. “Lexi?” I say her name and my stomach gets tight at the same time my chest feels like an elephant is sitting on me.
“Yeah, man,” he confirms, pulling off his shirt, “she’s been living with us for the past three months I think.”
I blink my eyes, not sure I am actually awake or maybe I’m still sleeping. Maybe this is another dream I’ve having. “She’s living with you?” I repeat the words as I stand here transfixed on him as he gets undressed.
“Yeah, she left her husband,” he explains. “I don’t know the details because I don’t really want to ask her. But she left him and Ariella offered her a place to stay.”
“She left her husband.” My head feels like it’s spinning and I have to sit down on the bench.
“What the hell is the matter with you?” he asks me and I just shake my head. “Why the fuck are you repeating everything I’m saying?”
“I,” I start to say, “I’m just.”
“Listen, you two lovebirds,” Knox interrupts, “as much fun as it is watching you fuck with Kirby with whatever it is you are saying, I do not—and I repeat—I do not want to do suicides.” He looks at both of us, dressed in his full gear. “I don’t think I could handle it, to be honest with you two. So can we finish whatever this is”—he uses his finger to move from Jaxon to me—“after practice, when I’ll probably be throwing up in the garbage can?”
Jaxon laughs at him. “Don’t worry about the defense,” he assures him, looking over at me and I get up to start undressing. “We’ll be on the ice when we need to be on the ice.”
“Yeah,” I agree, still trying to catch my bearings and not freak over the fact she left her husband. I can’t help the smile that now fills my face for two reasons. One, it’s good to be back to work, and the second, she finally fucking did it. “What he said.”
thirteen
Lexi
The sound of crying wakes me up and I blink twice before I turn my head to the side, seeing the sun isn’t even up yet. I get up on my elbow and reach over the side table. I press the top of my phone and see that it’s just after four thirty in the morning. Tossing the covers off me, I get out of bed and walk toward the door, turning the handle and slowly pulling it open. The crying gets louder and louder. “I know.” I hear Ariella’s voice in a whisper as she says, “Shhhh shhh shhh.” But the crying just gets louder and louder.
I walk down the hallway toward the nursery, the little night-light illuminating the room in a soft yellow. Ariella is in the middle of the room with Jagger in her arms, one hand under his bum, the other on the back of his head, as she bounces from side to side. Jagger’s crying is getting a touch louder. “Hey,” I say, stepping into the room.
“I’m so sorry we woke you,” Ariella apologizes to me as I step into the room and Jagger rubs his face in the middle of her chest. “He just won’t get comfy.”
“Do you want me to try?” I ask her and hold out my hands to him. “Do you want to come to see Auntie Lexi?” I ask him softly as Jaxon comes into the room.
He’s wearing black boxers and nothing else, a baby bottle in his hand as he rubs sleep out of his eye. “I got a bottle.” He holds it up and then sees me there. He looks at me with one eye closed. “What are you doing here?”
“I heard the crying and thought I would help,” I reply, grabbing Jagger from them and kissing the side of his head. “What’s all this fuss, little man?” I hold out my hand for the bottle and Jaxon gives it to me. “You two go back to sleep and I’ll come and get you if I need you guys.”
Ariella looks at me and then at Jaxon, who reaches forward, grabs her hand, and pulls her out of the room. “You are a godsend,” Jaxon mumbles to me.
“You come and get me if he—” She stops talking because he’s got her out of the room and the door slams shut behind them.
“Listen, little man,” I soothe, putting him on his side as he looks up at me, “don’t make us go through sleep training again.” He whimpers in my arms. “Remember that?” I ask him, walking toward the rocking chair in the corner of the room. “You cried for a full hour,” I remind him as I tease his mouth with the bottle. “Your mother cried the whole time and I thought your father would go bald.” He takes the bottle and starts drinking. “I know you’re in pain, little man.” I move the rocking chair with my foot back and forth. “Teething pain can be the worst.” I put my head back and close my eyes, listening to him gulp down his bottle as if he didn’t have a bottle at midnight when he woke up for the second time. I open my eyes and look down at him, seeing his eyelids close halfway, his chubby fist closed and lying on my chest. I wait for him to finish the bottle, but he falls asleep before the nipple slips out of his mouth.
I put the bottle on the side table before placing his chest on mine, his head resting on my shoulder, as I gently tap his back. “All I need is a burp from you and we can both go to sleep.” I rub his back in a circle before going back to tapping it. It takes him a couple of minutes, between tapping and rubbing, for him to give me a burp before I’m able to stand up and walk him back over to the crib. “Now I’m going to place you down, and you are going to either wake and then drift off or you will just still be sleeping,” I say, placing him gently on his back, trying not to wake him. I slowly disengage from him, stopping mid-movement when he jerks his arms. When my arms are fully out from under him, I look in the crib, seeing him on his back with his hands by the side of his head. “Sleep tight, angel,” I tell him and turn to walk over and turn off the night-light, before turning on the sound machine and tiptoeing out of the room and closing the door halfway behind me.
Making my way back to my bedroom and sliding into the bed, I look out of the window at the darkness. It’s been three months since I left Trent. Three months of being free from him, but at the same time still feeling the pull to him. Guilty for leaving him and then unsure that I did the right thing. He didn’t think I had really left him, but then he came home and saw I was gone.
He blew up my phone, but at that point I was in New York at my parents’ house. I ignored his calls until I finally caved and answered him. “Lexi,” he said with so much anger in his voice, it felt like his whole body was shaking, “what the fuck is going on?”
“I think it’s pretty much self-explanatory, don’t you think?” I sat in the middle of my bed. My legs pulled to my chest, my arms wrapped around them. “I left you, Trent.”
“I want you to get your ass back here right now!” he screamed. “I’m not kidding with you, Lexi. You let those people come into my house!” he roared.
“Those people?” I asked him, knowing he probably checked the Ring cam as soon as I called him. A Ring cam that I wasn’t given the code to because it didn’t matter to me. I shouldn’t bother myself with it. His words, of course, and probably because I would be able to see when he would actually get home, or maybe he was sneaking out more times than I knew about. “You mean my parents.”
“Lexi,” he hissed, “get your ass back home now.”
“Why?” I asked him the question instead of giving in to his demands like I usually did.
“Excuse me?” His tone had gone down.
