3
SERGIO
"Fuck!" I shout.
Being the hockey coach, I try and keep my profanities until I get home. So I can let loose and I don't have to be the role model. But with the team playing badly, I'm not sure what I am anymore.
How did we lose that last game?
Practice is crap.
The guys aren't in the game. It's all those damn teenage hormones. Some want to be professional and the rest just want to get laid before Prom. Kids don't have the heart that they did before and I'm starting to take after them, because I'm feeling demotivated. Maybe that's the issue and Nacho's right and I just need to get laid.
If only it was that simple. Ever since I heard Jessica's marrying Callum. A guy that's supposed to be my best friend, I've felt sick. Distracted. I couldn't even go to their wedding.
Earlier I put my phone on silent for two reasons, one so I don't hear about the wedding and two, I just don't want to hear about the wedding.
10 missed calls!
Where was the fire?
"What's up?"
I say to Nacho as I pick up his call.
"Man. I was worried about you."
Yeah, I can't hide anything from Nacho. As soon as I told him that I wasn't going to the wedding, he didn't ask why. He just pressed his lips against mine and left. He knows. But then he's the damn sheriff of the town, if he didn't pick up on things including what goes on in our packhouse then he would be in the wrong job.
"I'm fine. Just finished practice." I grab my water bottle and take a long drink. The rink is empty now, the last of my players having shuffled off to the locker room with their heads down. We got destroyed last week. Destroyed. And today's practice didn't give me any confidence that next week will be different. "The kids are playing like they've never seen a puck before."
"That's not why I called."
Something in his voice makes me pause. Nacho doesn't do emotion. He's the steadiest of all of us. The one who can stare down a drunk driver or a domestic dispute without flinching. But right now, there's something underneath his words. Something that sounds almost like... concern.
"What's going on?"
"Have you checked your texts?"
I pull the phone away from my ear and look at the screen. The missed calls are from Nacho, Pedro, and Carlos. But there are also texts. A lot of them.
From Mrs. Whight: Sergio, you need to know. Jessica just drove through Rio Way. In a wedding dress. ALONE.
From Coach Richards at the high school: Negrorio, wasn't that Callum's fiancée who just blew through town looking like she escaped a tornado? What's going on?
From my mother, who lives two streets over and has never met a piece of gossip she didn't want to share: Sergio, whyis that sweet Jessica girl sitting on Dorothy Delacroix's porch in a destroyed wedding dress crying her eyes out? Call me immediately.
My heart stops.
My alpha roars to life, demanding I go to her. Every instinct I have screams at me to drop everything and drive straight to that house. Check on her. Make sure she's safe. Hold her. Tell her everything's going to be okay. The need is so overwhelming I take a step toward the exit before I catch myself.
"Sergio? You still there?"
My hands are shaking. I grip the phone tighter.
Jessica.
Wedding dress.
