With a groan, I grab it and hit the Accept button. “Hey.”
“Jesus, Tate. I just watched the highlights. What the hell happened out there?”
“Bad game.”
“Bad game? You gave up five goals in three periods. That’s not a bad game, that’s a meltdown.”
“Thanks for the pep talk, bro.”
“I’m not trying to pile on. I’m worried about you. Mom and Dad are worried. We all are. And you keep ignoring our messages.”
“I’m fine. I just didn’t want to talk about it.”
“You’re not fine. You haven’t been fine for weeks. What’s going on?”
I want to tell him, to explain that I’m falling apart because I’m in love with someone I can’t have. But I can’t.
“Nothing’s going on.”
“Stop with the bullshit. Something happened that night at the restaurant. You wouldn’t talk to me then, and you’re not talking to me now. I know you, Tate. And I know this isn’t hockey stuff. This is personal stuff affecting your hockey. There’s a difference. I just wish you could trust me enough to talk to me about it before things get too far out of control.”
Before they get too out of control? Jesus, I’m already there.
“I gotta go,” I say.
“Don’t shut me out, Tate. Let me help you,” he says. “We can work through whatever it is, okay? You’re not alone.”
But I am.
“I’ll call you tomorrow.”
I hang up before he can say anything else then turn off my phone.
Lying alone in my hotel room, staring at the wall that separates me from Zane, I realize how completely fucked I am.
My career’s falling apart, my family’s worried, and the one person who might be able to help me is the same person who’s causing all my problems.
I’m twenty-six years old, and I feel like my life is about to come to a screeching stop.
There’s nowhere to turn. I can’t tell my teammates about Zane. I’m too embarrassed to tell my family. Can’t tell anyone about the reasons I’m falling apart.
I’m completely alone.
SIXTEEN
zane
My temples throbas I pace the conference room.
I’ve been sitting here for twenty minutes. The game footage from Seattle is queued up on my laptop, ready to dissect every one of Tate’s fuck-ups in Seattle. Every goal I watched him give up while I stood behind the bench, helpless, knowing it was because he was thinking about me instead of doing his job.
I drop back into my chair and press my knee against the table leg. It throbs as a reminder of everything I have to lose if I can’t keep my shit together. I know what happens when you make choices based on want instead of logic. When you let feelings cloud your judgment.
The door opens, and Tate walks in, shoulders squared and spine stiff. He barely looks at me, making it clear he’d rather be anywhere else. His hair’s still damp from the shower, and there are dark circles under his eyes that suggest he slept about as well as I did last night. Which is to say not at all.
“Close the door,” I say.
He does, then sinks into the chair across from me with a heavy sigh. “Lemme guess. We’re gonna watch me shit the bed for two hours and talk about what I did wrong. How about you just type it up in an email and I’ll read it later?”
