I sat there, looking at his empty wake, not knowing what to do and wishing I could erase the last half hour of my life.
I heard his truck roar to life, and then he peeled away.
He lovedme?
All this time?
No. That couldn’t be true.
He was blurring the lines between friendship love and actual love. His love for me was born out of grief for his best friend.
As much as I did love Griff…
Did I lovelovehim?
Was I even allowed to love him?
No… right?
I sat down, feeling more confused than I ever had in my entire life.
56. Griff - April
“You’re snakebitten.”
I turned from where I was leaning on the boards to look at Coach.
“What?”
“Snakebitten. Can’t score for shit, son. How many times does Callahan have to feed you the puck before you put one in the net?” He crossed his arms over his chest and kept his eyes on the ice.
I didn’t know how to respond to that.
It was true.
Duke was still scoring it up… but I was missing the net completely. This whole road-trip week was going horrible for me. I played shitty in both Florida games we played. We still had one more roadie game here in Ohio tonight… and I knew I was skating on thin ice.
“You don’t know what snakebitten is, do ya, son?” He trained his gray eyes on me.
“No, sir. Haven’t heard that term before,” I said before taking a swig of water.
“It means you musta messed up your personal life and now it’s carrying over to the ice. You’re not gonna score til you fix whatever’s throwin’ you off… Why didn’t Blondie come on thetrip?”
I struggled not to spit out the water in my mouth at that. How the hell did he know? She really should’ve been here… These roadie games were considered the team’s only “family trip”— which meant a couple family members per player were allowed on the plane and got VIP seats at the games.
Problem was— it didn’t seem like Savannah wanted to be trapped on a plane with me… We hadn’t spoken since I stormed out of her place about a couple weeks ago. What made things worse was that Duke was giving me a cold shoulder too, so I couldn’t even ask him how she was doing. I was pretty sure he didn’t know what really happened between the two of us, or else I doubted he would’ve blamed me… And what was I even supposed to tell him? Like sorry, dude, I have been in love with your sister for almost a decade and I finally told her, but she just got upset and disregarded my feelings?
I was wrong about being able to stay the way we were and just hope to naturally progress things between us. I had to say something… because it was like we were both stuck on the edge of paradise, but not allowed in. We both wanted the same things… but she wouldn’t even fricken let herself look at me for more than two seconds.
For the past two weeks, I’d been waiting for her call… but nothing. Poof. It was like I didn’t matter at all. So how was I even supposed to face her now?
“Tonight’s your last chance, so don’t flub it up,” Coach barked at me.
“Last chance?” I snapped my neck to meet his eyes.
“You’re in danger of being traded back down to Toledo, son. I need the Benny Griffiths from a couple weeks ago to show up tonight.”
Well, fuck.
