And after days away, trying my best at this coaching thing, I think I could use a hit of her warm and calming presence. Funny, since when I was playing pro, after an away game, all I wanted to do was be alone.
I thought about stopping by her apartment with dinner, but since she hasn’t responded, I’m not going to be the dick that shows up unannounced.
So I decided on getting some takeout for myself. Get a workout in with the bag.
I’m long overdue exhausting myself until I can get a solid five hours of sleep anyway, especially since it seems I won’t be seeing Maisie to get in my other favorite form of exercise. It feels like it’s been days since I’ve slept. Especially after being on the road, traveling with the team.
I pull open the door to Jack’s Pizza and step inside. It’s been over a decade since I’ve been in here, back when I was a student at OU, and it looks exactly the same.
The same vintage checkered floor, red leather booths that are peeling and cracked in more places than not, the same neon sign on the wall that’s been there since it opened in 1950. New awards line the walls that weren’t there when I attended OU, but there are a few familiar ones remaining.
My gaze catches on the framed front-page article that ran in the newspaper after we won the Frozen Four my sophomore year. I’m in the middle, surrounded by my teammates celebrating, holding a trophy we fought our asses off for.
I’m struck with a strange feeling of nostalgia and pride.
Sometimes those days feel like yesterday, and then times like this, it feels like they were a lifetime ago.
I hear her before I see her.
The soft, familiar sound of laughter that I would recognize anywhere.
My gaze sweeps around the packed restaurant, barely registering the sea of students filling nearly every seat, in search of the source.
I find her tucked into a booth at the back of the building with her friends. Her cheeks are flushed pink from laughter, her eyes shining with happiness.
My skin prickles beneath the surface, a rush of hot, fiery jealousy running through me when I notice who’s beside her.
Fucking Bennett Legros has his arm slung casually over the back of the booth behind her, his eyes glued on Maisie.
Looking far too fucking comfortable.
But as badly as I want to rip his arms off and beat him with them for getting so close to her, it pales in comparison to the way my heart stumbles in my chest at how… happy she looks.
Her entire face is lit up, her smile warm and bright, her demeanor unguarded like she’s completely at ease, giggling at whatever the redheaded girl who I recognize as her best friend, Lennon, is saying.
Maisie tosses her head back, and the sweetest fucking sound imaginable vibrates out of her again. Laughter that I can feel even from across the restaurant that’s packed with people.
I watch as she joins in on the conversation, animatedly adding to whatever story they’re telling, when a heart-stoppingrealization slams into me, the weight of it nearly knocking me over.
I’m not just a jealous asshole because of how Legros is around her. It’s not just the touching, the flirting, how fucking comfortable he is around her.
It’s not entirely that anymore.
No. It’s the fact that I’ll never get to have Maisie this way.
Until this moment, watching her laughing with her friends, eating dinner together on campus, I didn’t know that was something I wanted. How much I want to be sitting in that booth with her, not just sneaking around.
But that shit can’t happen. How could it?
She’s a fucking student, and I’m a coach at the college she attends.
She’s thirteen years younger than I am.
She’s got her whole damn life ahead of her, figuring out who she is, experiencing everything the world has to offer outside of this shit city that sucks the life out of you.
I’m leaving when my contract is up. The second my obligation here is done, I’m on a plane out of here, and I’m not looking back.
New Orleans is temporary, a necessary stop to get back to where I’m supposed to be. It always has been.
