I’m on edge instantly, because he told me weeks ago he can’t talk about her with me, and now he’s talking about her with me. I lean forward, my elbows on my knees, and turn to face him. His eyes are filled with compassion. “She’s done her work thing, but she’s taking some vacation time.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“And you’re not allowed to tell me where.”
Ty shakes his head. “No. I could tell you, if they’d told me. But Maddie said she wouldn’t tell me because I already told them I didn’t like keeping things from you. So now we’re both out of the loop.”
I turn away from him and hold my head with my hands. “She’s not coming back, is she? Ever.”
“No, man, I think she is,” Ty says quietly, and puts his hand on my shoulder. “I think she’s really just taking some time. She didn’t tell Maddie to look for a new roommate or anything. She’s still paying her rent.”
I nod stiffly. The “injury” just feels like it got a whole hell of a lot worse. How is that even possible? Fucking aching chest. Ty stands up. “I’m gonna take a piss before we board.”
I just nod again and watch him go. I pull my phone out and pull up that picture of her again. I open Instagram and load the photo of Stephanie. I’ve left her voice mails and sent her texts since she left, but there’s been no response, so I’m resorting to public declarations. I’m that desperate. I know this might create more hell than I’m currently in, but it also might be the only way to reach her. If there’s even the slightest chance this makes her contact me, it’ll be worth sparking the ashes of the media drama. Under the photo I write,Missing this face more than ever.
Alex walks over, always the last one to arrive. We’ve even had to hold planes for his lazy ass before. He smiles down at me. “Hey, Captain. Ready to go home and grab this play-off spot?”
“Yeah.” I stand up and once at eye level I notice the giant hickey on his neck. “Dude. Really? Did you spend last night in a dark corner at a high school formal?”
He reaches up and touches his neck. “If you think that’s bad, wait till you see the scratches on my back and bite mark on my shoulder. I’m still not sure if I fucked a woman or some kind of escaped zoo animal. Either way, best sex of my life.”
He’s grinning, and I try to give him a smile back, but it’s hardly jovial. We walk toward the boarding door. “You could always move on and find someone to mark you up, you know?”
“Yeah. I know.”
I do know. I just don’t want to move on. Even if she does.
The flight is quick and painless. I listen to music and keep hitting refresh on my Instagram since we have Wi-Fi on the flight. By the time we land, the picture of Stephanie has more than two thousand likes. There’s a bunch of comments too—about fifty—and I read every one. Only about four are super catty and mean. I delete all of them. It might not be social media etiquette, but fuck the haters.
The day goes by painfully slowly. I can’t sleep during my pregame nap and the place I always ordered my pregame chicken parm from has gone out of business. I can’t find another place that delivers at four in the afternoon, so both rituals are blown to shit. I’m feeling agitated and out of sorts as we walk through the bowels of the arena to the visitors’ room.
Alex runs up beside me just as we enter the locker room. “I saw Sebastian. He’s pissed.”
“About what?”
“About you breaking his sister’s heart,” Alex replies, and when I glance over at him he’s got the most serious expression on his face I have ever seen.
“So he should tell me where she is so I can fix it,” I reply, walking into the room and over to my spot. I start yanking at my tie roughly.
“Stay away from him tonight. Seriously,” Alex advises.
But of course I don’t stay away from him, even though I can tell by the way Deveau glares at me from across the ice during warm-up that Alex really wasn’t exaggerating. Sebastian’s icy blue eyes are fiery, and his lip is curled as he glares at me. He wants to kill me. In a fucked-up way, that’s a good thing. It means Stephanie isn’t over me. It also means he knows that for a fact, which means he’s talked to her, which means he knows where she is.
Deveau is a defenseman and I’m a forward—a center—so he’s nowhere near me as we line up at center ice and the referee drops the puck. I win the face-off and get the puck cleanly back to Alex, who starts up the ice with it. I straighten, ready to follow, when all of a sudden I’m on my back staring up at the ass end of the Jumbotron above. White-hot pain on the left side of my jaw licks up the side of my face and down my neck. I don’t hear anything for a second—it’s complete silence, like I’m in a vacuum, while I fight to hold on to consciousness. And then I hear everything. Fans hollering, whistling squealing, players yelling.
I don’t, however, realize he’s on top of me until he leans forward and his face cuts off my blurry view of the Jumbotron and lights above. His skin is completely red, like he’s been skating half the game already, but it’s not from exertion; it’s from rage. He leans over me, his gloves gone and his fists curled into the front of my jersey, and his voice rumbles out of him like thunder. “Come on, Westwood. Fight back.”
He gives me a shake. I see a ref put his hand on Seb’s shoulder, but he violently shakes it off. “Come on. Hit me. Fight back!”
“No.”
“Fucking. Hit. Me.”
“No.”
The ref’s hands are joined by the hands of the linesmen as they finally rip him off me and I struggle to sit up. Alex and Ty are in his face, being pushed back by the ref as they yell obscenities at Sebastian, who is being hauled off the ice. A Saints trainer appears next to me. “Take it easy. You may have a concussion.”
