Our teammate considers my words. “I guess. But what happens if you both develop deeper feelings for her and she doesn’t choose you? You both look so calm, but watching your best friend with the woman you like can’t be easy. I think you’re putting your friendship at risk.”
“Tucker and I talked about it.” I explain. “Relationships end every day for all kinds of reasons. This wouldn’t be any different. As long as we’re open and honest with each other, we’re adults and we can take it.”
Tucker nods. “What he just said. We’ve all been upfront about everything from the beginning. Taryn included.”
Rather than placated, Nash looks more perplexed with every word we say. “So you’re in this weird threesome, and you think that adding me to the mix is going to help?”
“When you put it like that,” I chuckle. “I feel stupid.”
Nash’s choice of the word “threesome” puts some surprising pictures in my head. Would I ever be able to share Tarynwith Tucker that way? I shake the crazy idea and focus on the conversation that’s continuing between us.
“The thing is,” Tucker is the serious one for a change. “I feel like this thing with Taryn could be important. That she could even be the one. If that’s the case, I don’t want her to choose me out of some ultimatum. I want her to choose me because I’m the one she wants.”
Who knew that my goofy best friend could be so eloquent?
“I’m with Tucker. And we appreciate Taryn’s honesty about you. She didn’t expect to see you again, but she said she used to like you back in South Carolina.”
Surprise is written all over Nash’s face. “She did? I had this huge crush on her, too. But I was too chickenshit to even talk to her.”
“Really? You don’t strike me as the shy type.” I observe.
“I don’t know, dude.” Nash sighs. “Being on the hockey team made me popular. That meant I never had to work to get female attention. I’m sure you can all relate.”
We all nod.
“So I don’t know. When Taryn didn’t even look at me in class, I thought she wasn’t into me and I didn’t want to be shot down.”
Mack chimes in. “I guess I get that. I never had to talk to girls because I was dating Gen. And now, not to sound like a douche, but these cheerleaders have been throwing themselves at me and it’s fucking awesome. If I liked someone and she didn’t even look my way, I guess I would react the same way Nash did.”
“Yeah, I get it too.” Tucker muses. “Last year I had this huge, hopeless crush on our team captain’s sister. She was nice to me, but I don’t think she even noticed me. I never had a problem finding hookups. But when I realized I really liked Bex, I was too scared to really put myself out there. All I did was make a complete ass of myself.”
Nash looks at us for a long moment. “I like Taryn. And being with her was fucking mind blowing. But I came here for a fresh start. I told myself I was here to focus on hockey and classes, period. And so far, I really like this team. I don’t know if I can put everything on the line for a woman. Especially if she’s involved with two of my teammates. This sounds like a fucking recipe for disaster and I don’t want a repeat of last year.”
That last thing he said, piques our interest.
“What about last year?” Mack is the first to ask. “I thought you were benched because you were injured?”
Nash’s jaw ticks, his eyes avoiding ours. “I wasn’t going to talk about this. Coach Hiddink didn’t bench me because I was injured. He was punishing me because I fucked his wife.”
“Holy shit.” Tucker snickers. “I wasn’t expecting this plot twist.”
“Fuck off.” Nash bites out. “Look, I’m not proud of what happened, and I’m not looking for excuses, but I had no idea. When I saw her in one of the bars on campus, I didn’t know she was my coach’s wife. I didn’t even know that she was married. She had been looking at me, and she was hot. I asked if I could buy her a drink, and we hit it off. I didn’t see a ring, and she never said she was married. We hooked up a couple of times, and when Coach called me into his office, I was completely blindsided.”
That’s rough. “How did he find out?” I ask.
“He got suspicious when she went out by herself late at night, and he looked at her phone. He found a few text messages. Some with photos she had been sending me.”
“Jeez,” Tucker says. “I don’t get it. If you didn’t know, why was he mad at you? He should have been mad at her.”
Nash barks out a bitter laugh. “He didn’t believe me. He married someone almost twenty years younger than him, and I got caught in some fucked up jealousy spat between them.Apparently she cheated because she was mad that he was working too much and not giving her the attention she needed. She knew I was one of his players all along. That’s why she went to a bar on campus. It fucked up everything. I tried to apologize, to explain, but he wouldn’t believe me. And the team stood by him. I had played hockey with those men for two years, and they just iced me out. No one would even talk to me. That’s why I transferred. I couldn’t take that anymore, and not playing was putting my career at risk.”
I feel bad for him. “It sounds to me like you were collateral damage. Your coach took it out on you rather than his wife.”
“I agree with Col,” Tucker says. “Your teammates were assholes to shun you like that.”
Nash shrugs, but it’s obvious the way he was treated by his teammates still stings. “I don’t even blame them too much. They were worried about being benched too if they showed any support for me. But it doesn’t change the fact that I spent a whole year on the bench. I let everyone believe that I was injured because I was worried about what the LA Gladiators would think if the whole story came out. Would they believe me or a coach with twenty years of experience and a stellar reputation? But I needed to play this year, so when I heard that a lot of your star players were graduating or going pro, I decided to come here.”
“It sounds like you were caught between a rock and a hard place.” Tucker commiserates. “And dude, I should be going to the Gladiators too. We’re gonna be teammates.”
