“You did? Why?”
“Because I was angry, Jordan.” His eyes flicker with emotion. “All this time, I looked up to him. If Bea needed me, I would move heaven and earth to be there for her.”
“I know you would.” Damn him for being so good. My respect for him grows.
“Did you know he missed Natalie’s funeral because he was bringing me to rehab?”
Like a house of cards, my thoughts collapse, flattening. I blink at Tate.
“That’s a no, I’m guessing. Me neither. I don’t think this changes things, though, Jordan. I could have gone to rehab one day later. Icould have gone a week later and it wouldn’t have made a difference.” He watches me very intently. “I know this is hard to hear, but I want you to know my side of things. I found out Bea was coming, I called Ross for help, and the next morning, he was at my door, telling me to pack my things. But I also think that was a way for him to avoid the funeral.”
I stand there, frozen. Thinking. Processing. Tate’s right—this doesn’t change anything, but I do wonder why my father avoided her funeral. I’ve wondered it a thousand times in the last decade.
“I’m sorry,” he adds.
“You said that already. Twice.”
“Well, I don’t like delivering bad news.” His eyebrows lift. “And I don’t like being wrong about people.”
He studies me like he sees me differently now, but what does he see? A thread of worry makes its way through me, twisting and weaving. There was safety in Tate’s low expectation of me. It kept a nice, healthy chasm between us.
And now? Now, I don’t know.
He searches my eyes. “Why did everyone think you hated hockey, Jordan?”
My thoughts are still flattened and mixed up from his earlier revelation, but I try to put them back together, organize them and stack them neatly.
Hockey meant belonging, and I never belonged.
“Bad memories,” I admit. “That was how I tried to get my dad’s time and attention, growing up.” It’s easier to tell Tate these things I’ve never told anyone, after our argument last night. After I laid it all out on the line.
And even more, I trust him. The way he’s looking at me right now, the same way he looked at me when I cried in the closet, I know he’d never use this against me.
“Going to games,” I continue, “wearing his jersey, watchinggames at home with him even though he was barely paying attention to me.”
And then all the stuff with my master’s, watching the women play and going out to their team events and pouring them free drinks at the bar I worked at on weekends.
“It was easier not to think about it.”
Hockey was a reminder of rejection. He listens, waiting for more.
“But that’s not so easy in a city like Vancouver.” The fans here are obsessed. “And I tried to get rid of those Storm boys.” I shake my head, sadly. Tate smiles and I do, too. “They kept coming back.”
“When they find someone they like, they don’t let go.”
“Or a place,” I add, because it’s not me. It’s the drinks and the private atmosphere of the bar, where they can relax.
“Or,” Tate says, holding my eyes intently, “someone. You should have heard what Miller and Volkov?—”
He cuts himself off with a quick shake of his head.
“What?”
“Nothing.” His eyes go to my half-finished pack of Dunkaroos. “I should let you get back to your snack.”
Something jumps in my chest. I’m not ready for him to leave. I walk to the box on the counter and pull one out before handing it to him.
“For the road.”
