“Would you rather never get to spend time with your family again or never play hockey again?”
“Family,” he answers softly without a second thought. “I love them, and I’d miss them, but I can’t give up hockey.”
I look at him curiously. “Why? You’ll have to retire someday anyway.”
Cameron stares at the grass in front of his feet, avoiding my gaze altogether. “Because hockey is all I have.”
“Cameron…”
“It’s true. The only thing good about me is the fact that I play hockey well. Take that away, and I have nothing left.”
“Cameron,” I say again, this time placing my finger under his chin and forcing him to look at me. “Hockey isnotthe only good thing about you. You’re a good person, and people enjoy being around you.”
He lets out a shaky breath. “Because I play hockey. Without that, even the puck bunnies go away. I’m nobody if I don’t have hockey.”
“Your self-worth isnottied to how you perform on the ice. You are so much more than a hockey player. You just have to let yourself actually see that.”
“Nobody sees that,” he says lowly.
“Isee that. I know we started talking to each other because of the team, but I’m not spending time with you now because you play hockey. I’m spending time with you because you’re myfriend, and I genuinely enjoy being with you.”
Cameron rests his clasped hands over his forehead and lies back on the grass. I join him.
“I’m trying to see things like that. I really am. But it’s so fucking hard when my entire life, people have only cared about me because of the sport I play.”
“That’s what you actually think, isn’t it?” I roll on my side to face him. “You’ve said before that you’ll always be considered a fuckboy, and you think that’s because nobody sees you as more than a hockey player down for a good time.”
“You read me like a fucking book,” he breathes before rolling on his side. Now, we’re practically face-to-face. “The only reason anyone has ever wanted me was hockey. There are so many women who want nothing more than to fuck a hockey player, and because I fit the bill, they’d flock to me, Fuckboy Cameron Kovacic, the man who’s only good for sex.”
I gently rest my hand on his arm. “But that’s not what you want, is it?”
Cameron shakes his head. “No, but that doesn’t matter. I let myself indulge when I was younger, and that reputation has followed me ever since. Even when I was indulging, though, I still always wanted more. Sure, I like sex, but I wanted a connection with someone, and I never had that. They’d get their fill of me and be on their way. No one ever wanted to try to get close to me because why would they? I was the hockey player they could fuck, and I gave them what they wanted. I try so fucking hard to shake that reputation, but I can’t. People see me and want one of two things: hockey or sex. No one believes that I actually want something more, somethingdeeper.”
“I do.” He looks at me in surprise, and I give him a soft smile. “You’re telling me right now that’s what you want, and I believe you. I’m sorry anyone ever made you feel like that’s all you’re worth because they couldn’t have been more wrong. You’re worthy of love and companionship if that’s what you want, and you are so much more than a hockey player.”
“Thank you, Z.” He rakes a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry for just throwing all of that at you.”
“Don’t apologize. Never apologize for talking to me when you need it.”
Cameron’s smile is soft and dangerous, one that it would be so easy to lose myself in.
“I’m so glad I’ve gotten to know you, Zhuri.”
“I’m glad I’ve gotten to know you, too, Cameron.”
We lay there in the silence now, listening to the crickets chirping over the distant sounds of cars moving through the city.
Lying here next to him is comfortable. I can’t remember the last time I felt this at peace.
Cameron Kovacic is quickly becoming my favorite person.
twenty-three
Cameron
IthinkImightbe becoming obsessed with Zhuri Hart.
That’s a lie.
