I shut the door of the SUV after I park and pull open the door, heading to the locker room. I give a couple of the guys the chin up and I see one of the rookies look at me with wide eyes, but he doesn’t say anything to me.
I toss my phone on the shelf before walking back out and heading to the kitchen. I don’t want to eat anything, but I’m not stupid enough to get on the ice without fueling my body. I’m sitting down when Kirby and Jaxon both come into the room, Jaxon with a takeout coffee cup in his hand. “You look like shit, man,” he remarks and I nod my head.
“Good,” I say, “feel like shit, so it’s fitting.”
Kirby pulls out the chair across from me and sits down, his eyes on me. “What happened?” he asks me as Jaxon sits in the chair beside him.
“Nothing,” I sigh, my chest feeling like it’s being crushed by a ten-ton weight. They stare at me like they know I’m lying. “I fell in love with her,” I share and Kirby’s face says it all, “and she broke up with me before we were even officially together.”
Kirby’s head falls down and he avoids looking at me. “Wait, Kylie?” Jaxon asks and I nod my head.
“Yup,” I confirm.
“Dude,” he says,” I didn’t know it was that serious.”
“It’s fine.” I hold up my hand. “It’s not fine,” I admit after two seconds, “it’s the opposite of fucking fine. I’m—” I exhale, breathing deeply out of my mouth. “I don’t even know what to say.”
“Do you want me to talk to her?” Kirby asks me and all I can do is shake my head.
“No, she made it pretty clear to me that she’s not interested.”
“Fuck, man,” Jaxon says. “I’m sorry, Knox. I can’t even imagine.”
“You know,” I lean back in my chair, “I walked in on my wife fucking someone else who wasn’t me, and I wasn’t even this devastated.”
I hear Kirby hiss. “I don’t know when it happened or how it happened, but I fucking fell so in love with her that I didn’t even know it was happening.” I shake my head. “And it’s over. Even before it fucking started.”
“Did you tell her how you felt?” Kirby asks me and I again shake my head.
“I’m pretty sure when she said I’m not interested in this or you”—Jaxon looks down, avoiding looking at me—“whatever I have to say isn’t going to change her mind.” I toss my fork down. “So that’s that.” I push away from the table, grabbing my tray and heading over to toss out the food. “I’ll see you guys out there.”
I walk back into the locker room and get ready to head to the ice, where I know I have to shut it out. I’m the first one who knows once you lace up those skates, nothing else matters.
Practice is mind-numbing and when I get off the ice, I avoid talking to anyone. I shower and get the fuck out of there. I get back home and avoid going to my bedroom, instead opting to sit on the couch until I have to go get the kids.
I don’t even have the energy to cook them dinner, instead I order us pizza and we sit watching a movie. Well, they sit watching a movie. I sit contemplating when it changed. When I felt the shift in us. That night I get maybe three hours of sleep, maybe four.
I’m having coffee in the kitchen the next morning as I open my photos and see the pictures we took of the hike. Even though we had no service and no phones were allowed. They allowed us to bring our phones to take pictures. She’s looking straight into the camera, laughing because I said if I saw a cow I would probably eat it raw with how hungry I was. The minute after the picture was taken, she came to me, put her hands on my stomach, over my T-shirt, and kissed my lips. “I would help you,” she whispered to me.
“Daddy,” Nora calls, walking into the kitchen, “you left me alone in your bed.”
“Sorry,” I say, turning and holding out my arms for her. She walks into them, and I pick her up as she sits in my lap and I rub her back, her head on my chest. “What did you want to eat for breakfast?”
“Pancake tacos,” she says and I nod my head.
“Okay.” I kiss the top of her head. “I’ll start that right away.”
The kids must feel my mood, because they are abnormally calm. Westley and Vincent don’t even have one fight over what to watch on television. When Tessa gets here, I walk up the stairs and get dressed. I step in my closet and I see her standing here, wearing just my shirt after I fucked her and she helped me pack. Her hair was all over the place from my hands, and I think that was when I started to fall in love with her.
I get dressed, pushing the memory away, as I slide on my black suit with a white dress shirt. Grabbing a black-and-white tie before sliding my jacket on, I head downstairs. “Okay, I’ll see you guys tonight,” I tell them and they all kiss me goodbye.
I’m on the bike, watching I don’t even know what on television, when Kirby comes up to me. “Hey, man, about tonight.”
I hold up my hand and shake my head. “I don’t want to talk about it. It’ll be fine.”
“Yeah, but?—”
“I’ll be fine on the ice,” I assure him. “It’s fine.”
