“Stephanie. It’s me.”
I gasp. Because it can’t be. But when I push onto my tiptoes and look through the small glass window in the top of my heavy wood door, there he is. Well there’s his sweat-stained Saints baseball cap. He tips his head for a second and I glimpse those coffee-colored eyes and full mouth.
Holy fuck.
I take a deep breath trying to calm myself. There’s nothing about this that’s good, I remind my fluttering heart as I open the door. He’s slouched over, but as soon as his eyes land on mine, he pulls himself up to almost his full height. I guess the pain of defeat makes it impossible to get the slump out of his broad shoulders entirely. I can’t fault him that.
I fight to hold his gaze. It’s hard because it’s so angry—and desperate. I’ve never seen him look like this. Like an animal caught in a trap. And because I’m still so completely in love with him it hurts to look at him. He’s not mine anymore.
“Can I come in?”
“What are you even doing here?” I ask without letting him inside. “You’re supposed to be on your way back to California.”
“I’m flying home commercial. Tomorrow,” he replies, and takes a breath. “Can I come in?”
“Why?”
“Because.”
“You say that a lot, huh?” I snap, and the anger darkens his already deep brown eyes.
“You watched the highlights,” he confirms, his voice deep and somber.
He’s wearing a pair of training pants and a Saints hoodie. It’s pulled tight across his thick and wide chest. His hair is curling around that gross sweat-stained hat. The whole team probably didn’t bother with suits after the game. They probably just boarded the bus and got the fuck out of there. And he came straight here. To me.
“You mean the lowlights?” I counter harshly. “Yes. And I watched that pathetic excuse for a fight too.”
“He sucker punched me,” Avery counters hotly. His jaw flexes. “Let me in, Stephanie.”
It’s not a question. He doesn’t ask anyone for anything. He tells them. He’s always got to be in charge. No one ever denies that. I tighten my grip on the door in my hand. The old bossy Avery is back. I didn’t miss him. Much.
I move to shut the door in his face, but he steps right into it. His flat palm makes a loud smacking sound against the wood, and then he’s pushing. Hard. I lose my grip on the door and it flings open. He steps over the threshold and right up into me.
Without an ounce of hesitation or decorum, he grabs my face roughly in his big hands and forces his mouth over mine. His hat falls off as I pound his shoulder with my small fist and wedge my other hand in between us and try to pry us apart. It’s like a sparrow tangling with an eagle.
His tongue sweeps right into my mouth and I think briefly about biting down on it, but it feels so damn good. I grab the fabric of the hoodie that covers his chest and ball it up in my hand. He starts walking backward, pushing me back into the living room. The side of the archway clips my shoulder but he keeps pushing. When my legs hit the back of the sofa and I feel myself losing my balance, and my sanity. I shove him harder and this time he takes a step away.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I scream.
“I’m showing you I still care the only way left to show you,” he says, his voice strained and loud. “I’ve tried calling, texting, I’ve done interviews, I’ve used social fucking media and so now I’m physically showing you.”
I storm past him, back into the hall to the open door. He turns to keep his eyes on me but doesn’t move to follow. He may be stunned and angry, but he’s still not going anywhere. I reach out and wrap my hand around the door again. “I told you, I’m no one’s dirty little secret. You don’t get to come in here like a petulant child and just claim me like a consolidation ribbon after you fail at hockey.”
His body is rigid. I’ve watched his shoulders get closer and closer to his earlobes the longer I rant. But I don’t care. I’m not in his life to blow smoke up his ass like everyone else. I’m actually not in his life at all anymore. Even when I was in his life I didn’t worry about pissing him off and losing him like everyone else. Maybe I should have.
“Because he doesn’t like me,” I mimic in what I know is a voice that makes him sound like the cartoon version of a sniveling child. “Because I did something he didn’t like.”
“He doesn’t like me,” he replies his jaw clenched. “I don’t like me either since you left. Since I made you leave.”
I try to take a breath, but it’s ragged, like the air is catching on thorns in my throat. “You’re just emotional over the end of your season.”
“I did everything I could for this fucking team.” His voice is low and deep and shaky with rage.
“Yeah. You did. So let it go,” I reply tersely. I run a hand through my hair, which I had had up in a bun most of the day but was now around my face in messy blond waves. “They lost in spite of you, Avery. Not because of you.”
He doesn’t answer. He walks toward me, his shoulders slumped in defeat again. This time he stops a polite distance from me and keeps his hands to himself.
“I just can’t handle the fucking pressure. I can’t carry this team, and I can’t keep giving perfect answers to the fucking press. I play for the Saints but I can’t be one. I don’t want to be one,” he admits, and I know it’s nothing he’s ever said to anyone else and nothing that he ever will.
